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Nobody opines sagely anymore that the races will never get along,
calmly ladling conventional certainties over the earnest idealism of
civil-rights activists. But we live in a world so permeated with militarized
fear of demagogic leaders and rogue states that nuclear deterrence retains
enough of the default credibility it had during the Cold War, as the opposite
of utopian naivete, that common sense is still on the defensive.
Nobody opines sagely anymore that the races will never get along,
calmly ladling conventional certainties over the earnest idealism of
civil-rights activists. But we live in a world so permeated with militarized
fear of demagogic leaders and rogue states that nuclear deterrence retains
enough of the default credibility it had during the Cold War, as the opposite
of utopian naivete, that common sense is still on the defensive.
No matter that some of the most prominent old Cold Warriors have
lost their faith in nuclear weapons, and grasp that us vs. them security
concepts are disastrously counterproductive in today's more complex, more
nationally porous global reality, and have downgraded that era's most
notorious acronym -- M.A.D., as in Mutually Assured Destruction -- to
just plain mad.
"U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the
next stage . . ."
Let` those words reverberate, as we ponder their seriousness:
". . . to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons . .
. and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world. . . . (which) is now on
the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era."
They were written, in early 2007, by two former secretaries of
state, Henry Kissinger and George Schultz; a former secretary of defense,
William Perry; and former Sen. Sam Nunn, long-time chair of the Senate Armed
Services Committee. All are ex-hawks, stalwart defenders of the Free World back
in the day, but here they are speaking in humbler language, language that is plaintive
and almost prayer-like, of "a world free" -- of nuclear
weapons.
They warn: ". . .the U.S. soon will be compelled to enter a
new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and
economically even more costly than was Cold War deterrence. It is far from
certain that we can successfully replicate the old Soviet-American
'mutually assured destruction' with an increasing number of
potential nuclear enemies world-wide without dramatically increasing the risk
that nuclear weapons will be used."
And they quote JFK: "The world was not meant to be a prison
in which man awaits his execution."
Their words have given courage to editorial boards here and
there. In August, the San Francisco Chronicle, citing the support of
"well-known realists" Kissinger and Shultz, editorialized that
"the United States should take the lead in building a consensus for
reducing, and ultimately disarming, global stocks of nuclear weapons."
In other words, reduction of the world's supply of 25,000
nuclear weapons isn't enough. Foreswearing "the next
generation" of nuclear weapons, and the multi-billion-dollar weapons
industry hell-bent on birthing it, isn't enough. National and, indeed,
human security demands nothing short of the complete elimination of nuclear
weapons, a goal that can only be achieved, in the words of Kissinger, et al, as
a global "joint enterprise" -- you know, with international or
trans-national cooperation, kind of the opposite of the Bush/neocon vision of
American hegemony and its comic-book battle with evil.
"U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the
next stage . . ."
So far this remains the cry of the powerless. The old Cold
Warriors are out of the game now, as they lend their voices and their
realpolitik bona fides to those who were never in the game. And therefore these
voices, no matter their urgency, can still be dismissed as utopian and "a
bit Pollyanaish" (a comment I received recently) because the vision they are
articulating doesn't have the status of conventional wisdom yet.
The default response is still too easily a mocking flicker of
"father knows best," a replay of the old canards of institutional
racism. The races can never get along. Bad people are out there; we have to
protect ourselves.
Only someone currently in full possession of the blessings and
curses of power can give this vision the credibility of inevitability, which
brings me to my point: We have just elected such a person president, and, as
the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg put it, "there is already the
feel of the beginning of a new era." The prevailing fabric of political
cynicism has a gash from top to bottom, and a global yearning for change rushes
in.
Why else are a million and a half people expected to pack the
D.C. mall for Barack Obama's inauguration? Scalpers are selling tickets
to the event for as high $60,000. History is screaming. Surely it is a cry for
international cooperation, a safer world, a new way of thinking. Surely it is a
cry that we step away from the madness of our nuclear suicide pact.
