Not Worth the Paper (1998)

From the September 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Various treaties exist concerning different types of weapons of mass destruction but all of them contain escape clauses and ambiguous formulations that facilitate routine violations

According to newspaper reports, a number of geologists have suggested that the recent nuclear explosions in India and Pakistan may have triggered an earthquake in northern Afghanistan. Whether or not this is the case, many people are likely to have suffered residual damage from the global wave of hypocritical vibrations which rapidly followed. Unquestionably the decision by the rulers of two such economically troubled countries to engage in a futile and costly nuclear rivalry should be regarded as insanely foolish. Nevertheless, such folly is hardly likely to be constrained by moralising lectures from the very governments who were content to make huge profits supplying the nuclear materials and technologies in the first place. Especially when those same governments continue to pursue their own strategic programmes with single-minded zeal, the US military alone admitting to no less than 1030 tests. Classified documents yet to be released are expected to reveal that there were more.

The posture currently adopted by the senior members of the nuclear club as concerned guardians of the environment, although unconvincing, is perfectly consistent given the demented system of logic they embrace. Not one of them signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty until their own experiments were satisfactorily concluded and greater technical expertise, together with improved computer simulation, rendered further testing unnecessary. At the same time they have all promised under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty to strive in “good faith” to halt the nuclear arms race and work towards nuclear and general disarmament. It is a promise that is being cynically betrayed.

One of the few remaining jobs for life in capitalist society is that of disarmament negotiator—an occupation demanding the analytical brain of chess grandmaster combined with the duplicity of a card-sharp. Since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 (making the world safer for penguins) a further nineteen have been drafted dealing specifically with nuclear weapons, as well as others concerning chemical, biological, conventional, environmental and—er—“inhumane” weapons. Some are still to be signed or ratified but all of them incorporate escape clauses and sentences sufficiently ambiguous to admit interpretations facilitating routine violations. In any event, should even the most binding agreement become inconvenient, it would simply be ignored. As Richard Perle US Defense Secretary at the time of the Star Wars (SDI) hysteria wrote on 8 October 1982 with reference to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty ” . . . we would not hesitate to renegotiate and failing Soviet acquiescence . . . I hope we would abrogate the treaty”. The examples that follow typify the sort of trickery employed.

Outer space treaty 1967

Article IV decrees: “States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in Orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.”

At first sight this seems quite unequivocal but if it were it would never have been sanctioned. During the lengthy discussions prior to signing, a memo to the American Secretary of Defense from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (23 November 1965) stipulated: ” . . . the provisions of this treaty should not preclude the conduct of intelligence activities deemed essential to security.” Nor does it! Significantly the agreement fails to prohibit the launching of nuclear reactor powered satellites and, consequently, there are dozens of nuclear reactors orbiting the globe. Should their deep space disposal boosters malfunction then highly radioactive debris would fall to earth, adding to that already deposited from earlier mishaps in space.

To a disarmament negotiator words seldom mean what they appear to say and Article IV of the OST is no exception. One contention is that it only excludes nuclear weapons if they are intended for mass destruction and would not apply to any positioned in space to intercept missile attacks. This kind of sophistry merely fuels the suspicion that the reality was accurately encapsulated in the famous declaration by Senator Barry Goldwater: “Space is just another place where wars will be fought.” A view that is widely echoed (though not publicly endorsed) by policy makers in the Pentagon. In 1976 a convention was established that required any object being fired into space to be registered by the United Nations. Curiously, it does not demand an independent examination to verify the nature and objective of satellites-an omission that could be construed as ominous.

Non-proliferation treaty 1968

Since coming into force in 1970 (extended indefinitely in 1995) this treaty has been signed by all but five states-India, Pakistan, Israel, Brazil and Cuba-and is widely regarded as the most successful of modern times. But the promise of the nuclear signatories to work for disarmament and not to supply, or assist others to obtain, nuclear weapons has manifestly been broken. The arms race continues and the capacity for other powers to make nuclear weapons has markedly increased. Indeed, after the Gulf War ended in 1991 it was discovered that they were about to be built in Iraq despite the pledge of that government not to do so under the terms of the NPT.

