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Evangelical Voices Against Nukes October 5th, 2009

Even a casual student of American politics must wonder what evangelicals are doing at the vanguard of a new movement toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. After all, the anti-Communism of a previous generation of evangelicals frequently left them opposed to more liberal, mainline brethren in their support for a robust Cold War deterrent.

And yet the Two Futures Project (2FP), a confessional Christian effort for the abolition of nuclear weapons, debuted publicly this year with endorsements from evangelical leaders across the political and theological spectrum.

Fueled primarily by a rising generation of Christians who are unencumbered by Cold War divisions, we have just launched a coast-to-coast speaking tour that will take our message to thousands of Christians at some of the most prominent churches and venues in the country.

A Singular Moral Imperative

The reason that most 2FP supporters get on board is not because they see nuclear disarmament as a stand-alone moral imperative.

Rather, the singular moral imperative concerning nuclear weapons is their non-use. Leaving aside the obscurantist and obsolete nuances of counter-force targeting, nuclear weapons are built to kill lots of people indiscriminately–an action defined as categorically immoral by the Christian Just War framework.

And, in the post-Cold War, post-9/11 era, the elimination of nuclear weapons has become the only policy capable of permanently preventing nuclear conflict.

It wasn’t always this way. During the Cold War, advocates of a robust deterrent and advocates of disarmament could both make a good-faith claim to the moral high ground, because each saw their favored policies as the best way to maintain the nuclear peace.

Today, however, everything has changed. The old ambiguities are gone. We now face only two eventual outcomes: a world without the Bomb or a world devastated by its use.

That’s why Evangelicals are supporting the disarmament agenda.

Tomorrow Needs Us Today

Our present situation owes its moral clarity to the fact that the long-term security benefits of nuclear nonproliferation–preventing the spread of nuclear weapons–are linked by treaty obligation to good faith progress on nuclear disarmament.

If the existing nuclear powers insist on an indefinite two-tier system of nuclear haves and have-nots–preaching plutonium temperance from the atomic barstool–proliferation crises like North Korea and Iran will continue to arise with increasing frequency and severity. Other nations, unwilling to be permanent second-class world citizens, will build the Bomb.

The increased danger of regional nuclear conflict will be bad enough. But worse, as bomb-quality nuclear material spreads, the question of a terrorist group acquiring the Bomb will change from “whether” to “when.” The laws of nuclear deterrence do not apply to a group that cannot be bombed back.

That’s why the weapons that the nuclear powers rely upon for their deterrent value will, eventually, create the very situation in which deterrence is undone.

The alternative–a world free of nuclear weapons–is neither easily nor immediately attainable. But even if we can’t chart a course all the way to zero, working in the right direction will make the world safer in the process. For example, international consensus on the desirability of a nuclear weapons-free world permits a stronger response to the unacceptable threat of a nuclear Iran.

I’ve found that evangelicals readily respond to the vision of a nuclear-free world–and the concrete steps needed to get there–laid out by former Cold Warriors like George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and others, as well as the nonpartisan supermajority of security elite who agree with them. The policies these experts lay out have formed the backbone of the Obama administration’s nuclear vision–a nonpartisan security agenda that should unite Americans across political lines.

Two Futures, One Choice

Often, the language of morality is set in opposition to the language of possibility. Moral imperatives, and religious crazies like me who atavistically believe that a living God put them in place and still cares a great deal about them, establish the horizon against which the “realists” get real work done.

But in the post-Cold War, post-9/11 era, there is a straight line between the theological prohibition against using the Bomb and the only prudential way to achieve this goal.

In other words, a world without nuclear weapons is something we must do for our security. It’s something we can envision, technologically. And it’s something we ought to do in accord with our deepest moral commitments to prevent the loss of innocent life.

Must, can, and ought: a powerful nuclear triad, indeed.

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This op-ed was published in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog in October of 2009.

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Posted in Nuclear Policy, Take Action, Theology |

No Nukes Is Good Nukes September 24th, 2009

To a generation that’s come of age since the Cold War’s end, the news this week from the UN might seem ho-hum: A summit-level meeting of the Security Council unanimously passed a resolution laying the groundwork for a nuclear weapons-free world.

And? The Bomb is so last century.

Except it’s not. With 20,000-plus nuclear weapons worldwide, and nuclear breakout threatening from North Korea to Iran, we’re actually headed toward a 21st century crisis—a “nuclear tipping point,” as Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, puts it.

If we fail to act decisively, we could well see a world with dozens of nuclear-armed nations—and a terrorist group getting a nuclear weapon. If that happens, there will be no way to defend against or help the hundreds of thousands that a terrorist Bomb would kill, nor the resulting financial meltdown that would devastate the global economy and billions of lives.

