The Moral Dimension of “Global Zero”

Abstract

Regrettably, moral arguments are largely absent from the current debate on nuclear disarmament. Indeed, complementing politico-strategic thinking with ethical categories could significantly strengthen the abolitionist call. To fill the gap, this article analyzes the evolution of the nuclear ethics of the Roman Catholic Church and especially its position on nuclear deterrence. If this strategy was granted interim and strictly conditioned moral acceptance during the Cold War, nuclear deterrence is today increasingly considered ineffective, an obstacle to genuine disarmament, and hence morally unjustifiable. In the new security context, the conditions for the Catholic Church's “interim nuclear ethics” have altered, and nuclear disarmament has become a feasible option and an alternative strategy to deterrence.

KEYWORDS:

• Nuclear weapons
• nuclear deterrence
• nuclear disarmament
• nuclear abolition
• global zero
• ethics

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author would like to thank Giulio Cesareo, Joseph S. Nye, and Benoît Pelopidas for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

1. George Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007. The article was followed by three other op-eds by the same authors in the same newspaper under the following titles: “Toward a Nuclear-Free World,” January 15, 2008; “Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation” March 7, 2011; and “Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Risks” March 5, 2013. It is worth noting the bipartisan configuration of the quartet and the fact that it is composed of influential political figures who were, at various times in their careers, immersed in the nuclear weapon establishment and can be hardly described as “pacifists.” All five of their op-eds can be found at Nuclear Security Project, <www.nuclearsecurityproject.org/publications/wall-street-journal-op-eds>.

2. Among others, public appeals in favor of nuclear abolition have been issued by national statesmen of Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Russia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The international Global Zero campaign <www.globalzero.org>, launched in December 2008, includes more than 300 political, military, business, faith, and civic leaders. From every country in the world, 400,000 people have signed the Global Zero Declaration, which calls for a phased, verified elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide.

3. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President Barack Obama,” Prague, April 5, 2009, <www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Barack-Obama-In-Prague-As-Delivered/>. It is worth noting that in this speech, President Obama referred to the “moral responsibility to act” on the part of the United States as a nuclear power and especially as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear bomb. The US president reiterated his pledge to achieve a world without nuclear weapons in another speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on June 19, 2013, “Remarks by President Obama at the Brandenburg Gate—Berlin, Germany,” <www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/19/remarks-president-obama-brandenburg-gate-berlin-germany>.

4. For a comprehensive introduction to the current debate on nuclear disarmament, see the collection of essays in Catherine McArdle Kelleher and Judith Reppy, eds., Getting to Zero: The Path to Nuclear Disarmament (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011). For a particularly influential analysis of scholarly and policy discussion, see George Perkovich and James M. Acton, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009); Thomas C. Schelling, “A World Without Nuclear Weapons?,” Daedalus 138 (2009), pp. 124–29.

5. Another striking feature of the current discussion is that it is largely a top-down movement, with less popular support than the freeze movement in the 1980s. See Lawrence Freedman, “Nuclear Disarmament: From a Popular Movement to an Elite Project, and Back Again?,” in Perkovich and Acton, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons. A Debate, pp. 141–49; Zia Mian, “Beyond the Security Debate: The Moral and Legal Dimensions of Abolition,” in Perkovich and Acton, eds., Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, pp. 295–307.

6. The main critique of global zero is also based on security. Thomas Schelling questions whether a world free of nuclear weapons would be a safer and more stable world and maintains that, contrary to the expectations of many, it could be a “nervous world,” with hair-trigger mobilization plans in which “every crisis would be a nuclear crisis.” (Schelling, “A World Without Nuclear Weapons?,” p. 127.) A balanced and nuanced analysis of the dangers of nuclear weapons and the advantages of disarmament as a goal, which gives great consideration to the technical and political difficulties of the abolitionist agenda, is Michael E. O'Hanlon, A Skeptic's Case for Nuclear Disarmament (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010).

7. Shultz et al., “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons.”

8. Horizontal proliferation refers to the spread of nuclear weapons to states that have not previously possessed them. Vertical proliferation refers to an increase in the amount or devastating capacity of the nuclear arsenal of existing nuclear weapon states.