Because of the comparative ease in evading the existing monitoring mechanisms of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a provision was added to the NPT in 1997 granting wider powers of inspection and control. Unfortunately it is only obligatory for the members who voluntarily accept it which, so far, is only a small minority. Yet 60 countries now have nuclear reactors and if the rulers of any one of them decided they needed a nuclear bomb, the NPT could not stop them getting it. Most conveniently, under Article X each party has the right to withdraw at three months notice “. . . if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this treaty have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country”. In certain circumstances, of course, the notice given might be a little less!

Sea bed treaty 1971

This treaty bans nuclear weapons from being fixed to the seabed beyond a twelve mile coastal limit. Its inadequacy becomes immediately obvious if you imagine a similar restriction being applied to aircraft on runways. Unhindered by the treaty an unceasing high-tech war is being waged at sea. In the attempt to counteract the threat of nuclear submarines the oceans has been transformed into a gigantic listening station, with underwater sensors fixed to the seabed, others suspended at different levels up to the surface and still more towed by ships. Smart mines with in-built computers are able to distinguish between the different sounds made by various vessels, while hunter-killer submarines-with their own delicate sensors-patrol in silence, armed with nuclear rockets (SUBROCS) and torpedoes. But whatever expensive or extravagant countermeasures are devised (including the deployment of specially trained dolphins) they can do little to diminish the awesome threat posed by submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The Trident carrying boats, for instance, are almost 200 metres long and can remain submerged deep below the surface for several months. Each one can deliver nearly 200 warheads with a range of thousands of kilometres and costs in excess of a 100 billion dollars. Trident missiles, already capable of devastation on an unprecedented scale, are currently being updated to make them more efficient. At any given time there are almost two thousand warheads at sea, the majority of them under US command.

Not surprisingly there is a chilling legacy from all this activity. Over three thousand naval accidents have occurred during the nuclear age, leaving eleven nuclear reactors and at least fifty nuclear warheads on the ocean floor. Since they are not “fixed” however, they do not contravene the SBT.

Chemical weapons convention 1993

This Convention which came into force in 1997, requires the destruction of all chemical weapons stockpiles within 10 to 15 years. Although the failure to dispose of old stocks is highly dangerous, the programme is already well behind schedule and despite the considerable powers granted to inspectors under the CWC cheating about production is still possible. One obvious reason is that so many of the chemicals produced for quite different purposes can be used in combination to make weapons. The stockpiles of chemical weapons held in America and Russia are at least 30 thousand tonnes each and both of these governments have authorised the use of chemicals in war and in experiments on civilians.

When a stockpile of nerve-bombs was destroyed by the US in the 1970s they kept the “remnants” in case the “Russians had some” (they did). These “remnants” were theoretically capable of killing 140 billion people. Johnston Island in the South Pacific, previously the target for nuclear test explosions, houses a vast incinerator complex for the disposal of enough chemical waste to kill most of the inhabitants of Earth.

Biological and toxins weapons convention 1972

Signatories agree not to develop, stockpile or acquire “microbial or other biological agents or toxins . . that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes” or “weapons . . . designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict”.

Once again the wordsmiths have displayed their special skill. Here the key phrases are “other peaceful purposes” and “hostile purposes”, leading to repeated claims by Western and Russian governments that they are only producing “antidotes” in their laboratories which is permitted by the Convention. The legitimate use of toxic microbes in the production of vaccines only compounds the difficulties of the highly complex mechanisms for verification, making deception even easier than it is with chemicals. Many governments, including those of Britain, America and Russia are known to have authorised the use of biological agents in war and in experiments upon civilians.

The important thing to remember about treaties is that no government is forced to sign them and, if they do, they cannot be made to keep them. One thing is for sure: for as long as we live in a system in which the protection of minority economic interests is paramount the arms race will continue. Even if the nuclear powers had a genuine desire for disarmament, which they don’t, the cost of disposing of the massive, highly toxic arsenal (100s of billions of dollars) remains. The very size of these arsenals creates another problem-the decommissioning of nuclear reactors will take hundreds of years. The automatic response has been to attempt to solve the problem as cheaply as possible, with scant regard for the environment or the safety of those who inhabit it. Even the penguins are not really safe since the Antarctic treaty does not forbid the presence of “peaceful” nuclear reactors.