But only the man of the moment can give this cry political
traction. Obama needs more than our cheers. He needs our ultimatum as well: our
insistence that he step into the future we voted for.
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Nobody opines sagely anymore that the races will never get along,
calmly ladling conventional certainties over the earnest idealism of
civil-rights activists. But we live in a world so permeated with militarized
fear of demagogic leaders and rogue states that nuclear deterrence retains
enough of the default credibility it had during the Cold War, as the opposite
of utopian naivete, that common sense is still on the defensive.
No matter that some of the most prominent old Cold Warriors have
lost their faith in nuclear weapons, and grasp that us vs. them security
concepts are disastrously counterproductive in today's more complex, more
nationally porous global reality, and have downgraded that era's most
notorious acronym -- M.A.D., as in Mutually Assured Destruction -- to
just plain mad.
"U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the
next stage . . ."
Let` those words reverberate, as we ponder their seriousness:
". . . to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons . .
. and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world. . . . (which) is now on
the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era."
They were written, in early 2007, by two former secretaries of
state, Henry Kissinger and George Schultz; a former secretary of defense,
William Perry; and former Sen. Sam Nunn, long-time chair of the Senate Armed
Services Committee. All are ex-hawks, stalwart defenders of the Free World back
in the day, but here they are speaking in humbler language, language that is plaintive
and almost prayer-like, of "a world free" -- of nuclear
weapons.
They warn: ". . .the U.S. soon will be compelled to enter a
new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and
economically even more costly than was Cold War deterrence. It is far from
certain that we can successfully replicate the old Soviet-American
'mutually assured destruction' with an increasing number of
potential nuclear enemies world-wide without dramatically increasing the risk
that nuclear weapons will be used."
And they quote JFK: "The world was not meant to be a prison
in which man awaits his execution."
Their words have given courage to editorial boards here and
there. In August, the San Francisco Chronicle, citing the support of
"well-known realists" Kissinger and Shultz, editorialized that
"the United States should take the lead in building a consensus for
reducing, and ultimately disarming, global stocks of nuclear weapons."
In other words, reduction of the world's supply of 25,000
nuclear weapons isn't enough. Foreswearing "the next
generation" of nuclear weapons, and the multi-billion-dollar weapons
industry hell-bent on birthing it, isn't enough. National and, indeed,
human security demands nothing short of the complete elimination of nuclear
weapons, a goal that can only be achieved, in the words of Kissinger, et al, as
a global "joint enterprise" -- you know, with international or
trans-national cooperation, kind of the opposite of the Bush/neocon vision of
American hegemony and its comic-book battle with evil.
"U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the
next stage . . ."
So far this remains the cry of the powerless. The old Cold
Warriors are out of the game now, as they lend their voices and their
realpolitik bona fides to those who were never in the game. And therefore these
voices, no matter their urgency, can still be dismissed as utopian and "a
bit Pollyanaish" (a comment I received recently) because the vision they are
articulating doesn't have the status of conventional wisdom yet.
The default response is still too easily a mocking flicker of
"father knows best," a replay of the old canards of institutional
racism. The races can never get along. Bad people are out there; we have to
protect ourselves.
Only someone currently in full possession of the blessings and
curses of power can give this vision the credibility of inevitability, which
brings me to my point: We have just elected such a person president, and, as
the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg put it, "there is already the
feel of the beginning of a new era." The prevailing fabric of political
cynicism has a gash from top to bottom, and a global yearning for change rushes
in.
Why else are a million and a half people expected to pack the
D.C. mall for Barack Obama's inauguration? Scalpers are selling tickets
to the event for as high $60,000. History is screaming. Surely it is a cry for
international cooperation, a safer world, a new way of thinking. Surely it is a
cry that we step away from the madness of our nuclear suicide pact.