That’s why what happened at the UN this week was critical—despite the fact that resolutions are just words, and the UN is notoriously non-committal. It means there’s a growing international consensus that global threats require a global response.

And that’s also why it’s necessary for the US to set a course for the long road to a nuclear weapons-free world, and to exercise leadership by bringing the fractious, grumbling “community” of nations with us. (That’s right, France, I’m looking at you.) As President Obama said in his address to the General Assembly, “In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero sum game … No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed.”

A Biblical Perspective on Superpower

In the opening chapter of the biblical book of Habakkuk, God describes how he has roused the Babylonians—the superpower of their day—to judge Israel: “At kings they scoff, 
and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, 
for they pile up earth and take it.” But we are not to confuse God’s use of Babylonian strength with approval of their violent ways: rather, the Babylonians are “guilty men, whose own might is their god!” (Habakkuk 1:10-11, ESV)

The moral of Habakkuk is not that national strength is a bad thing, but that a nation’s capacity to dominate others turns readily into idolatry. If only the Babylonians had known Psalm 33: “The king is not saved by his great army;
 a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
 The war horse is a false hope for salvation,
 and by its great might it cannot rescue.”

Franklin Roosevelt, the American President who built (but didn’t live to use) the first nuclear weapons, remarked that global peace must rest “on the cooperative effort of the whole world.” These words proved prophetic when nuclear weapons gave humankind the technological capacity to wreak on a global scale the destruction and death that has been in our hearts since the Fall. It’s a good thing Cain didn’t have plutonium.

Not Strong Enough to be God

So the question to us, who live in the strongest nation in human history, is what we’re going to do with our superpower status. If you believe God is sovereign over human history, then ipso facto you believe God has allowed the United States to accumulate vast wealth and power. But to interpret this allowance as a blank check for domination is to ignore the all-too-real lesson of the Babylonians: in Habakkuk’s day, they were the greatest nation on earth; today, our military controls Babylon’s contemporary incarnation, Iraq.

In recent years, America has tried what might be called the “great neoconservative experiment,” which attempted the unrestrained projection of American power around the globe. But the resulting plummet in America’s global credibility, compounded by the inability of that strategy to deal with problems like Iran and North Korea—which can’t be bought or bombed into submission—proved the experiment a failure.

The theological truth that neoconservativism’s most die-hard, head-in-the-sand supporters have failed to recognize is that there’s no country strong or rich enough to take God’s place in charge of history. Wouldn’t it be a relief, instead, to stop trying? To use our power responsibly, recognizing that America is but one of the peoples in God’s global household, regarded equally under the divine gaze?

I say this as someone whose love for his country is only exceeded by his love for God and family. I’ve gotten used to the predictable attacks: “utopian,” “idealistic,” unrealistic” and worse. Some say that I need to live in the “real world.” But there is a simple response to this: Does God rule over the “real world” that you live in? And if so, what lesson from Scripture or history makes you believe that God will bless any one nation’s effort to achieve lasting domination?

A Mandate For Action

Let’s be clear: Foreign policy problems have explicitly theological solutions. The proliferation crises in Iran and North Korea, for example, have to be dealt with in the best, most prudential fashion. That’s why the consensus this week at the UN to help lock up nuclear material is so important. And I stand wholeheartedly with fellow conservatives like Johnny Hunt, Richard Land, Chuck Colson, James Merritt and others in their recent public reminder that a nuclear-armed Iran is flatly unacceptable.

Moreover, the world doesn’t rest on our shoulders. Obama, offering what one outlet called “put up or shut up” remarks to the General Assembly, said, “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone.”

But I also hold, without apology or caveat, that those of us in America will succeed in navigating these choppy waters only if we have an overall foreign policy that honors God—for “the war horse is a false hope for salvation.” Because of this, it is incumbent on American Christians to take responsibility for our privilege of citizenship. I hope that you’ll join in taking steps to build a nation that, embracing justice, humility and righteousness as we address global challenges, acts in a way that befits God’s favor.
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This op-ed was published on RELEVANT Magazine’s blog in September of 2009.

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Posted in Theology |

Two Myths About North Korea, Iran, and Disarmament June 17th, 2009

Anyone watching the news over the past couple of months will have noticed a flurry of action from two of the nations in former President Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evil.” North Korea tested a long-range missile on April 5 and a nuclear weapon on May 25, both with mixed results. At least one, and perhaps two of the missile’s three stages failed. And the yield of the warhead appears to have been only a few kilotons.  Meanwhile, Iran erupted in turmoil after accusations of election fraud in favor of its hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a situation that is still unfolding.

This news, most of which is disturbing and destabilizing, has many questioning what is going on, what to do about it, and what it should mean to those who are working for a world free of nuclear weapons. Two myths, in particular, deserve debunking.

