George W. Bush went out of his way to praise America’s allies in his speech marking the six-month anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In a clear effort to massage the sensibilities of nations worried about escalating US unilateralism, he spoke of “the power and vitality of our coalition” against Al Qaeda and singled out for praise nations from Denmark to Uzbekistan.
But the international concerns about US intentions persist, and with good reason. Before Bush made his speech stroking the Afghanistan allies, from the Pentagon leaked previously confidential portions of the Nuclear Posture Review, calling for more flexible nuclear weapons, arguing for a resumption of weapons testing and exploring “contingencies” that could require nuclear attack on Russia, China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iraq or Iran.
Arguments for the tactical use of nuclear weapons are not new. But the endorsement of that strategy at the highest levels of the Administration marks a dramatic departure, a direct threat of first-use nuclear strikes against nonnuclear states. The review envisions nuclear weapons not as unthinkable engines of holocaust–their very use a crime against humanity–but as the next logical battlefield step from bunker-busters and daisy-cutters. Yet there is no such thing as a logical use of a nuclear weapon. On page 7 Jonathan Schell writes that just as New York was dealing with a false nuclear bomb scare, the “government was moving to relegitimize the use of nuclear weapons in general and throwing down the nuclear gauntlet to the Middle East in particular–the very part of the world from which New York and Washington and other cities most fear attack.”
This unprecedented waving of the nuclear stick against nonnuclear foes (unprecedented, anyway, since Richard Nixon threatened to drop the bomb on Hanoi and was dissuaded by Henry Kissinger, a moment captured on newly released tapes) is even more worrisome because despite Bush’s reassuring language, his speech outlined the “second stage” of the war on terrorism. This phase envisions a significant shift from the international police action aimed primarily at Al Qaeda. Bush, who has already dispatched advisers to Georgia, Yemen and the Philippines, said the United States “encourages and expects governments everywhere to help remove the terrorist parasites that threaten their own countries and the peace of the world” and offered troops and assistance. The suggestion to coalition partners: Support future American action against Iraq, and we’ll actively support you against whatever militants harbor, in Bush’s words, “differences and grievances” with your government. He also raised the possibility of pre-emptive strikes against nations deemed to be developing weapons of mass destruction–now, presumably, with nuclear weapons.
Rather than legitimizing nuclear warfare, the United States should be leading a global campaign to shun nuclear weapons as genocidal and promoting effective international agreements to halt nuclear proliferation and the development of other weapons of mass destruction.
Bush’s speech stakes out a massive expansion of American military options. Where the nuclear policy review and the war on terror come together is an expanding pursuit of American military and political supremacy as an end in itself.