But only the man of the moment can give this cry political
traction. Obama needs more than our cheers. He needs our ultimatum as well: our
insistence that he step into the future we voted for.
Nobody opines sagely anymore that the races will never get along,
calmly ladling conventional certainties over the earnest idealism of
civil-rights activists. But we live in a world so permeated with militarized
fear of demagogic leaders and rogue states that nuclear deterrence retains
enough of the default credibility it had during the Cold War, as the opposite
of utopian naivete, that common sense is still on the defensive.
No matter that some of the most prominent old Cold Warriors have
lost their faith in nuclear weapons, and grasp that us vs. them security
concepts are disastrously counterproductive in today's more complex, more
nationally porous global reality, and have downgraded that era's most
notorious acronym -- M.A.D., as in Mutually Assured Destruction -- to
just plain mad.
"U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the
next stage . . ."
Let` those words reverberate, as we ponder their seriousness:
". . . to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons . .
. and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world. . . . (which) is now on
the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era."
They were written, in early 2007, by two former secretaries of
state, Henry Kissinger and George Schultz; a former secretary of defense,
William Perry; and former Sen. Sam Nunn, long-time chair of the Senate Armed
Services Committee. All are ex-hawks, stalwart defenders of the Free World back
in the day, but here they are speaking in humbler language, language that is plaintive
and almost prayer-like, of "a world free" -- of nuclear
weapons.
They warn: ". . .the U.S. soon will be compelled to enter a
new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and
economically even more costly than was Cold War deterrence. It is far from
certain that we can successfully replicate the old Soviet-American
'mutually assured destruction' with an increasing number of
potential nuclear enemies world-wide without dramatically increasing the risk
that nuclear weapons will be used."
And they quote JFK: "The world was not meant to be a prison
in which man awaits his execution."
Their words have given courage to editorial boards here and
there. In August, the San Francisco Chronicle, citing the support of
"well-known realists" Kissinger and Shultz, editorialized that
"the United States should take the lead in building a consensus for
reducing, and ultimately disarming, global stocks of nuclear weapons."
In other words, reduction of the world's supply of 25,000
nuclear weapons isn't enough. Foreswearing "the next
generation" of nuclear weapons, and the multi-billion-dollar weapons
industry hell-bent on birthing it, isn't enough. National and, indeed,
human security demands nothing short of the complete elimination of nuclear
weapons, a goal that can only be achieved, in the words of Kissinger, et al, as
a global "joint enterprise" -- you know, with international or
trans-national cooperation, kind of the opposite of the Bush/neocon vision of
American hegemony and its comic-book battle with evil.
"U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the
next stage . . ."
So far this remains the cry of the powerless. The old Cold
Warriors are out of the game now, as they lend their voices and their
realpolitik bona fides to those who were never in the game. And therefore these
voices, no matter their urgency, can still be dismissed as utopian and "a
bit Pollyanaish" (a comment I received recently) because the vision they are
articulating doesn't have the status of conventional wisdom yet.
The default response is still too easily a mocking flicker of
"father knows best," a replay of the old canards of institutional
racism. The races can never get along. Bad people are out there; we have to
protect ourselves.
Only someone currently in full possession of the blessings and
curses of power can give this vision the credibility of inevitability, which
brings me to my point: We have just elected such a person president, and, as
the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg put it, "there is already the
feel of the beginning of a new era." The prevailing fabric of political
cynicism has a gash from top to bottom, and a global yearning for change rushes
in.
Why else are a million and a half people expected to pack the
D.C. mall for Barack Obama's inauguration? Scalpers are selling tickets
to the event for as high $60,000. History is screaming. Surely it is a cry for
international cooperation, a safer world, a new way of thinking. Surely it is a
cry that we step away from the madness of our nuclear suicide pact.
But only the man of the moment can give this cry political
traction. Obama needs more than our cheers. He needs our ultimatum as well: our
insistence that he step into the future we voted for.