Proliferate for peace
Since the Americans have inadvertently made it clear to every country in the world that only a credible nuclear defence will stop it from invading, and since every invasion by America further endangers Canada and the world, perhaps Canada's interests are better served now by encouraging nuclear proliferation
by Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>
 It may serve Canada's interests to quietly encourage Iran and North Korea to continue dodging a negotiated end to their nuclear ambitions, and to help speed those countries' acquisition of nuclear bombs and the missile technology to deliver them.
That policy suggestion may sound heretical in Canada today, but it needn't be greeted with any alarm. Canada already has a long history of encouraging the acquisition and deployment of nuclear weapons by foreign countries where the spread of such nuclear and missile technology has served Canada's strategic or business interests.
Canada happily enabled the development of nuclear arms technology by the United States in the 1940s by seeking out, mining, and delivering supplies of uranium for the secret and massive US research project code-named The Manhattan Project.
Canadians with official credentials and operating with government sanction participated in nuclear technology transfers to Britain and France enabling those countries to join the nuclear club after Canada observed Russia acquiring the technology independently.
Similarly, Canada, along with most countries of the West, remained nearly silent when China acquired nuclear technology, presumably because Chinese nuclear weapons aimed at their then-enemy the Soviet Union would help balance the Western nations' European nuclear stand-off with the same Soviet Union.
Canada has failed to ever issue an official comment on Israel's all-but-official acquisition of nuclear technology, no doubt out of strategic calculations of the balance of military power in the Middle East.
The near-simultaneous acquisition of nuclear bombs and missile delivery technology by India and Pakistan in recent years officially alarmed Canada (especially as Canadian exports of uranium and nuclear processing technology to both those countries may well have played a critical role in their acquisition of bombs), but economic and diplomatic penalties for both countries were pursued by Canada only very briefly and only half-heartedly.
Nor has Canada had much to say when nuclear arms have been actively brandished in pursuit of political goals. Canada officially endorses the false history surrounding the world's only active use of nuclear weapons. The true story is that US forces annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 with nuclear weapons in order to speed Japan's already certain surrender ahead of the arrival of Russian forces in Tokyo, which would have necessitated the Americans sharing with the Russians the surrender of Japan, as well as sharing with them the lucrative occupation and rebuilding of the country.
Canada joined US forces deployed in 1950 to Korea under a thoroughly manipulated UN mandate that provided a thin legal cover for US ambitions on that peninsula, even after it was obvious the commander of US forces in Korea, General McArthur, was threatening unprovoked nuclear attack on Korea and on China to generate Chinese concessions in negotiations over spheres of influence.
Though Canada often expressed its opposition to US military deployment to Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, it failed to draw attention to the very real and palpable nuclear threat that hung over the duration of that 10-year conflict, a threat US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explicitly raised in so-called peace talks being conducted in Paris.
Reasons for Canada's endorsement of pro-nuclear positions have ranged from carefully thought-out geopolitical calculations to straight-up, and excruciatingly short-sighted, business interests. Canadian diplomats contributed much to the historical development of ground-breaking nuclear arms-reducing international treaties like the ABM Treaty, Salt I and II, and the Non-proliferation Treaty, even while quietly remaining acquiescent when Israel and South Africa were attempting to gain nuclear weapons and possibly helpful when India and Pakistan were making their attempts at the same thing.
Recently, Canada has been silent when the US cancelled its participation in the ABM Treaty, and has been equally quiet when the US has spoken of developing small tactical nuclear weapons for use on battle fields, mostly because the government has (correctly) perceived that Canadian businesses stand to earn lucrative contracts in outsourced parts of these new technology developments.
Canada has also explicitly stated that its tentative support for the American development of missile shield technology is based not on any belief such technology reduces the risk of nuclear attack (which the government has admitted it most likely does not), but on the hopes that Canadian technology companies can win contracts that will flow from that fatally flawed program.
Most arms control experts believe the US missile shield will directly encourage the proliferation of nuclear technology to countries without it already, and will cause those with the technology to rapidly expand their stock of nuclear weapons. Canada has ignored expert advice to refrain from encouraging the US development of the missile shield, and has instead indicated it will seek to fully join the nuclear-proliferating program for the sake of generating contracts for Canadian companies.
On the other hand . . .
Conversely, Canada has strongly stated its opposition to the acquisition of nuclear weapons technology by both North Korea and Iran. It has mostly couched its opposition in terms of a purported principled stance against the proliferation of nuclear bombs and their deployment in general. But clearly Canada has no track record of opposition to the spread and use of nuclear arms in principle. To evoke such a principle now in the case of Iran and North Korea would be to damage Canada's ability to communicate with the world because of the polluting effect of this hypocrisy.
It is fair, therefore, to consider whether Canadian strategic and business interests are served by the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology to Iran and North Korea. Though Canada's strong negative position on the subject has so far remained unquestioned throughout this country, it is not necessarily so that Canada would suffer strategically or economically in the event Iran and North Korea join the nuclear club. Our position in the world strategically and economically could very well be enhanced by the further proliferation of nuclear arms to those countries, given the reality of proliferation throughout the world today, and what is shaping up to be the new geopolitical order in the 21 st Century world.
