Han Dongping

No nuclear security until every country is secure

By Han Dongping ( chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-04-20 14:25

President Obama has presided over the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, with 47 nations present recently. During the summit, President Obama sounded the alarm of nuclear attacks from some terrorist organizations which, according to him, have been seeking to acquire nuclear capabilities.

Our world is no doubt becoming an increasingly dangerous place, with more nations aspiring to have nuclear bombs and more non-state actors also trying to challenge the existing world order. Yes, the world is facing a big crisis involving terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

But for the sake of argument, the crisis we are facing today is also providing us a good opportunity to reflect on our human history, our human behaviors in the past, and to have a dialogue about the potentials to build a better world. In this time of crisis, we need leadership and new thinking about our security, peace and our common future.

It really does not matter how many security measures we take to secure the nuclear materials and how many nations cooperate with one another. We will never be secure unless everybody else is also secure in this world. The way out of our current crisis with terrorism and nuclear proliferation is not more military spending and not more sanctions against the so-called violators of nonproliferation treaties. As far as I can see, in order to get rid of the nuclear threat to this world, we need to stop using nuclear weapons to threat anybody, including the violators of non-proliferation treaty as the first step.

President Obama has recently revised US nuclear policy, in which the US pledged that it would not use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear armed nations in the world except the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Iran. Comparing with Bush's doctrine of preemptive strike, this new policy is apparently a progress.

However, a still better policy would be to extend our pledge of nuclear nonaggression even to Iran and DPRK. If we care about human rights and human lives, we should not distinguish between whether it is a Korean life or an Iranian life. All human life should be equally valuable. Also it should not be such a hard thing to do, since China has already adopted that policy as soon as it acquired the nuclear capability. China has made it clear in 1964 that it would never be the first to use its nuclear weapons against anybody, nuclear armed or not.

One of the goals of the summit is to get other countries, particularly China, to support the US sponsored sanctions against Iran. Sanctions have been a tool that the powerful use against the weak nations in this world. The powerful use the sanctions to impose their wills on the weak by inflicting sufferings on the people of the weak nations. The people who suffer the most as a result of sanctions are often the ordinary and poor.

Sanctions can seldom change the behaviors of the national leaders. Giving in under outside pressure is a clear sign of weakness, and no national leaders want to show the sign of weakness in front of their people. That is why I advised the Chinese government not to support more sanctions against Iran. I also want to advise President Obama to use some new thinking in dealing with Iran's nuclear program. US attempts to threaten Iran have not worked in the past, and will probably not work now.

How about trying something different for a change, negotiating with them, on a more equally footing? Please show and convince the Iranian leaders and Iranian people that the US government does not harbor any intention of aggression against the Iranian government and Iranian People. As a noble peace prize winner, I hope that President Obama will live up to the honor of it.

The possibility of "terrorists" using nuclear weapons as a means to hurt the US and other nations is also a topic President Obama talked at the nuclear summit. "Terrorists" are very special groups of people, and they are often willing to die to make a point. The US government's response to terrorists has been war and no negotiations. The world media often make the "terrorists" look like a group of ruthless and evil people, willing to kill innocent people to get their point across.

In dealing with the terrorists, the conventional warfare has not done much good so far. The US efforts in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and elsewhere seem to feed more terrorists' responses and reactions. In fighting the terrorists we have already paid a very high price: both in terms of human lives and money. We need to reflect and rethink our strategies to deal with the terrorists.

The world needs to learn as much as possible about the crisis of terrorism in order to deal with it effectively. We need to know what drive these people to resort to targeting innocent people as a means to achieve their goal. The world does not have to agree or accept their demands, but it is important for the world to know their demands. Talking to them is a better way to solve the difference than fighting a war to terminate them. The powerful US military can kill many of them. But they have also been able to inflict huge casualties on the US and other nations as well.

If we care about human lives, we should not refrain from talking with terrorists in an effort to make the world a more peaceful place. If we care about our environment, we should ban all aggressive warfare because wars cause huge environmental damages.

Dongping Han is Professor of History and Political Science at Warren Wilson College, NC. The opinions expressed are his own.