While defence expenditure by the major military powers is declining-dramatically in Russia and by over 5 percent annually in the US-weapons research, refinement and development continues to expand. For some projects in the US funds have actually been increased and the current defence budget of the US is still a staggering $242.6 billion. The projection of the present administration is that it will begin to rise again after 2001.

One of the justifications for this is GPALS (Gee, Pals, we can still make a buck or two)-Global Protection Against Limited Strikes. Even if the Start II reduction program is completed on schedule (2003) which is highly improbable, each side would still be entitled to keep 3500 deployed nuclear warheads and the only ones likely to be discarded are those it is no longer considered necessary to keep.

Meanwhile, secret military budgets continue to finance research into a new generation of weapons. Already a huge and fast expanding military-cybernetic complex has been established and experiments of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) as a weapon continue unabated. EMR signals which cause neurological alteration and can induce sickness or death are known to have been beamed upon civilians in both Russia and America. Some scientists believe that transmitting these highly powerful waves may not only cause earthquakes but “airquakes” as well . . .

Richard Headicar

CND at 30 (1988)

From the May 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

For their own sakes it is to be hoped that the marchers on CND's 30th anniversary trek this Easter did not think they had any reason for celebration. They were repeatedly urged not to be nostalgic, for as Pat Arrowsmith, who was on the first march in 1958 and has been on unnumbered protests since, put it. "The issues are still alive and the young people here today are fighting an even harder battle than the one we began 30 years ago". Wait a minute: issues still alive, after 30 years? Harder battles than ever? CND was formed, and launched its protests, on the theory that huge public demonstrations were the quickest and most effective method of persuading the government to get rid of nuclear weapons. This was, in 1958, an urgent matter, to be dealt with before we could turn our attention to any basic changes in society. If something was not done quickly things would get a lot worse; why, there could be submarines cruising the oceans capable of firing nuclear missiles while still submerged; or missiles which could slip through radar screens by a low-level flight to their target; or a galactic nuclear conflict as the super-powers strove to disable each other's missiles out in space.

Early optimism

Since 1958 we have had four changes of government and numerous CND marches. The governments have been unmoved; the situation has got worse. Not only have the disowners failed to remove the problem quickly but what effect they have had — or can now hope to have — can be assessed by the fact that they still feel a compelling reason to protest and that another of their veteran campaigners can say, in 1988:

 But although we know atomic weapons will never disappear, it is clear that their development is being intensified against all political claims of disarmament. (Liz Baker, Observer, 3 April)

In spite of that rueful admission that CND never had a hope of persuading the government to change its mind and, whatever the other powers did, throw away its nuclear weapons, it is true that the early CND marches encouraged a measure of optimism. In June 1960, after observing the march that year, a contributor to the Socialist Standard could write:

  Yet there is some comfort in this march. After the barren years of the delinquents, large numbers of people seem to be getting active in a movement of protest against a social problem.

That was a reaction, not so much to the promise of CND as to the frustration of confronting years of complacency among a working-class who seemed popularly to agree with Harold Macmillan that they had never had it so good. Especially galling was the fact that this cynicism was so apparent in young people, who excused it with the assertion that social problems were peculiar to, and the fault of, an earlier generation. CND was significant for puncturing that complacency and. by focussing the unease about nuclear destruction, encouraging young people to question what capitalist society was all about. A few youngsters even got the answer right, left CND and joined the movement for a socialist revolution. Many of the rest could not surmount the reformist obstacle of a preference for massaging symptoms rather than excising their cause.

Changing tactics

But misplaced enthusiasm can breed only confusion and CND was quickly blundering from one desperate expedient to another. There was a heavily publicised split over the emergence of the Committee of 100, much of whose appeal was that they had attracted Bertrand Russell to their ranks. Surely, someone who could write all those clever books on philosophy couldn't be wrong about the way to get rid of nuclear arms? The Committee's argument was that the government would take little account of orderly marches and rallies; what was needed to make them sit up and take notice was a lot of people sitting down in the middle of the road. The resultant disruption and publicity would soon bring the government to its knees, willing to throw away its nuclear armoury rather than subject the motorists of London to another moment's delay in a traffic jam. What actually happened was that the police were sent in to lug the demonstrators out of the way and to arrest those of them who particularly did not want to be removed. Meanwhile. far away from the scene of it all, the production of nuclear weapons continued its uncongested way.