9. Perkovich and Acton, eds., Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, p. 13.

10. The link between nonproliferation and disarmament is legally codified. The grand bargain underpinning the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) calls for non-nuclear weapon states not to seek to acquire nuclear weapons (Article II) on the basis of the solemn promise by the nuclear weapon states to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament (Article VI). The commitment to disarmament on the part of the nuclear weapon states was reaffirmed in the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference and was described as an “obligation” by the International Court of Justice in 1996. For a thorough analysis of the nexus between nonproliferation and disarmament, see Sverre Lodgaard, Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation: Towards a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World? (New York, NY: Routledge, 2011).

11. David Krieger, “Ten Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, <www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-weapons/10-reasons-abolish-nw.htm>.

12. Obama, “Remarks by the President Barack Obama.” Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: The Risks and Consequences of the Ultimate Disaster (London: Constable, 2004), p. 15.

13. This point was underscored again by the US president when he stated: “Today, the Cold War has disappeared, but thousands of those weapons have not. In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up. More nations have acquired these weapons. Testing has continued. Black market trade in nuclear secrets, and nuclear materials abound. The technology to build a bomb has spread. Terrorists are determined to buy, build, or steal one. Our efforts to contain these dangers are centered on a global non-proliferation regime, but as more people and nations break the rules, we could reach the point where the center cannot hold.” Obama, “Remarks by the President Barack Obama.”

14. Shultz et al., “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons.”

15. T.V. Paul, Patrick M. Morgan, and James J. Wirtz, eds., Complex Deterrence: Strategy in the Global Age (Chicago, IL, and London: Chicago University Press, 2009).

16. The 1996 Canberra Commission report is available at <www.dfat.gov.au/publications/security/canberra-commission-report/>.

17. Nuclear delegitimization can be defined as a process that gradually devalues the utility of nuclear weapons by reducing (and eventually annulling) any positive evaluation concerning their legitimacy, prestige, or authority. See Ken Berry, Patricia Lewis, Benoît Pelopidas, Nikolai Sokov, and Ward Wilson, Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons: Examining the Validity of Nuclear Deterrence (Monterey, CA: James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 2010).

18. Norms are “collective expectations for the proper behavior of actors with a given identity.” They have both “constitutive effects” that define the identity of an actor and “regulative” effects that specify standards of proper behavior. Peter J. Katzenstein, “Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security,” in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 5. The importance of norms in explaining international political behavior is now well established in international relations theory. Contrary to mainstream realist and positivist thinking—which considers norms to be mere epiphenomenal reflections of power and interest and aspires to produce “value-free” explanations of international politics—neocultural and constructivist approaches argue that national security policies are the products of both material interests and socially constructed and culturally determined norms. Norms have a strong effect on international political decisions because they “not only constrain states in how they pursue their interests but more fundamentally shape state interests themselves. Norms are both products of power and sources of power in the international system.” Ward Thomas, The Ethics of Destruction: Norms and Force in International Relations (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2001), p. 3.

19. Nina Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

20. Nina Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)., pp. 58–59. By contrast, Scott Sagan explained nuclear restraint and non-use in more realist terms, arguing that the phenomenon is best explained by prudential (i.e., long-term national security interests, the fear of establishing precedents) rather than normative concerns. See Scott D. Sagan, “Realist Perspectives on Ethical Norms and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” in Sohail H. Hashmi and Steven P. Lee, eds., Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 73–96. Thus, the phenomenon of non-use is better described as a “tradition of non-use” than as a proper taboo. T.V. Paul argues that the unwillingness to use nuclear weapons can be at least partly attributed to an informal norm inherent to the tradition of non-use that has gradually emerged since 1945. This tradition rests on two main factors: first, an appreciation of the power of the weapons and, second, the negative reputational effects that their use could generate, especially in terms of poor image, signaling wrong intentions, and establishing bad precedents. See T.V. Paul, The Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009).

21. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Nuclear Ethics (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1986).

22. Gregory M. Reichberg, “Norms of War in Roman Catholic Christianity,” in Vesselin Popovski, Gregory M. Reichberg, and Nicholas Turner, eds., World Religions and Norms of War (New York, NY: United Nations University Press, 2009), p. 148.

