Deterrence Believers Should Cheer the North
Korean Bomb
By
Craig Murray
September 04, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- If the theory of nuclear deterrence holds true
– and it is the only argument the supporters of
WMD have got – then we should all be cheering
the North Korean bomb. The logic of nuclear
deterrence is that it is much better that every
state has nuclear weapons, because then we can
all deter each other. It is demonstrably true
that possession of nuclear weapons is not a
deterrent to other nations acquiring them. But
it is supposed to deter other nations from using
them. In which case, surely the more the
merrier, so we can all deter each other.
The
madness of the argument is self-evident. We are
borrowing hundreds of billions we cannot afford
for Trident, yet in all the reams of analysis of
what to do about North Korea, Trident never gets
a mention. It is a system entirely useless even
in the one situation in which it was supposed to
be effective.
How did we get here? In the 1950s the USA
dropped 635,000 tonnes of bombs on North Korea
including 35,000 tonnes of napalm. The US killed
an
estimated 20%
of the North Korean population. For comparison,
approximately 2% of the UK population was killed
during World War II.
That
this massive destruction of North Korea resulted
in a xenophobic, American-hating state with an
obsession with developing powerful weapons
systems to ensure national survival, is not
exactly surprising. The western media treat the
existence of the Kim Jong-un regime as an
inexplicable and eccentric manifestation of
evil. In fact, it is caused. Unless those causes
are addressed the situation can never be
resolved. Has any western politician ever
referenced the history I have just given in
discussing North Korea?
This
has so often been my despair. My book The
Catholic Orangemen of Togo recounts my
frustration whilst Deputy Head of the FCO’s
Africa Department, at failing to get the Blair
government to pay attention to the massive
historical and continuing grievances that
underlay the horrific violence in Sierra Leone.
Politicians prefer a simplistic world of enemies
who are “evil” for no reason. Newspaper editors
prefer it even more. It justifies war. The truth
is always a great deal more complicated.
Craig
Murray is an author, broadcaster and human
rights activist. He was British Ambassador to
Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and
Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to
2010.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk
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