Since then CND has changed its line often enough to satisfy the most erratic of reformist tacticians. At one time it was into direct action, by which it meant diverting a few of the more athletic demonstrators into attempts to storm Regional Seats of Government. If CND expected a great howl of outrage at their revealing the existence of these places they were badly mistaken; a more likely response from the working class was one of gratitude, that the government should so thoughtfully provide somewhere for what was left of British capitalism to be administered after the nuclear holocaust. There was another spell, when CND seemed likely to cease being a single-issue movement and join itself to the long list of organisations which campaign, day in and day out. about wages, housing, poverty, health and the rest. It has tried high-profile leaders like Joan Ruddock and Bruce Kent and low profile, like the present. One tactic it has not considered: a campaign against class society as the cause of war and all weapons, nuclear and conventional.

Courting Labour’s leaders

Much of CND's energy — its enthusiasm and its despair — has gone into its long battle to win over the Labour Party. To some extent this was understandable, since so many Labour leaders have been keen to be associated with them. The most prominent of these, Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock, have been at the head of many a march, and Foot told the rally at the start of this year's march:

  I came to the march in 1958 with a different dog but with the same wife. This march is a sign that the campaign will go on until nuclear weapons are wiped off the face of the galaxy. It has nothing to do with nostalgia.

A strong, ambitious way of imparting the same message of failure as Pat Arrowsmith and Liz Baker. But there is one very important difference. Not so long ago Foot, as Labour leader, was bidding to become prime minister, to lead a government whose party had in theory committed it to unilaterally getting rid of British nuclear weapons. How strong, how ambitious was he then? Well, at Labour's 1982 conference he was arguing for multilateral nuclear disarmament — for all the nuclear powers doing it at the same time — which was a long way from CND policy. Foot's words then might just as easily have been in the mouth of Reagan or Gorbachev or of any Tory claimant to a policy of peace and disarmanent:

  The greatest task which this Labour Party will have to take (sic) is to carry out our policy for securing nuclear disarmament in this country, and throughout the world.

During the 1983 general election, pushed into a comer by Tory propaganda that a Labour government would eagerly abolish the military power of British capitalism — a myth which won the Tories a lot of misinformed votes — Foot firmly pledged a "strong defence (his word for it) for Britain and Britain's allies" and a continuing adherence to the nuclear armed, American dominated, power bloc of NATO. Asked about Labour's commitment not to abolish British nuclear arms but only to get rid of one kind of them the Polaris missile — Foot was clumsily evasive: "Read the statement carefully and read the manifesto carefully and clarity will descend on all quarters".

CND’s “successes”

What did not descend on all quarters was the assurance that a Labour government would be be less resolved to keep a British bomb than would a Tory one. Foot was trying to juggle with his misled party activists on one hand and the voting British working class on the other. The activists were of course let fall. By 1983, with Kinnock in the leadership, the confusion was less; Labour's election manifesto was quite clear that a Labour government would keep the bomb while trying to start negotiations to remove some of the weapons from Europe as a step, they argued, towards them being abolished together, all over the world — much the same as the recent deal between Russia and America over the INF missiles.

Which brings us to what CND claims to have been its successes. The "success" of the 1963 Test Ban Treaty can be gauged against the subsequent developments in nuclear warheads and delivery systems, not to mention the increase in the number of weapons in the world since then. It is a strange sort of remedy, which is followed by the complaint getting worse. Last year's INF treaty should remove some of the less powerful weapons from some places but it was followed by the nuclear powers scrambling to plug the gaps which the treaty opened in their armouries. It is a peculiar type of success, which looks likely to leave us worse off — more threatened, less secure — than before. In any case CND had mixed feelings about each of these "successes", fearing to make too much of them in case they convinced too many people that the cause of nuclear disarmament had won the day and need not be supported any longer.

