Former UK Navy Commander urges end to nuclear weapons

A surprisingly small network of individuals drove the campaign to abolish slavery. As with nuclear deterrence, slavery’s leading apologists were the power elites of the United States, Britain and France. They argued that slavery was a “necessary evil,” for which there was “no alternative.” They were discredited as charlatans after a few courageous, committed ordinary British, American and French citizens mobilized unstoppable public and political support for their campaign to replace slavery with more humane, lawful and effective ways to create wealth. The analogy holds for nuclear deterrence, which can and must be discarded for more humane, lawful and safer security strategies if civilization and the Earth’s ecosystems are to survive.

Breaking Free From the Nuclear Deterrence Scam, THE HUFFINGTON POST, Robert Green, 28 Feb 2011, As the only ex-British Navy Commander with nuclear weapon experience to have come out against them, I have learned that:

• Nuclear weapons have been exploited as a fetishistic currency of power
• Nuclear weapons did not end World War 2
• Nuclear deterrence has an insoluble credibility problem
• It did not work in Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, Israel or Iraq
• It might not work against a paranoid regime
• It is worse than useless against terrorists
• It stimulates hostility, mistrust and arms racing
• It provokes proliferation
• It creates instability
• It is immoral and implicitly unlawful
• There are safer, more cost-effective, humane and lawful security strategies

Now the nuclear weapon states, admitting that extremists with weapons of mass destruction cannot be deterred, plan pre-emptive nuclear attacks in “anticipatory self-defense” of their “vital interests” — not last-ditch defense of their homeland. Thereby, their unprovable claim that nuclear deterrence averts war is cynically stood on its head.

For all these reasons, I now suspect that nuclear deterrence is an outrageous confidence trick, a scam devised sixty years ago by the US military-industrial complex dominating and distorting American politics and foreign policy for its vested interests – which are gargantuan. Yet all but about 35 states feel more secure without depending on the delusions of nuclear deterrence; so they have seen through the hoax.

A surprisingly small network of individuals drove the campaign to abolish slavery. As with nuclear deterrence, slavery’s leading apologists were the power elites of the United States, Britain and France. They argued that slavery was a “necessary evil,” for which there was “no alternative.” They were discredited as charlatans after a few courageous, committed ordinary British, American and French citizens mobilized unstoppable public and political support for their campaign to replace slavery with more humane, lawful and effective ways to create wealth. The analogy holds for nuclear deterrence, which can and must be discarded for more humane, lawful and safer security strategies if civilization and the Earth’s ecosystems are to survive.

Robert Green: Breaking Free From the Nuclear Deterrence Scam