The moralists' indictment of the atomic bombing of Japan implies that nuclear morality since
then has been superior. But in truth it degenerated during the Cold War, leaving no moral high
ground from which to condemn President Truman's decision. Stephen Rosenfeld's "The
Revisionists' Agenda" [op-ed, Aug. 4] defends Truman against the moralists' attack, but he
too fails to confront the moral price of the half-century of nuclear peace that ensued after the
bombing.
The slide into the moral dark ages began with the simple fact that the inherent
destructiveness of nuclear weapons rendered all countries permanently vulnerable to
annihilation and hence permanently insecure. Nations never abandoned the hope of removing
this vulnerability and restoring real security, as illustrated by the endless pursuit of missile
defense.
Moral obfuscation resulted from trying to extricate ourselves from the predicament by
magically transforming this vulnerability into a virtue. We allowed that since our enemies were
just as defenseless against nuclear attack as we, any nuclear aggression on their part was
suicidal. Nations involuntarily entered into a suicide pact. We clung to this theory for want of
an alternative that offered real physical protection against annihilation.
But the theory and the harvest of peace Rosenfeld says we reaped lean on the thinnest of
moral reeds. In threatening each other with apocalyptic retaliation, hundreds of thousands of
military personnel have had to make a solemn and resolute commitment to carry out orders
that would kill tens and probably hundreds of millions of civilians. The nuclear age put them
(and the whole of society that sanctioned this policy) in a dubious moral position whose
justification demanded at minimum a leap of faith in the deterrent effect. The absence of
nuclear war during the past 50 years reinforced that faith: Most shared Rosenfeld's view that
deterrence deserves some credit, however incalculable, for the Cold War peace — but
absolution it was not.
To ease the burden of this moral dilemma, nuclear planners tried to concoct options that
would reduce civilian casualties. But like the vain pursuit of impenetrable defenses against
enemy ballistic missiles, the high-minded pursuit of lowering civilian casualties fell far short.
Most of those called upon to enforce the suicide pact still needed to strike a bargain with their
conscience.
Moral paradox remains a central fact of the nuclear situation. Notwithstanding the official line
that countries no longer aim nuclear weapons at each other, thousands of strategic warheads
stand ready for launch at a moment's notice against their Cold War targets. Every major city,
along with quite a large number of minor ones, in the target countries still has many facilities on
the nuclear hit list. The chains of nuclear command are constantly tested from the top down
to the individual launch commanders, practicing procedures that would result in the annihilation
of those cities half an hour after the issuing of their death sentences.
Before exhausting themselves second-guessing or defending Truman, today's moralists should
reflect on the broad consensus that for more than 50 years has supported a nuclear policy
whose central characteristic, if not its explicit purpose, is that of a mass revenge killing of
people. Whether or not the local holocausts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki qualify as unmitigated
atrocities, the threats and risks of global holocaust still made and still run by the world's
leading powers surely invite repudiation on moral grounds. That many nations are fully
prepared today to inflict devastation on a scale that dwarfs the Japanese destruction also
cannot be glossed over as "wise policy," as Rosenfeld paints it.
The nuclear age diminished not only our security and morality but also our freedom. The
normal democratic process faltered. Secrecy enabled a tiny nuclear priesthood to escape the
democratic scrutiny normally exercised by Congress, the media, the public and even senior
officials of the departments of defense and energy. The chosen few took chances with public
health and safety and took dangerous operational shortcuts — for example, putting thousands
of nuclear weapons on "hair-trigger" alert and delegating nuclear launch authority to persons,
including military commanders, who were outside the legal chain of presidential succession.
Rosenfeld imputes far too much wisdom to the history of nuclear policy.
In the last decade or so, the veil of secrecy slowly rose on many of these matters, and the
democratic process began to better assert itself. But many important decisions continue to be
made under a shroud of excessive secrecy by a small circle of anointed officials.
Today America drifts rudderless on the currents of Cold War inertia, oblivious to the weak
moral underpinnings of its nuclear policy. Whether or not Truman evaded moral principles in
making his wartime decision, we abandoned them for the next 50 years.
The writer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution,* was a Minuteman launch officer in the 1970s.
* In March, 2000, the writer left the Brookings Institution to begin service as President of the Center for Defense Information.
BACK TO THE TOP  NUCLEAR ISSUES CDI ISSUE AREAS CDI HOME
|