Foreseeable failure

In human beings the age of 30 is seen as an important threshold, when workers have a rough idea of how the rest of their lives will be spent — what type of exploitation they will get their living at, how long they will be chained to their mortgage, what they feel about the people they have agreed to spend the rest of their lives with. Personal horizons, over which we disappear when we die, can be described, albeit a long way off. Failures, mistakes and prospects can be evenly assessed. CND at thirty might try the same exercise, asking themselves why all that well-intentioned energy has been so sadly misplaced. Is their fear of nostalgia more a morbid suspicion that their failure must extend into the foreseeable future?

Ivan

Putin raises nuclear stakes (2000)

From the February 2000 of the Socialist Standard 

In December’s Socialist Standard, we commented on the decision by the US Senate not to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the promise by the more hawkish Republicans to scupper the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which outlawed “Star Wars” defence programmes, and suggested that such steps, at the dawn of a new millennium dampened any hopes the more optimistic workers held for the 21st century.

We did not have to wait long for further confirmation of the troubled century that awaits us. Two weeks into the new millennium, the Guardian reported on Moscow’s newly published security strategy doctrine which aims to raise the nuclear stakes by lowering the threshold at which Russia can resort to the use of nuclear weapons:

“Mr Yeltsin’s strategy, decreed in December 1997, declared that nuclear weapons could only be used ‘in the case of a threat to the very existence of the Russian Federation as a sovereign state’. The new document states that the use of nuclear weapons is necessary ‘to repel armed aggression if all other means of resolving a crisis situation have been exhausted or turn out to be ineffective’ “(14 January).

At the peak of the Cold War, the former Soviet Union had a force of 5 million under arms and was an acknowledged superpower. Since 1989, it has seen its armed forces shrink to almost a fifth of that number and has suffered humiliation after humiliation—the withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 and the first botched war in Chechnya, for instance. As well as morale in the armed forces being low, their combat readiness, according to Putin himself, is in a critical condition, with training and maintenance reported as being grossly inadequate. While a contingent of 300 Russian soldiers serving in Kosovo as part of the peace keeping force have been returned home because of alleged drunkenness, drug-taking and a general inadequateness, the higher ranks are becoming notorious for their infighting, with the defence minister constantly arguing with his generals.

With the above in mind, one can well see the method in Putin’s madness. He has after all the job of protecting the interests of Russia’s capitalist elite with faulty tools. Moreover, he is faced with the stark realisation that he exists in a unipolar world increasingly dominated by the US. Putin’s attempt to make the world once again bipolar can also be seen a response to NATO’s New Strategic Concept which, like Putin’s proposals in his 21 page document, suggests the early recourse to the use of nuclear weapons.

That the world’s leaders are still prepared to carry their nuclear logic into another century, that they are continually prepared to wipe out millions of their fellow humans to further the interests of a minority at the end of a century that witnessed the deaths of 220 million in conflict, should shatter any illusions we have that this century will proceed on a different course to the one we have stepped out of. While we contemplate the wars, the conflicts and the horrors our masters have in store for us this coming century, it is also important to remember that we as a class hold the power to prevent the same from coming about.

We are not ruled by force or coercion, but by consent. The Putins and Clintons of this world can only do the things they do because we vote them in, thus legitimising their actions, however detrimental they may be to our interests. War and conflict and all the terrors we dare to imagine only come to pass because we refuse to join together as a class to express our class interests. Once we recognise that as a class we have shared basic needs and desires, suffering the same privations because of our less privileged position in the relations of production, and unite in defiance of that minority intent on maintaining the status quo and its nuclear insanity, we need never fear the horror of war again.

While you muse on the aforementioned, remember the argument is not that complicated. This is your world as much as anybody’s and requires your active involvement to protect it. Are you for socialism or against it? Don’t take too long to make up your mind—we may not have that much time.

John Bissett

US Senate’s Millennium Gesture (1999)

From the December 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

In mid-October, the executive of US capitalism made a timely gesture to the people of the world. With the 20th century drawing to a close, when people the world over are preparing to celebrate the dawn of a new millennium and all the “hope” it entails, the US Senate voted not to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, thus consigning an intrinsic defence against the proliferation of nuclear weapons—the greatest threat to world peace—to the dustbin of history.

Since negotiations were completed in 1996, some 150 countries have signed up to the CTBT. Twenty-six of the world’s 44 nuclear capable countries have refused to sign, including India, Pakistan and North Korea. The chance now is that, the US apart¸ the remaining 17 hold-out countries will follow the US example with the world witnessing a new orgy of nuclear proliferation, forcing other states to rethink their position in the new world pecking order.