23. Catechism of the Catholic Church (1993, revised in 1997), par. 2308.

24. The following is necessarily a brief synthesis of the just war criteria as it emerged during a long period of tradition. For a thorough analysis, see, among others, Anthony J. Coates, The Ethics of War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), pp. 123–295; Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1997); and Paul Robinson, ed., Just War in Comparative Perspective (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).

25. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 282. Such a scenario could include a “nuclear winter” caused by a full-scale nuclear exchange. In that respect, as the American Catholic bishops phrased it, we are “the first generation since Genesis with the capacity to destroy God's creation.” See the pastoral letter on war and peace written by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response,” May 3, 1983, par. 331, <www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/TheChallengeofPeace.pdf>. Hereafter, the American pastoral letter is referred to as “The Challenge of Peace.” The damage caused by radiation is another element that differentiates nuclear weapons from conventional weapons. By definition, radiation cannot be controlled (i.e., it can spread beyond the battlefield and into areas populated by civilians) and is enduring (i.e., it can contaminate an area for a long period and cause genetic defects in successive innocent generations). See Nigel Biggar, “Christianity and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” in Hashmi and Lee, eds., Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction, p. 174.

26. Bernard Brodie, “War in the Atomic Age,” in Bernard Brodie, ed., The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1946), pp. 52, 28.

27. Bernard Brodie, “War in the Atomic Age,” in Bernard Brodie, ed., The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1946), pp. 52, 28.

28. This point will be discussed in detail later.

29. For a comprehensive survey of religious perspectives on weapons of mass destruction, see Hashmi and Lee, Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction.

30. In Catholicism, the Magisterium is the authority that establishes the authentic teaching of the Church. That authority is vested uniquely in the Pope and the bishops. The Magisterium may be expressed in ordinary or solemn form. The ordinary Magisterium is the normal mode in which the Church communicates its teachings: it can be exercised through encyclicals, pastoral letters, and other written documents, or through oral preaching by the Pope and the bishops. The solemn Magisterium consists of a pronouncement “ex cathedra” by the Pope or by the Ecumenical Council. Such rare declarations of the Church's teaching involve the infallibity of the Church.

31. “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, promulgated by His Holiness Pope Paul VI,” December 7, 1965, par. 8, <www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html>.

32. The text of the speech is available at AtomicBombMuseum.org, <http://atomicbombmuseum.org/6_5.shtml>.

33. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Challenge of Peace, par. 157–59.

34. J. Bryan Hehir, “The Context of the Moral-Strategic Debate and the Contribution of the U.S. Catholic Bishops,” in Charles Reid Jr., ed., Peace in a Nuclear Age: The Bishops' Pastoral Letter in Perspective (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1986), p. 150. One rationale for this “centimeter of ambiguity” is the argument that “should the Bishops unequivocally condemn any use of nuclear weapons, then deterrence becomes ineffective, an empty bluff since the deterrence is credible only insofar as the enemy believes that some nuclear weapons will be used, should the deterrence fail.” See Judith A. Dwyer, Catholic Bishops and Nuclear War: A Critique and Analysis of the Pastoral, the Challenge of Peace (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1984), pp. 8–9.

35. Giulio Cesareo, Guerra e Pace: la Morale Cristiana da Giovanni XXIII al Vaticano, al Nostro Tempo. Il Contributo Specifico Italiano [War and Peace: Christian Morality from John XXIII to the Vatican, to Our Time. The Specific Italian Contribution] (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane Bologna, 2011), pp. 65–66. A third issue can be added: the danger of blurring the qualitative distinction between conventional and unconventional weapons and thus risking irreparable damage to the nuclear taboo.

36. Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 3rd ed. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. xiv.

37. Nye, Nuclear Ethics, p. 50-51.

38. Nye, Nuclear Ethics, pp. 51-52. For more on the debate about how to fight a limited war, see Morton H. Halperin, Limited War in the Nuclear Age (New York, NY: John Wiley, 1963).

