Robust deterrence policies necessary to avoid nuke war

pose a real threat to the whole international system.
Those who possess them are not willing to get rid of them and neither are they in a position to do so in the near future.
The African continent has agreed under the treaty of Pelindaba not to conduct research on, develop, manufacture, stockpile or otherwise acquire, possess, or have control over any nuclear explosive device by any means anywhere.
This has seen the continent becoming a nuclear weapon free zone. The African countries are required to dismantle and destroy any nuclear explosive device that they have manufactured prior to the coming into force of the treaty; destroy facilities for the manufacture of nuclear explosive devices or, where possible, to convert them to peaceful uses.
South Africa used to have a viable nuclear programme during the apartheid era which was questionably dismantled before its independence in 1993. The bomb could not be trusted to be in the hands of an African government.
What is quite interesting here is that African people are expected to believe that in the event of a nuclear state attacking a nuclear free zone the other nuclear states will intervene against the aggressor. Can such guarantees be trusted? Hans Morgenthau warned us many years ago that there is nothing like collective interest in the international system.
All states pursue their own selfish interests not those of their neighbours or friends. Most states do not find the security assurances provided by the nuclear states as an adequate basis for their protection and neither does the DPRK.
The Americans have on several occasions threatened the North Koreans that all options are on the table referring to the use of nuclear weapons.
It should be noted that all states in the international system co-exist in a condition of anarchy. Self-help is the rule in an anarchic order, and the most important way in which states must help themselves is by providing their own security.
During the 1940s security strategists began asking whether the pledge to defend Europe with nuclear weapons was credible.
Nationalists such as Charles de Gaulle, the former President of France, doubted whether a state could rely upon an outside power for its defence.
The main reason for Britain to maintain a nuclear force arose from the doubts that the United States of America could be counted on to retaliate in response to an attack by the then Soviet Union on Europe.
Realistically, it is also very questions-able whether the nuclear states will ever take the risk of the destruction of their cities on behalf of Africa.
Similar doubts provided the strongest stimulus for France to become a nuclear state. North Korea’s increasing insecurity has led it to embark on its nuclear programme. Another contributory factor may be that of the heavy presence of American troops in South Korea and Japan which the DPRK sees as a great threat to its security. This is aggravated by the joint military exercises carried out by the US and the South Korean army in the Korean peninsula.
In the real world we live in, we have seen that states value national security above all other things and that military preponderance makes them safe. Nuclear arming is inevitable and nuclear disarming, especially by means of co-operative strategies, is very unlikely. These assumptions are entrenched on the nature of the international anarchic system which does not enable states to disarm.
Abolition of nuclear weapons is not practical. Most nations are reluctant to engage in arms limitations or to destroy their weapons in an atmosphere in which trust of their adversaries is lacking, and such trust is unlikely to be fostered as long as those adversaries remain armed.
No state is willing to forgo its nuclear weapon programme bearing the anarchic nature of the international system whereby the `Avatar Syndrome’ seems to have taken root.
The “Avatar Syndrome” is coined from James Cameroon’s movie ‘“VATAR” whereby the strong or military preponderant states in typical Thucididesian fashion, do whatever they can and the weak suffer what they must. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Ivory Coast and Mali have suffered at the hands of the strong in this twenty-first century. North Korea’s nuclear explosions on 9 October 2006, 21 May 2009 and currently 12 February 2013 are mainly provoked by fear of an American attack or the `Avatar Syndrome’.
India has opposed regional disarmament measures in South Asia giving an explanation that, such measures would not address Indian security concerns with China.
Nations therefore find themselves caught in a vicious circle of fear and insecurity, the arms of others provoke fear, fear stimulates the desire to arm for defence, armament in turn encourage the enemy to increase its arms, and so it goes in a never-ending spiral.
An arms race is likely to happen in the Korean peninsula because South Korea and Japan are likely going to react to a build-up in the DPRK’s weapon capacity.