Celebrating the vote in the US Senate, Republican hawks, led by George Bush junior, son of the former President Bush, announced their intention to scupper the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which outlawed “Star Wars” missile systems that were capable of shooting down an enemy’s warheads.

The anticipated Russian response came at the end of October with Moscow warning that if the ABM treaty was amended by the US, it would be forced to deploy more nuclear weapons with more warheads and capable of overwhelming any US anti-ballistic missile system.

Russian Defence Minister, Nikolai Mikalov calculated that it would be easier and far cheaper for Russia to deploy a greater number of nuclear weapons than for the US to build the necessary defences against them. Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, at the same time announced plans to massively increase military spending next year by 57 percent to £4 billion, to counter the rising internal and external threats.

Suddenly, the 21st century doesn’t seem all that inviting. The recent Senate vote hovers above it like a black pregnostic cloud, warning us that the US, as in the preceding century, will strut the globe with all the arrogance of the schoolyard bully.

Indeed, we are entering the 21st century with a US ruling elite promising the same contempt for human rights, peace and stability as we have grown used to in the past 50 or more years. The US refused to ratify the land mines treaty and have now refused to ratify the CTBT and promised to bury the ABM treaty. Just as they declined targets aimed at reducing toxic emissions at two Earth Summits, they openly boasted of destroying any attempts to set up an International Criminal Court.

At the United Nations, the US has consistently voted (almost always alone) against measures aimed at promoting goodwill and prosperity, i.e. against negotiations on the prohibition of biological and chemical weapons (9 December 1991. For 109, against 1); against protection from products harmful to health and the environment (17 December 1982. For 146, against 1); against proper nourishment being a human right (16 December 1983. For 132, against 1). The list of such US-scuppered votes at the UN is endless.

Since 1945 the US has spent 18 trillion dollars on defence, bombing four continents and overtly or covertly orchestrating and helping out in 300 conflicts, whilst supporting every dictator you can think of.

So long as there is a global capitalist system there will be a profit-crazed US elite prepared to go to any lengths to ensure the 21st century is another “American Century”. The end of the 20 century is, therefore, not a time for complacency and celebration, but of increased vigilance for the class conscious. The US may be the most visible villain of world peace, but where markets are to be monopolised, trade routes secured and mineral wealth coveted, the executive of any nation’s capitalist class is to be mistrusted. And so we, the workers, take our battle against exploitation into another century, determined this will be the last in which one class exploits another. We have witnessed a century of complacency and its consequences as it draws to an end—800 million dying of starvation, 600 million homeless, 1.1 billion unemployed and 220 million lost in wars. It is up to us, the workers of the world, to make sure the next century is ours.

John Bissett

Behind the Test Ban Treaty (1963)

From the September 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

One swallow, said Lord Home, does not make a summer, but without any swallows there will be no summer (or words to that effect). He was talking, of course, about the Test Ban Treaty which was signed last month amid so much flourish and back-slapping in Moscow.

Lord Home was not the only statesman to offer a somewhat muted welcome for the Treaty. On the other side, there were plenty of commentators to assure us that this was something to sing about, and that the agreement was a step towards a better, safer, more peaceful world.

Now we have heard this song before and we have come to accept it for what it is worth. So it is fair to ask one or two questions about this latest venture into the field of agreements which are supposed to be going to make the world a fit place for humans to live in.

The first thing about the Treaty to give us a qualm is the suspicious ease with which it was discussed and signed. Talks on banning bomb tests have been going on for years, each one getting bogged down in apparently futile arguments over the details of administering a ban. Only a simple soul, of course, could have believed that these were genuine difficulties. The reason for the succession of breakdowns was that the talks were not serious. No nuclear power has ever really intended to give up the right to test its weapons.

Then suddenly, in contrast to the years of shilly-shallying, the new talks opened and the diplomats went willingly to Moscow (no bargaining, for a change, over where the talks were to be held) all in the assumption that this time they would bring it off. And they did. The experts at dipping their pens in the ink without signing, as Moscow radio called them, all at once made their marks on the paper and the deed was done. Why the sudden change of heart?

