Does the Bomb Make the World Safe for War?

The Geek has spent his entire life under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. So have most Americans, including the Commander Guy. Even the man behind the Oval Office, Vice President Cheney, has spent the majority of his life under that same shadow.

We've lived with our "good" bomb from 1945 to 1949. We've lived with the "bad" Soviet (oops,) Russian bomb since '49. Subsequently, we've lived with the British bomb, the Chinese bomb, the French bomb, the Israeli bomb, the Indian bomb and the Pakistani bomb. For a short period, we lived with the now dead South African bomb.

Along the way, our "good" bomb and the Soviet "bad" one almost passed one another flying over the North Pole. That was during the Cuban Missile Crisis when both Washington and Moscow played a totally unnecessary and remarkably irrational game of brinkmanship.

Most of the time, We the People have been able to get along with our lives without a thought about the thousands of nuclear weapons sitting, polished and ready for delivery in silos, on submarines, slung in the bellies of alert status bombers, or ranked in the neat rows of Special Weapons bunkers. The weapons slept, disturbed only for maintenance and periodic refurbishing in the US, in the Soviet Union, and later its successor states, as well as the other nuclear powers.

Meanwhile, in the world of rivalries and conflicts, the world of coups, insurgencies and interventions, war went on undisturbed by the nuclear arms lying under the ground and beneath the ocean. In a very real sense, the nuclear umbrella protected the world. Made the world safe for war.

The Geek can hear the sharp intake of disbelieving breath between clenched teeth. Made the world safe for war! The Geek has gotta be off his meds.

No. The Geek hasn't lost it. Not yet anyway.

Get a grip on this. Since the Russians detonated their first bomb, craftily codenamed by the gents in Washington as JOE-1, the world has seen a splendid number and variety of wars. There was the Korean War. There was the French Indochina War, in which Paris wanted us to use our bomb on their behalf, but Ike declined. Of course that one was followed by the US intervention in the Vietnamese War.

In the Mideast, the 1956 Suez War was followed by the Six Day War, which begot the Yom Kippur War, which gave rise to the Lebanon Incursion, the Intifada (I), the Intifada (II). Who can forget the Iran-Iraq War? Or the First Persian Gulf War aka the War of Kuwaiti Liberation?.

Africa became one large arena of wars. Wars of national liberation. Other insurgencies. Proxy conflicts. Wars small and smaller, bloody and bloodier. Wars with genocidal overtones. Genocide with the fragrance of war.

To a lesser extent, South America and even staid old Europe have seen the same phenomena. Defensive insurgencies in the ruins of Yugoslavia. Ditto in portions of Russia and other of the old Soviet states. In South America, groups such as FARC in Columbia or Shining Path in Peru have piled up bodies in surprising numbers over the years. Coups and counter-coups have abounded, including some with the fingerprints of Uncle Sam all over the body of the former government.

While we're at it, the wars between India and Pakistan should not be forgotten. Neither should the brief invasion of India by China over forty years ago be ignored.

War upon war after war, all under the beneficent umbrella of the mushroom cloud. Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?

There's a lesson in all of this. A very clear lesson. Get a grip on it.

It is both possible and necessary to decouple war from a potential nuclear dimension. In short, wars must be kept limited in scope and scale to preclude the potential for either vertical or horizontal escalation across the nuclear threshold.

Since governments by and large hold one value in common--survival--the lesson of keeping war decoupled from nuclear escalation has been learned by all.

(There has been one possible exception. During the Yom Kippur War, the Government of Israel (GOI) reputedly considered using their newly acquired, small nuclear arsenal in the so called Samson Option. Whether GOI was serious or not is open to question. There is little doubt that the existence of the option and its potential global effects factored into the decision by the US to airlift critical materials to Israel and provide the intelligence which allowed the Israelis to redeploy their assets at the last possible moment to blunt the successful Syrian attack through the Golan Heights.)

With that exception, the nuclear powers have cheerfully engaged in rivalry, proxy conflict, and insurgent warfare. Nuclear weapons are too anti-existential to be allowed free entrance into something so inherently risky as war.

Considering the relevance and universality of that lesson, what is the big hoo-hoo about Iran gaining a nuclear capability in the next five to ten years? Is it worth the US taking on another invasion before it has even begun to clean up the mess it made of the last two?

Should the Iranians gain some sort of nuclear capacity, two realities obtain. The first is that the Iranian nuclear arsenal will be quite small and difficult to deliver. It takes time to manufacture enough fissionable materials for a bomb, either the gun type or the more efficient implosion variety. Beyond that, it takes time, even years, to fully and effectively weaponize the device. (Recall that the first US bombs weighed over five tons and required a specially modified B-29 heavy bomber to deliver.) In the meantime Iran would have to rely upon--to quote Charles Degaulle--"the post office to deliver it."

The second reality is that Tehran would be governed by the same rule as all other nuclear club members. To use the bomb is to risk having it used against you. The bomb is just as anti-existential for Iran as for the US or Russia, or China, or any other country.

The best diplomatic advice any nuclear weapon possessing country could give to the mullahocracy is simple: Pray for peace. Tehran is not the best loved or most ally rich capitol in the world. The mullahocracy and its odious mechanisms, including the Revolutionary Guard Corps, is in a rather bad odor almost everywhere.

Imagine this word being passed to the mullahs by any and every representative of a nuclear country. "If a bomb goes off anywhere, you are suspect number one. A lot of fingers will be twitching over a bunch of buttons. It will be a race to see who gets to obliterate you first. The late comers will have to be satisfied with making the rubble glow a little greener."

The Geek realizes that the hypothetical message is cold. It implies a horrendous number of dead human beings. It implies a much larger number of hurt humans as a consequence of even a limited nuclear employment against Iran.

He makes no apologies. The rule of membership in the nuclear club as shown by history is cold and clear. To use the bomb is to run a high risk of obliteration. Subtlety may be lost on the mullahs. There is no need to be subtle. Use the lesson of sixty plus years under the mushroom cloud. Tell them the way reality is. It may take some of the fun out of daring the world.

It sure as hell is a lot safer and less risky than waging a pre-emptive war.