39. The literature on deterrence is vast. See the classic studies: Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966); Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960); and Glenn H. Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961). Comprehensive analyses of deterrence in theory and practice include: Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence Now (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003) and Lawrence Freedman, Deterrence (New York, NY: Polity, 2004). For research on the application of deterrence in the complex post-Cold War security environment, see Paul et al., Complex Deterrence; and Paul, The Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons.

40. The issue of interceptability of ballistic missiles is still hotly discussed in relation to the effectiveness of a ballistic missile defense system, in which authoritative studies deny the technical feasibility of reliably intercepting incoming modern missiles, especially those equipped with countermeasures. See George Lewis and Theodore Postol, “A Flawed and Dangerous US Missile Defense Plan,” Arms Control Today, May 2010, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2010_05/Lewis-Postol>.

41. Bernard Brodie, “Implications for Military Policy,” in Brodie, ed., The Absolute Weapon, p. 76.

42. On the problems and limitations of deterrence, see the review of “third wave” nuclear strategists in Robert Jervis, “Deterrence Theory Revisited,” World Politics 31 (1979), pp. 289–324.

43. Hollenbach offered a different view, maintaining that deterrent intentions and intentions of using nuclear weapons are logically and morally distinct, in the sense that the intention of nuclear deterrence is not the exercise of war, but the prevention of war. See David Hollenbach, Nuclear Ethics: a Christian Moral Argument (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1983). Moreover, it is not possible to determine what an agent intends to do without considering the consequences that the agent expects will follow from the contemplated action; the morality of intentions must be judged on the basis of an evaluation of the reasonably predictable outcomes of diverse policy choices. French bishops shared a similar view, arguing that use is immoral but that threat does not constitute use. See Catholic Bishops of France, Winning the Peace (1984), p. 109.

44. Nye, Nuclear Ethics, p. 52. For a strong argument on this point, which claims that the credibility of nuclear deterrence ultimately depends on the willingness to directly and intentionally kill innocent non-combatants, see John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, Jr., and Germain Grisez, Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

45. Trentin Giuseppe, “Difesa. Deterrenza,” [Defense. Deterrence] in Luigi Lorenzetti, ed., Dizionario di Teologia della Pace [Dictionary of Theology of Peace] (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane Bologna, 1997), p. 309. Additionally, deterrence is charged with impeding disarmament and fostering proliferation; the diversion of vast economic resources that could be spent for better purposes; the psychological pain inflicted on the public, who are forced to live in constant fear of a deterrence failure; and the potential for corruption of the democratic political process.

46. The Vatican, “Message from His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the General Assembly of the United Nations,” June 7, 1982, <www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1982/june/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19820607_disarmo-onu_en.html>.

47. Among the many commentaries on the letter, it is worth recalling the essay by former US National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, published in the New York Review of Books, which called the letter a “landmark.” McGeorge Bundy, “The Bishops and the Bomb,” New York Review of Books, June 16, 1983, pp. 3–8. The special value of the document is its long and elaborate origin; there was a lengthy process of reflection, analysis, and revision before the final document was issued. It is interesting to note that the first drafts were much closer to the pacifist and evangelical positions, which oppose nuclear deterrence. A key moment in the elaboration of the final document was a meeting at the Vatican in Rome, chaired by Bishop Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, where the American second draft was thoroughly discussed. During the meeting in Rome, the primacy of the just war doctrine in the tradition of Catholic moral teaching on war and peace was underscored in addition to the concept of conditioned acceptance of nuclear deterrence pronounced by Pope John Paul II in his speech at the United Nations a few months earlier. Thus, the American bishops were invited to a make the necessary amendments to align themselves with the Church's traditional teaching, as mirrored in the final document voted on by the Episcopal Conference gathered on March 2–3, 1983. For a thorough analysis of the pastoral letter, see the collection of essays in Dwyer, Catholic Bishops and Nuclear War.

48. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response,” par. 186, 188.