We can gorge ourselves on any amount of speculation. A popular theory was that the great powers gave themselves an awful fright over Cuba and that, stricken by a ruinous vision of the consequences of what might have been last October, they will now go to any lengths rather than to the brink again. This theory fits in with the widespread conception of international politicians as men who can apply everyday, humane standards of judgment to their work.

But the obvious question here is, why did they not apply these standards before Cuba? That affair was, after all, something of a calculated gamble by the Soviet Union. Is it possible that last year's belligerent Mr. Khrushchev, the man who only a few months ago secreted nuclear rockets onto the United State's doorstep, can change into this year's paragon of peace and virtue? This is the sort of unanswerable question which the theory about the influence of peaceful or bellicose leaders has to satisfy.

Another explanation for the Treaty was that the nuclear powers are finding the cost of their weapons too high and now think it sensible to call a halt. There is some evidence to support this point of view. Hydrogen bombs are expensive and so is the associated hardware—the rockets and the guiding systems and the race for space—which is so essential a part of them. Probably even more expensive—and this is something which the last series of big American and Russian tests may have uncovered — is the chain of anti-missile defences which must be almost the next step in the nuclear arms race.

Perhaps, then, the nuclear powers need a breathing space to sort out the delivery problems, so that they can develop a production method for missiles as smooth and as cheap as that for conventional bombers. The big fault with this argument is that it ignores the fact that, if the interests of a capitalist power demand it, that power will produce its weapons regardless of the cost. In the last war, this country was spending £14 million each day on the war effort. For a long time the British capitalist class have had their doubts about the economy of keeping up their own nuclear weaponry. Yet they have kept it up. Armaments do not provide the best ground for a logical, orderly assessment of priorities.

And when we have considered all these arguments—and perhaps given them their due—we are still left with our original question.

Why the sudden change of heart?

One of the most striking—and potentially the most frightening-aspects of the Treaty is that it divides the world into those countries which have the Bomb and those which, with the exception of France, have not got it. (There will now probably be pressure upon de Gaulle—perhaps an American promise of nuclear know-how—to get him into the new alliance.)

What is more, the nuclear powers are now sworn to try to prevent the spread of the weapons; in other words, to maintain their own supremacy. This is what de Gaulle meant when he referred to the " . . . terrible threat which the nuclear armaments of the two rivals hold over the world and, above all, over the peoples that have not got them.” And it is what the chairman of the China Peace Committee meant when he promised a Chinese nuclear bomb in these words:

It will not be long now before the attempt to control the destiny of peoples made by a small number of countries with their monopoly of nuclear weapons will be thwarted.

It is when we consider that the breach between Moscow and Peking, which has been opening up for the past few years, has now burst wide open that the Test Ban Treaty takes on what could be its true significance. The breakdown of the recent talks between the Russian and the Chinese leaders could indicate that recent Russian policy towards China is openly a failure and that henceforth the clashing economic and strategic interests of these two countries can no longer be papered over by a mutual hostility towards the USA. This in turn would mean that the Russian government will be as anxious as any other to stop the Chinese having the Bomb— or that, if they have got it, to deter them from flaunting it by a massive display of nuclear counter-strength.

If this is so, we may be sure that the effect of the Treaty will be to make the nuclear have-nots intensify their efforts to get the Bomb. From this it may follow that the nuclear haves will try to do a deal, as we have seen they may try with France, to restrict or to control the spread of nuclear knowledge. Or, perhaps, on this issue, they will find themselves fighting a war.

Are we, then, witnessing a new alignment in the disputes and the opposing forces of world capitalism? Do we stand now at the threshold of another great division? Said The Economist on August 3rd:

Moscow’s split with Peking . . .  may perhaps stand out bold and clear as an event that forced us to . . .  think up a fresh set of rules of action to face a new outlook in world politics.

Which would be nothing new. It is the basic nature of capitalism which causes modern war and so gives rise to the weapons with which wars are fought. This same basic nature throws up a mass of complex interests and counter interests which at one time coincide and at another clash. Capitalism's allies are never, can never, be permanent. Its treaties and agreements can never be worth more than the paper they are written on.

