The Sky is Falling - on John Bolton

John Bolton has made a cottage industry out of trying to scare
people about nuclear weapons. Contrary to the subtitle of Dr.
Strangelove - "how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb" -
Bolton's motto seems to be "why you need to start worrying and embrace
the bomb." He reiterates this point at every opportunity, most recently
in a piece
published in the Washington Examiner. But does he really believe that
the Obama administration's modest but essential first steps towards
reducing global nuclear arsenals are putting us in grave danger? I
seriously doubt it.

Bolton believes in maintaining the status quo, a world in which the
United States and Russia possess 95% of the world's arsenal of
20,000-plus nuclear weapons and it's not worth even trying to use
diplomacy to reduce those arsenals, much less those of other nuclear
powers. In his most recent piece, he even appears to dismiss President
Obama's pledge to secure "all vulnerable nuclear materials in four
years, so that they never fall into the hands of terrorists." What's
Bolton's logic here? Do we need to leave loose nukes and unsecured
bomb-making materials lying around to show we're tough? Or is he just
so intent on opposing anything that the Obama administration is for
that he will oppose even the most effective policies available for
reducing the nuclear danger?

What are Bolton's alternatives to diplomacy? Bombing Iran? He has implied
as much, even though the effects of such an action would most likely be
to undermine the Iranian opposition, accelerate Tehran's efforts to
seek a nuclear weapon, and sow further chaos in a region that can ill
afford it. Invading North Korea? Even he doesn't seem willing to go
that far over the top.

Instead of quaking in our boots at the prospect of nuclear arms cuts,
as Bolton would like us to do, we need to look at the real security
benefits of a multi-faceted approach to achieving substantial
reductions. These steps should include a new nuclear arms reduction
agreement (START), followed shortly thereafter by negotiations for even
deeper cuts in U.S. and Russian arsenals; a global ban on all nuclear
weapons tests (the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty); accelerated
investments in securing all nuclear weapons and bomb-making materials;
increased investments in the inspection capabilities of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); a concerted effort to solve
the Kashmir problem and improve relations between India and Pakistan to
the point that each nation will feel secure in reducing its nuclear
arsenal; and a renewed global effort to get Iran and North Korea to
curb and then reverse their nuclear weapons programs. Some of these
steps are obviously harder - much harder - than others. But each of
them is valuable in its own right, and we can't afford not to pursue
them.

It's important to remember that there has been considerable success
in reducing nuclear weapons over the past two decades. Since the end of
the Cold War, more than twice as many countries have abandoned nuclear
weapons or bomb-making programs as have initiated them. Total nuclear
weapons stockpiles are down by over two-thirds since their peak in the
mid-1960s. And programs like the Nunn-Lugar program - which invests in
dismantling and securing Russian nuclear bombs and nuclear materials -
have made impressive strides. There is no reason why we can't build on
these successes to accomplish further reductions in nuclear weapons,
making the world a far safer place in the process. We just need to make
sure people don't buy into the scare talk of John Bolton and his
cohorts.