In a speech long overdue by a United States (US) president and one which has delighted disarmament advocates, Barack Obama has committed his country to leading a thrust toward a nuclear-free world, almost 65 years after American nuclear weapons were developed.

Speaking in Prague last week (in spring, which is of historical significance), Obama said: "The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War. To achieve a global ban on nuclear testing, my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue US ratification of the comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). So after more than five decades of talks, it is time for the testing of nuclear weapons to finally be banned."

With that commitment, the US president dealt another blow to the Bush legacy of contempt for multilateralism. Bush had refused to ratify the CTBT (signed by Bill Clinton in 1996) and he withdrew the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Noteworthy is the fact that Obama re-committed himself to nuclear disarmament despite the provocation of North Korea which on that same morning of his speech launched a nuclear racket in defiance of the international community and in breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Firm commitment

United States President Barack Obama delivers his speech in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on April 5, one day before North Korea did a test launch of a nuclear missile. - File

But that could not deter the morally courageous Barack Obama from his firm commitment to a nuclear-free world. "We go forward," he told his cheering audience in the Czech Republic, "with no illusions. Some countries will break the rules." He made it clear that the US would not naively pursue a nuclear-free strategy to its own detriment and that it would maintain weapons for deterrence while that was necessary. It was a speech mixed with idealism and rock-solid realism.

Noting the scepticism of some toward a nuclear-free world, Obama incisively answered the doubting Thomases at this Easter season:

"Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be stopped, cannot be checked - that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction. Such fatalism is a deadly adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we believe that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable."

Of course, today, many hold the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) view and posit the opposite: That a world with nuclear weapons is a deterrent against their use, as would-be attackers contemplate the consequences of striking.

But Obama believes that, the US, as the major nuclear power "and the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon", has a "moral responsibility" to act in eliminating nuclear weapons, not just in containing their spread.

By this early presidential commitment to nuclear disarmament, Barack Obama not only discharges a moral responsibility but finally brings credibility to any US insistence that Iran, North Korea or any other rogue state not develop such weapons. For why is it not inherently unjust, discriminatory and chauvinistic, some ask, to assert the right of certain nations to have nuclear weapons while vociferously outlawing others to do so?

In the view of some highly thoughtful people, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970 is one of the most blatantly hypocritical and inequitable pieces of international law. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty says that apart from the five acknowledged nuclear powers - the US, France, Russia, Britain, China - no other nation is allowed to pursue nuclear weapons development. (Developing nuclear power for energy is allowable.)

Some are surprised that a treaty which so clearly establishes double standards is so widely accepted.

In an article in the November-December, 2008 issue of New Left Review titled 'The Nuclear Non-Protestation Treaty', Susan Watkins protests : "Even by the generally undemanding standards of international law, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is blatantly hypocritical and an inequitable instrument. Yet many who readily acknowledge this nevertheless defend it as the least bad option available. So widespread is this view that virtually no opposition to the treaty is ever expressed now, anywhere in the world."

Nuclear catastrophe

Why? "The reasoning behind such acceptance is straightforward: The danger of a nuclear catastrophe is so great that it is worth putting up with a measure of unfairness to minimise the risk of it. Although the world would be a better place if no powers had such weapons, there is no prospect of inducing those who possess them to give them up so we must settle for what we - and they - can achieve which is to prevent their spread".

Well, the same boldness which seized Barack Obama to believe he could be the first black president in a country which only a few decades ago had a policy of official segregation and discrimination and which once enslaved black people; the same "yes, we can" against all odds spirit which propelled him to the presidency of the most powerful country in the world; that same spirit of daring and believing the impossible is driving his firm and resolute commitment to a nuclear-free world.

Obama has support from some critical quarters in pursuing his nuclear-free thrust. In a January 2007 op-ed piece in the highly influential Wall Street Journal, former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz and former secretary of defence, William Perry and chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn made the dramatic announcement that they were in favour of a world free of nuclear weapons. Since then their vision has been endorsed by no less than two-thirds of all living secretaries of state, secretaries of defence and former national security advisers.

Even John McCain has publicly expressed support for ratification of the CTBT. While he was defence secretary under George Bush, Robert Gates did the same in October last year.

There are more than 25,000 nuclear weapons in the world with the United States and Russia accounting for over 95 per cent of them. Additionally, there are nearly 3,000 tonnes of fissile material - enough to produce 250,000 nuclear weapons - stored in over 40 countries. It has been calculated that a US stockpile of 1,000 nuclear weapons would be more than sufficient to deter any attack. During the Cold War, it was widely agreed that 400-500 weapons on target would definitely destroy the then Soviet Union's vast economic and military potential.

It is understood by Obama that as long as others have nuclear weapons, the US must maintain a viable nuclear deterrent. He is not a fool. But he is not limited by what exists either. He knows that the way to assert America's moral authority vis-a-vis Iran, North Korea or terrorists is to show that America disavows hypocrisy and double-standards, and has the moral authority to lead.

Interestingly, two of the most prestigious foreign policy journals, Foreign Affairs and the Washington Quarterly recently called on the new US president to push for a nuclear-free world.

Unmistakable signal

In the just-published Washington Quarterly (April 2009) Democratic foreign policy staffer Jofi Joseph, in an article titled 'Renew the Drive for CTBT Ratification', says ratification of the CTBT would "send an unmistakable signal that the United States is once again committed to multilateral, rules-based cooperation with the international community to advance mutual interests."

He goes on to say that ratifying the CTBT "would do more than any other single measure to indicate to the world that the United States is not only listening to but respects the views of the international community". It would also strengthen the hand of the US to get international support in dealing with rogue states like North Korea.

Indeed, a recent survey of 16 key non-nuclear weapons states reached the conclusion that ratification of the CTBT "would send a very strong signal" of US commitment to disarmament.

In their Foreign Affairs piece in the November-December 2008 issue (The Logic Of Zero: Towards A World without Nuclear Weapons) Ivo Daalder and Jan Lodal call on the new US president to commit to a nuclear-free world. "Such a dramatic change in US nuclear weapons policy would help restore the credibility of Washington's efforts to combat the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials. Washington's international diplomacy should aim to create an ever-growing coalition of countries that accept the logic of zero".

This is exactly what Obama has set out to do. He had signalled this nuclear-free policy from before his election. After he secured his party's nomination, he told a Purdue University audience in July that "it's time to send a clear message to the world: America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons. As long as nuclear weapons exist, we'll retain a strong deterrent. But we'll make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear strategy".

Credible military option

Official US doctrine still assigns nuclear weapons "a critical role in America's defence", describing them as a credible military option to deter a wide range of threats.

The elimination of nuclear weapons is actually called for in Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but the nuclear powers have never seriously pursued it. Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi pushed for it 21 years ago. The pact made with the non-nuclear nations through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was this: Don't develop or acquire nuclear weapons while we "in good faith" pursue measures to eventually achieve nuclear disarmament. But nothing was done to fulfil this. That is why Obama has said we must now move beyond beyond words to concrete action.

The French, under Charles De Gaulle, nearly 40 years ago, said of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: "It sanctions the supremacy of some countries over the rest of non-nuclear nations. Those who possess nuclear weapons should not manufacture more but destroy the ones they have".

Israel, India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. Argentina, Australia, Brazil South Korea, Sweden and Switzerland once had plans for nuclear weapons but abandoned them and South Africa, which possessed nuclear weapons in the apartheid era, have dismantled them.

A nuclear-free world is in the interest of mankind. Fortunately for the world, there is a president in the White House who agrees.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.