President Vladimir Putin, in a state of the nation speech in May 2006 pointed out that, “Russia faced a fortress United States and must embrace high technology (nuclear) to keep up in the growing arms race…
It is premature to speak of the end of the arms race. America’s Missile Defence System aims to intercept an in-coming missile carrying a nuclear warhead. The Defence Shield was supported by American President George W. Bush as a means of defending the US against missiles launched by ‘rogue states’ such as North Korea.
Recurrent warfare shall always be a part of international relations and those countries that cannot defend themselves effectively are a constant temptation to armed and covetous aggressors.
The 2011 NATO attack on Libya has actually set a bad precedent in the international system as weaker states now see the importance of military preponderance including the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. Hence, the most effective method of avoiding a war is to prepare for one.
The international community whether it likes it or not has to cope with the challenge of the nuclear revolution itself. Margaret Thatcher the former British Prime Minister believed that “a world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for us all.” Many strategic thinkers agree that nuclear weapons have helped maintain peace between great powers and have not led their few other possessors into military adventures.
Nuclear disarmament can be perceived as a fictional utopia. The only answer to the nuclear problem is to learn to live with them and to avoid war through robust deterrence policies. Scholars like Robert Jervis have stressed the importance of nuclear armaments during the Cold War period in avoiding an Armageddon between the Soviet Union and the United States of America.
He further points out that the existence of large nuclear stockpiles influenced superpower politics from two directions: First, the devastation of an all-out war would be enormous. Secondly, neither side would be spared this devastation.
Nuclear deterrence assumes that a potential aggressor will not attack if persuaded that it will suffer unacceptable punishment from a defender as a result of its attack. The potential aggressor is deterred if it believes that the defender has the means and will to carry out its retaliatory threat and that threat is credible.
North Korea’s nuclear tests have in a way clearly sent a deterrent message to would be aggressors such as the US that it is useless to attempt to conquer because we will also retaliate.
This may be one of the major reasons why nuclear disarmament has not been complied with by the states possessing nuclear weapons.
The essence of having nuclear weapons capabilities is to confront a potential nuclear aggressor with the threat of having to receive an “unacceptable level damage” in a retaliatory blow even after having carried out a surprise first strike against the deterred.
India uses nuclear weapons as deterrence against China and Pakistan, while Pakistan, in turn, views nuclear power as a deterrent against India. Israel has nuclear power as a deterrent against its Arab neighbours.
North Korea also believes that its nuclear weapons are essential in providing a deterrent to Washington and after developing nuclear weapons it had to test them in 2006, 2009 and currently in 2013 as for credibility purposes.
North Korea is carrying out nuclear tests especially for deterrence purposes as well as to challenge the hegemonic tendencies of the USA and its allies. No matter how much we might criticise the North Koreans, the bomb has given them self-sufficiency in defence as well as creating a balance in the Korean peninsula.
India, Pakistan and Israel to this date have not acceded to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. India has based its reservations on the discriminatory part of the treaty which require five states namely, the United States of America, Britain, Russia, China and France to have nuclear weapons whilst forbidding others.
Pakistan asserted that it would accede to the treaty after India had done so. Israel, suspicious of its Arab neighbours has refused to sign the treaty.
The total number of states possessing nuclear weapons in the twenty-first century has remained limited, which in turn may create the necessary pre-conditions for the full implementation of the treaty’s principles of eventual nuclear disarmament bearing in mind that the nuclear weapon states are willing to destroy their own nuclear arsenals.
However, if the nuclear armed states continue to emphasise the importance of nuclear arms to their own defence, they hardly expect all other nations to forgo nuclear weapon development forever.
The perceived requirements of national security dictate that nations build up their military capabilities adequately to the dangers posed to their security from within and without.
The DPRK like any other nuclear weapon state also needs nuclear arsenal to strengthen its security against any would be aggressors. Why are some states allowed to possess nuclear weapons while others are not? The nuclear weapon states should first destroy their formidable arsenals before they tell others to do so.