By Wes Pedersen
The Senate's approval of a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia is a truly outstanding foreign affairs achievement by the Obama administration and the lame duck 2010 Congress. It has yet to be approved by the Duma in Moscow, but it is stupefying in its historic implication that the heavy burden of the atom on the world will one day be significantly reduced.
Now the administration and Congress must turn their attention to the malicious regimes that threaten international peace with unending buildups of nuclear weapons.
Decades ago, Fidel Castro welcomed to Cuba batteries of Russia missiles directed at the United States. Today he warns that a war started by or over Iran or North Korea could be the torch point for a conflagration that could destroy much of the world. The old bull is right, of course, though he sees a preemptive strike by the U.S. against either country as a probable root cause.
There is, of course, only one possible target for an Iranian nuclear attack: Israel. The potential target has made clear that it will use any measures necessary to deflect an attack. As for North Korea, its growing hunger for confrontation has brought us teeteringly close to the brink.
As 2011 begins, Pyongyang has repeated its familiar declaration that its goal remains a peaceful reconciliation of north and south. Our policy of firmness may be paying off, but we have been through all of this for decades, and the north's leaders are today, from all reports, more unstable than ever.
Myanmar, the mean-alley country we still think of as Burma, is building a bomb in defiance of outside protests. Israel has accused it of supplying nuclear gear and advice to Iran and other countries in the Middle East.
China, increasingly aggressive, demands particular attention. It has so far been cautious in its support of its erratic neighbor, but if or when North Korea should run amok, Beijing could be placed in a support-or-lose-face position that it does not yet want to fill. It is, however, building its armed forces in a move to eventually replace the U.S. as the leading military power in the world. It is following Mao's dictum: “All political power comes out of the barrel of a gun.”
China has launched its first nuclear-powered submarine, is building a massive aircraft carrier, is developing ballistic missiles capable of penetrating the huge U.S. carriers, and has on the drawing boards plans for lasers that could roast ships. Meanwhile, it is pressing its claims to offshore islands in the South and East China seas despite Japan's protests. Taiwan, which China claims as its own, is most certainly on Beijing's acquisition list.
The U.S. is clearly the prime object of China's military planning. There is malicious intent here. At minimum Beijing intends to push the United States out of the Asian seas; at maximum, it means to one day be prepared to use naval force to seize areas in the Pacific now under American protection.
China is moving aggressively on the economic front as well, entering into Europe's economic fray by offering financial aid to strapped governments on the Continent. It is active, too, in Africa and Latin America, and it is America's largest creditor, a fact most Americans have not yet absorbed.
President Obama will discuss a variety of these problems, including international peace, with his Chinese counterpart when the latter is hosted at the White House this month. It may well be the most important meeting he will have with a foreign equivalent in his presidency. If he does poorly, it could mean the end of his political career.
At minimum, Mr. Obama will seek to persuade China to join the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and halt its missile building. With China fully geared up to that immense effort, that may will be an impossible goal.
There was a time when, even though we had all but obliterated Japanese cities in wartime, we sold the notion of atomic power as the bulwark of peace. We called them Atoms for Peace. We were naïve then. We cannot be naïve now. The treaty for the reduction of nuclear weapons by the U.S. and Russia can be a dramatic step forward in the constant battle for peace, but the world cannot afford to let any minor-league rogue nation – or China –build up arsenals of death. Mr. Obama must make that clear to all concerned.
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Wes Pedersen is a retired Foreign Service Officer and principal at Wes Pedersen Communications and Public Relations Washington, D.C. |