Myth #1: There is a military-based solution to the problem

Taken together, North Korea and Iran demonstrate the fatal limitations of counter-proliferation: a strategy that accepts a two-tier system of nuclear haves and have-nots and seeks to prevent nuclear proliferation when it threatens to break out. That is, these two nations prove that we cannot simply bomb our way out of nuclear breakout.

Some, like columnist Bill Kristol, have urged air strikes against North Korea. This advice is spectacularly myopic and insanely dangerous. North Korea has a standing army of 1.2 million, making it the fifth-largest military in the world (in terms of personnel) and the largest per capita (one in five of adult men is in uniform). This force is mere hours from South Korea, where more than 25,000 U.S. troops are stationed. Moreover, it is estimated that North Korean artillery positions could drop half a million shells in the first hour of hostilities on the Southern capital of Seoul, home to more than 20 million people.

Iran also presents itself as a challenging dilemma. A nuclear Iran is unacceptable, given the existential threat it would pose to Israel, and the possibility of its igniting an arms race in the Middle East. But the consequences of unilateral, preemptive air strikes against Iran’s known nuclear facilities—leaving aside the illegality of such action under international law—would be catastrophic.

First, it would be impossible to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability entirely, meaning that in the wake of such action we would face an enemy still capable of acquiring a nuclear weapon, and with bolstered resolve to do so.

Second, an attack on Iran, given the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, would prompt a global backlash of violent opposition from the Muslim world, resulting in a net decrease of global and U.S. national security.

Third, such aggressive action by the West is the only force capable of radicalizing Iran’s progressive, pro-Western youth, who make up the majority of the population (60 percent of Iranians are under the age of 30)—a fact demonstrated by the way in which President Ahmadinejad has used inflammatory rhetoric to bait the West and create the perception of an external enemy, in order to bolster domestic support.

In sum, solving these crises requires a commitment to engaging intractable problems with creativity and constant attention—while resisting the tempting, but ultimately catastrophic, urge to seek a military solution.

Myth #2: North Korea and Iran prove the impossibility of nuclear disarmament

The prospect of complete nuclear disarmament, dismissed as utopian even a few years ago, has emerged as a serious and credible policy goal, with champions like former Cold Warriors such as George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and Henry Kissinger. In a speech on Palm Sunday in Prague, President Obama called “for the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” and this goal is having a demonstrable effect on American nuclear policy.

Critics of this promising development point to Iran and North Korea as examples of why they believe a world free of nuclear weapons to be impossible.  Such criticism is profoundly misguided, for two reasons.

First, even supporters of disarmament recognize that the goal will be long and hard-fought. No long-term goal can be evaluated in terms of viability by immediate-term results. Every ambitious aim in human history has appeared, in its infancy, to be impossible. With audacious goals, the difference between impossibility and inevitability has always been perseverance.

Second, to cite North Korea and Iran as examples of the impossibility of disarmament is to ignore the way in which these two crises are products of their environment. In our present context, nuclear weapons are the exclusive possession of global powers—so we can hardly be surprised that other nations will want them.

When we assume that nuclear weapons are going to be around forever, it is inevitable that lesser powers will seek them to bolster their status and influence. Then, when nuclear powers respond disapprovingly, it sounds like preaching temperance from the atomic barstool.

But nuclear weapons are not particularly useful militarily; if they were, they would have been used in the more than half-century since WWII. Rather, they are status symbols—and yet other weapons of mass destruction, like bio or chemical weapons, are not. No nation seeks to achieve global legitimacy by acquiring, for example, the bubonic plague.

The status conferred by nuclear weapons, however, is a mutable condition, dependent upon common agreement—in other words, it doesn’t have to be this way. This is why recent statements affirming a world free of nuclear weapons, by Presidents Obama and Medvedev (who lead countries that together possess 95 percent of all nuclear weapons on the planet) are so important.

As we move closer and closer to international agreement that weapons of mass destruction have no place in the family of nations, and represent a threat to all of us, then breakout nations like Iran and North Korea cease to be countries striving for legitimacy—they instead become threats to global peace and stability.

This context matters, as demonstrated by the increasingly desperate rhetoric coming from Iran in response to the recently renewed American commitment to multilateral disarmament.

Conclusion

The takeaway is this: If we continue on a course where nuclear weapons are the unique possession of elite nations, then intractable breakout crises like Iran and North Korea are inevitable. A commitment to global disarmament will not solve our current crises; they cannot be wished away, and must be dealt with prudentially, using ongoing, creative, and open-ended methods.  But the pursuit of a world free of nuclear weapons will greatly enhance our credibility in dealing with such crises in the immediate term, while simultaneously helping to create a global climate that is far less conducive to nuclear breakout.

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This op-ed was published on Sojourners God’s Politics blog in June of 2009.

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Posted in Nuclear Policy |