Consider the fact that, whatever it ultimately was that caused the US attack on Iraq, it could not have occurred without widespread American public support, and that that support was generated, however deceptively, by an ingenious two-part communication strategy by US officials. On the one hand, the attack on Iraq was made necessary by US officials issuing the false claim that Iraq was soon to acquire nuclear weapons; on the other hand, the attack was made possible by the true claim that Iraq did not (at the moment) actually have nuclear weapons.
Among the worldwide community of dissenters against the US plan for war on Iraq were those who made the argument that an attack on Iraq for trying to acquire nuclear weapons before it had actually done so would cause other nations around the world to hurry up their own nuclear technology programs. This effect was heightened by the world's observation of the difference shown by Washington in its dealings with Iraq, known to not have nuclear weapons, and North Korea, suspected of already having developed such weapons. It was obvious to all that North Korea has so far been spared the treatment the US has meted out to Iraq solely because North Korea is suspected of having successfully armed itself with nuclear defences already. A similar calculation could be at the root of Iran's escape (so far) from US attack.
The US attack on Iraq cannot in any way be calculated to have served Canada's strategic, or even its long-term economic, interests. The attack has generally heightened tensions around the world and has chased traditionally middle-ground countries like Canada into dominant corners from where communications with others not in one's corner—a necessary ingredient to maintaining the peace—are harder.
The flaunting of international law by the US in that country's attack on Iraq has similarly damaged, perhaps fatally, the reputation and effectiveness of the United Nations, an institution indispensable to the independent diplomatic existence of middle-size countries like Canada. Furthermore, Canada in large measure acquired its stellar standing in the world through the United Nations in this country's contribution to important UN peacekeeping missions, its World Health Organization missions, and similar global educational, prosperity, and development efforts. The American destruction of the UN on its way to war on Iraq removed one of Canada's key public forums in the world.
It is clear that no appeal to reason, strategic considerations, economic arguments, or risk to world peace would have dissuaded the US from its planned war on Iraq in the spring of 2003. It is also clear that that war has been an unmitigated tragedy for Iraqis, an estimated 100,000 of whom lie dead as a direct result. It would have been a better and safer world for everyone, including Canadians, if the US had not attacked Iraq. But the only way the US would have been dissuaded from attacking that country is if Iraq possessed nuclear weapons with which to defend itself. If it had, it would have been subject to the same fate as Iran and North Korea today: instead of being subject to widespread death and destruction, those countries are subject to endless rounds of negotiations. If nuclear proliferation had spread to Iraq in time, we would have had no US war on Iraq today.
The remaining calculation to make is whether a nuclear armed Iraq would have been a worse scenario for the world and for Canada than a completely obliterated Iraq. For this strategic calculation, we need only consider the track record of nuclear armed countries, of which there are now probably eleven, and countries that might have nuclear arms, might have programs to develop them, or have been found in the past to have such programs, of which there are an estimated 19, for a total of 30 countries with nuclear arms programs or the capability and past interest in developing them.
Among that 30, only one has ever actively used nuclear weapons (at a time when the nuclear club numbered just that one member). Very few besides that one are known to have wielded a realistic threat to use them offensively. Furthermore, none so far are known to have pursued the development of smaller, offensive nuclear weapons (except, again, for one—the United States being that one in all cases); all known 30 proven or possible nuclear weapons development programs in the world (except for one) have so far been strictly defensive oriented.
There is no reason to suspect Iraq, when it was actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program in the 1990s, was interested in anything more than its own defence. With nuclear powers China, Russia, America, India, Pakistan, Israel and possibly Saudi Arabia and Iran in its immediate vicinity, all of whom have been, at one time or another, an enemy, it is perfectly understandable that Iraq would consider it expedient to construct its own nuclear defence. Given what has subsequently happened—an attack upon it by a nuclear-armed America, an attack explicitly supported by, or at least not opposed by, all of the other nuclear powers in the neighbourhood—it looks in hindsight that Iraq's mistake was not rushing its nuclear program to completion a lot faster.
Similarly, North Korea, surrounded by nuclear powers or those who are known to have programs to acquire them—Russia, China, America, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan—can be excused for thinking that acquiring nuclear weapons itself might be a judicious way of fending off an attack in the future by any and all of its neighbours who have all at one time or another in the past threatened the country.
North Korea, unlike Iraq, may have completed its nuclear weapons acquisition program before it was attacked, and has therefore (so far) avoided such an attack. The world, and Canada, has as a result been spared the spectre of a US attack on North Korea, an event that would surely have put the world and Canada at grave risk. The same is true, so far, of Iran.
In other words, the speedy acquisition of nuclear arms by North Korea and Iran has contributed positively to whatever geopolitical order and stability exists in the world today. Iraq's failure to acquire nuclear arms fast enough has directly contributed to the disorder and instability in the world.
Insofar as it serves Canada's interest to see the world become more ordered and stable, it may well be in Canada's interests to quietly help North Korea, Iran, and many other at-risk countries to more speedily acquire a nuclear armed defence. It would also serve Canada's interest to do so strictly on the QT.
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