Bruce Larkin - Designing Denuclearization: An Interpretive Encyclopedia

First published 2008 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 2008 by Taylor & Francis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2008011663

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Larkin, Bruce D., 1936-

Designing denuclearization : an interpretive encyclopedia /

Bruce D. Larkin.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4128-0762-3 (alk. paper)

1. Nuclear disarmamentEncyclopedias. 2. Nuclear nonproliferation

Encyclopedias. 3. International organizationEncyclopedias.

I. Title.

JZ5665.L37 2008

327.174703dc22

2008011663

ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-0762-3 (hbk)

I call this An Interpretive Encyclopedia because it scans the broad field of subjects on which, in my judgment, weapon denuclearization will depend. It is interpretive in that it incorporates my commentaries, never hiding my own reasons and conclusions. It is neither just the facts nor all the facts. It has extensive Notes to help the reader go to texts and secondary studies, some of which make out arguments quite at odds with my own. It can be both a reminderof past efforts, continuing argumentsand a guide to study. My Shorter Oxford offers as its first meaning of encyclopedia a general course of instruction. In the sense that all of us who pursue a problem systematically and with seriousness of purpose are committed to self-instruction, this work is intended to suggest questions and approaches to this paramount problem in international public policy. In another sense it is a conversation with the Reader.

What is needed to abolish nuclear weapons? We require, first, some understanding of our current predicament. I am convinced of three compelling observations: (1) as long as nuclear weapons are stockpiled and deployed there is risk of their use, which would be catastrophic; (2) abolition is inconceivable in the absence of a developed and articulated alternative to the nuclear status quo ; and (3) the politics of abolitionbringing the governments of the nuclear weapon states to believe that abolition is in their interestis the sine qua non of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.

The books aim is not to paint the dismal canvas of nuclear death and destruction, for every representation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki makes that clear. Readers may be puzzled by my decision to sidestep the question should nuclear weapons be abolished? and instead begin with the counterfactual assumption that weapon denuclearization has been agreed. I take this move to meet a second requirement: that we get past the blocking insistence that nuclear weapons are forever, or at least a very long time. This is my deliberate choice, and not because I think the abolition issue is pass . On the contrary, it is a central issue; it could be more widely canvassed; it should be part of a vigorous, ongoing debate; but the debate is cut short by the failure of advocates of abolition to show that there are any safe alternatives to continued reliance on nuclear weapons. In turn, it has proven easy for the governments of the nuclear weapon states systematically to exclude abolition from the repertoire of serious policy possibilities. To have a proper policy debate on abolition we must have answers to the questions how? and what then?

So I have an ambitious purpose, to show that nuclear abolition can be placed on the public agenda. Putting how? and what then? more formally: Assume weapon denuclearization had been agreed. How could it be carried out? And how could security be sustained in a post-nuclear world?

I have written this for all those, whether practitioners or citizens, who could contribute to designing, and bringing about, denuclearization. I doubt abolition could be achieved by political elites if there were not broad concurrent public support. Still, it is governing parties, career policy officials, and legislators who have chosen to assume responsibility for the public agenda. They may be askedmust be askedwhat they will do.