49. This thinking rests on the assumption that deterrence works and has effectively contributed to assuring what has been termed the “Long Peace” of the Cold War era in John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). However, this opinion is disputed. Among the skeptics, Keith Payne argues that deterrence was never stable and that, retrospectively, we were lucky to survive the Cold War. See Keith B. Payne, The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence and a New Direction (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2001). For John Mueller, nuclear weapons did not play a significant role in pacifying relations among state powers. See John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1989). On the basis of new historical evidence (including recent reinterpretations of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and the actual reason for the Japanese surrender) and the record of nuclear deterrence, Ward Wilson argues that nuclear weapons do not deter nuclear or conventional attacks and do not reliably provide diplomatic leverage. See Ward Wilson, “The Myth of Nuclear Deterrence,” Nonproliferation Review 15 (2008), pp. 421–39.

50. Gerard Powers, America: The Nuclear Ethics Gap. Finding our way on the road to disarmament, May 17, 2010, <http://kroc.nd.edu/sites/default/files/America_Nuclear_Ethics_Gap.pdf>.

51. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The Harvest of Justice Is Sown in Peace,” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC, November 17, 1993, <www.usccb.org/sdwp/harvest.shtml>.

52. Statement by Archbishop Renato Martino, Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy See, to the First Committee of the General Assembly, New York, NY, October 15, 1997.

53. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, remarks presented at “God and the Bomb: Deterrence, Disarmament, and Human Security,” Georgetown University, Washington, DC, March 10, 2010, <www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDY0iG19m-w>.

54. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, remarks presented at “God and the Bomb: Deterrence, Disarmament, and Human Security,” Georgetown University, Washington, DC, March 10, 2010, <www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDY0iG19m-w>.

55. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, remarks presented at “God and the Bomb: Deterrence, Disarmament, and Human Security,” Georgetown University, Washington, DC, March 10, 2010, <www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDY0iG19m-w>.

56. Statement by H.E. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, The Seventh Review Conference of the States Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, New York, NY, May 4, 2005, <www.holyseemission.org/4may2005.html>.

57. Available at “Message of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace, January 1, 2006, <www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20051213_xxxix-world-day-peace_en.html>, n. 13.

58. Statement of the Holy See as delivered by His Excellency Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Secretary for the Holy See's Relations with States, High-Level Meeting of the 68th Session of the General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament, New York, NY, September 26, 2013, <www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/2013/documents/rc-seg-st-20130926_mamberti-nuclear-disarmament_en.html>.

59. Statement of the Holy See as delivered by His Excellency Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Secretary for the Holy See's Relations with States, High-Level Meeting of the 68th Session of the General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament, New York, NY, September 26, 2013, <www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/2013/documents/rc-seg-st-20130926_mamberti-nuclear-disarmament_en.html>.

60. Evidently, the point remains controversial, as discussed in the first session. For a strong defense of deterrence, including its morality, see Bruno Tertrais, “In Defense of Deterrence: The Relevance, Morality, and Cost-Effectiveness of Nuclear Weapons,” Proliferation Papers 39 (Institut Français des Relations Internationales, Fall 2011).

61. This sentence by Mikhail Gorbachev is quoted and endorsed by the “four horsemen” in their second op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. See Shultz, Perry, Kissinger, and Nunn, “Toward a Nuclear-Free World.”

62. One could also argue that modern, technologically advanced, powerful, and accurate conventional weapons could, in any event, perform most of the missions originally assigned to nuclear weaponry.

63. Tom Sauer, “A Second Nuclear Revolution: From Nuclear Primacy to Post-Existential Deterrence,” Journal of Strategic Studies 32 (2009), pp. 745–67.

64. Migliore, God and the Bomb.

65. Migliore, God and the Bomb, and Statement of the Holy See as delivered by His Excellency Archbishop Dominique Mamberti.

66. Adam M. Garfinkle, “The Attack on Deterrence: Reflections on Morality and Strategic Praxis,” in Jack N. Barkenbus, ed., Ethics, Nuclear Deterrence, and War (New York, NY: Paragon House, 1992), p. 22.

67. It is worth noting that achieving nuclear disarmament could solve the moral problems related to nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence but could prompt a series of other moral issues related to other forms of non-nuclear deterrence strategies (e.g., conventional deterrence, missile defense, and counterproliferation policies), the morality of which must be valued in the context of a world free of nuclear weapons. Therefore, the withdrawal of the conditional moral acceptance of nuclear deterrence will need to be replaced with a sophisticated moral analysis of the issues that arise with nuclear abolition.