DO WE REALLY NEED TO WORRY ABOUT WMDS? What is a “weapon of mass destruction”?

1. DO WE REALLY NEED TO WORRY ABOUT WMDS? What is a “weapon of mass destruction”? Why are they “different”? Is the classification WMD an example of hegemony? Why do some states get to have them? Some key terms: Deployed vs. actual warheads, ICBM’s, MIRVs, sub-launched, NPT, ABM, megatons: *Hiroshima bomb: equiv of 12.5 kilotons of TNT killed approximately a quarter of a million people; *US – USSR 1960s: 77,000 deployed bombs with a maximum load of 25 megatons

2. DO WE REALLY NEED TO WORRY ABOUT WMDS? Why do states want them? The push of history, the ethics of sovereignty, and intl prestige: Yeah, morally I’m not supposed to develop WMDS, but the intl system says you have a right to protect your state’s soverignty, and all of the great powers get to keep their WMDs as the ultimate form of protection; no wonder every society gets excited the first time they demonstrate their nuclear ability. North Korea was pushed around like crazy until they developed nuclear weapons; Iraq and Libya didn’t have them and were invaded. It’s hard not to draw the obvious conclusion if you want to exercise tyranny with impunity and not worry about international intervention. Security dilemmas and offense vs. defensive issues: While I see my WMDs as necessary for protection, you see them as a threat and want your own… And, of course, I’m a lot more aggressive with my conventional weapons knowing that I have WMDs to back me up. Verification issues: Even if I want to get rid of all of the WMDs, I’m not sure that I’ll ever know if you have truly gotten rid of yours The tipping point: I’m willing to stand in line (develop but not actually build a bomb), but as soon as many folks start to crowd to the front (build WMDs), I’m jumping in too. While I’d like a world without nukes, I’m most afraid of a world where I don’t have them and all of my neighbors do.

3. HOW CAN WE LIMIT WMDS? Macro strategies to limit: Deterrence (we’ll punish you if you develop them), Reciprocity (we won’t develop them if you don’t and we’ll give you access to markets and other benefits), Identity (cool states don’t have WMDS) Tactics used to limit proliferation: Numerical restrictions (SALT treaties) on the big countries Categorical restrictions (bans on land mines, cluster bombs, and until recently anti-ballistic missiles) Development & testing restrictions (NPT and anti test treaties) Geographic restrictions (Latin America = no nuke zone) Transfer restrictions (Intl laws stop the sharing of fissile materials and technology for nukes and missiles)?

4. CAN INTL. REGIMES SAVE US FROM WMDS? How have we historically worked together to protect the world from WMDs? A mixture of treaties and norms [e.g.: Chemical weapons use bans, nuclear deterrence & parity (MAD), and the ABM Treaty (1972)] How do we stop WMDs now? (1) The Non-proliferation Treaty (1968/1995?2001) & the IAEA to verify compliance, (2) the Missile Technology Control Regime (1995), and the (3) CTBT (1996, 146 states have signed it, but not us), and various bilateral agreements bw the US and Russia to dramatically reduce the arms stocks of the two countries that collectively have made about 90% of all WMDs. Now that the US has dropped out of the ABM treaty, which stopped anti-ballistic missiles, what are our options for stopping other countries from developing lots and lots of nukes (they’ll need more now for the same level of protection)?