The Moscow agreement is not excluded from this. It has the customary gaping loophole through which, on a plea of “national interests,” any of its signatories can forget that they ever signed it. It excludes the currently awkward powers—China and France—and this is no coincidence because the present interests of these countries put them outside the Treaty. No pact, after all, has ever been able to get over the conflicting interests of capitalism’s disputing nations.

None of this, as we might have guessed, prevented the politicians from taking credit for the Treaty. With the ink on the signatures hardly dry, they were anxiously identifying themselves with the Test Ban and pointing out what clever, humane men they are to stop doing something which, by any humane reasoning, they should never have started. They told us how good it is for us, now that the tests have stopped. When Lord Home could take time off from musing on the swallows he said:

Don’t let us run away with the idea that this test ban, if it is signed by the United States, Russia, and ourselves, is of no value. It stops fall-out, which greatly concerns the medical profession and every parent in every western country.

We may be sure that Lord Home has not forgotten that he is a member of a government which, as long as they wanted to test their bomb, blandly assured us that the danger from fall-out was negligible. A government which told us that the best medical brains were on their side in this matter and that only a morbid, hypochondriacal parent would worry about fall-out. Do the facts change, now that a treaty has been signed? Is Strontium-90 dangerous, after all? Did all those children really die of leukaemia?

The cynicism of capitalism is one of its worst features. Yet cynicism is the quality—if that is the right word—which the politicians and the diplomats must develop if they are to run the system. They must all learn to sign on the dotted line with their tongues in their cheeks and a ready smile for the cameramen. And how much, do you think, does that make their signature worth?

And will the Test Ban Treaty, do you think, really work? 

The fact is that it is very much on the cards that the nuclear powers will one day start their tests again. And if the Moscow Treaty does go into the waste paper basket it will find itself nestling alongside any number of equally ballyhooed predecessors.

Ivan

The Test Ban Treaty (1963)

Editorial from the September 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over the recently signed Test Ban Treaty there hangs a massive, inevitable question. Elsewhere in this issue of the Socialist Standard we discuss some of the implications of the Treaty and the possible reasons for it. Briefly, the big nuclear powers have come to an agreement to stop atmospheric testing because of a recent shift in the balance of power in the world.

The Soviet Union, which has tried for so long to control the potential might of China, has now apparently given up and in some ways has thrown in its lot with the Western bloc. China must now step up its efforts to master the secrets of nuclear weapons which the Soviet Union has refused to give them.

If the present situation develops much further we may see a massively powerful, nuclear armed China on the one hand, gathering as many allies among the new Eastern and African states as it can, and on the other—almost the whole of the rest of the world. By no means is this an attractive prospect.

The result of the Test Ban Treaty can only be, then, another big power line-up in the world and a continuation of the old, ruthless struggle. The only difference will be that the sides will have changed and perhaps the areas of dispute. The basic conflict of capitalist interest will remain unaltered. For the majority of people in the world—for the working class—this will bring further insecurity, further tension, perhaps in the end the unimaginable terror of a mighty conflagration.

And the question is: What will they do about it? The Test Bun Treaty is typical of all the pacts and agreements which capitalist powers make between themselves. All these pacts, at best, only shuffle the cards into different, no less menacing combinations. This does not, of course, prevent the politicians presenting each treaty as a step towards peace, as a cause for rejoicing among the working class.

And the big question is: Will the working class believe them? Will they reflect upon the history of all the treaties 'which have been solemnly and ceremoniously signed only to be broken when the very time came for them to be kept? Upon the many pacts of non-aggression which have preceded the signatories making war upon each other? Upon the fruitless discussions which have taken place with none of the participants seriously intending to settle anything?

Will the working class take the trouble to think into the facts about the big power divisions in the world? Will they ask themselves why the powers' interests are opposed, so often and so frighteningly? Why, indeed, there are powers, separate nations big and small? These are the sort of questions which the Test Ban Treaty should bring to mind, once again.

Capitalism is now a futile social system. It cannot unite the human race — it can only divide it catastrophically. It cannot serve human interests; it can only deny and damage them. It cannot solve its problems, such as war, but only continue to produce them in one form or another.

The only way out of this insane maze is to get rid of capitalism and replace it with Socialism. Will the working class realise this? Before the desperate conflicts of capitalism make it, for many of them, too late?