Opaque Nuclear Proliferation: Methodological and Policy Implications by Benjamin Frankel

Author:Benjamin Frankel [Frankel, Benjamin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, General
ISBN: 9780714634180
Google: corlhJZ4-_kC
Goodreads: 3819185
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1991-01-15T11:47:32+00:00

The Continuity of Integration

I have belabored the discussion of these early moment in the nuclear age to make the point that from the very start American non-proliferation diplomacy was closely integrated with its broad national strategy. This point is made in order to illustrate an important continuity in American policy before and after Atoms for Peace, a continuity that is often missed given the change from nuclear exclusion to nuclear cooperation. Roosevelt and Truman bequeathed to Eisenhower a policy precedent in which America’s non-proliferation policy was an instrument in shaping postwar relations with the Soviet Union. Eisenhower would amend, but not break this tradition.

Atoms for Peace has been variously described as a ‘political fantasy’ resting on a sense of guilt over Hiroshima and a naive faith in idealistic gestures,61 an attempt to ‘legitimize the existence of things nuclear’,62 and an almost craven desire to comer the reactor export market for American firms.63 Until recently Atoms for Peace was never even associated with arms control or national security in any positive sense; as late as 1976 Gerard Smith, the chief political advisor to the State Department for the 1955 Atoms for Peace Conference, declared ‘[The Atoms for Peace program] was the classic example of a major decision taken without any consideration for its arms control implications’.64 Yet what recent scholarship shows is that Atoms for Peace was very much an instrument in America’s Soviet policy and first and foremost an arms control initiative.

The pioneer in the historical revisionism on Atoms for Peace is Henry Sokolski.65 Using recently declassified materials Sokolski revealed that the ‘program’s original objective was not just a general start toward reducing stockpiles, but to limit the Soviet military capability to knock out the American industrial base with an aerial nuclear attack’.66 The heart of Eisenhower’s original proposal was the contributions by the US and USSR of fissionable material to an international agency, which could then ensure their distribution to and peaceful use by other countries. As Eisenhower recorded in his diary shortly after the speech, this pooling concept was advanced with the clear recognition that the ‘United States could unquestionably afford to reduce its stockpile by two or three times the amounts that the Russians might contribute to the United Nations agency, and still improve our relative position in the cold war and even in the event of the outbreak of war’.67

Further probing of the historical record reveals that the modifications Eisenhower made in the Roosevelt/Truman legacy of linking non-proliferation to America’s Soviet policy were of a piece with Eisenhower’s other changes in national strategy. Eisenhower’s modifications were twofold: first, the United States would approach the Soviets directly on the matter of controlling atomic energy; and second, any arms control agreement would not be linked to the settlement of political disputes, but only used as a complement to weapons procurement programs. These two modifications grew out of Eisenhower’s efforts to arrive at a new national strategy which more appropriately tailored means to ends and which would come to terms with the shifting nuclear balance predicted in NSC 68.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.