Brave New Nuclear World: Ex-U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Burt on “Why Nuclear Weapons No Longer Serve U.S. Interests” by Anuja Thatte

Addressing an audience that was equal parts of the Keystone and gin-and-tonic generations in Lewis Auditorium on December 2nd, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Burt ’69 noted how much things had changed on campus since he himself was a fraternity brother on the hill. But in his talk entitled “The New Geopolitics and Why Nuclear Weapons No Longer Serve U.S. Interests,” Burt, who led the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the USSR in 1991 and now works with a nuclear non-proliferation organization called Global Zero, was more focused on a shift of a more, er, loaded nature.

Burt presented the landscape of a brave new world today that is very different from that of the nuke-charged Cold War years. The interests and actions of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. no longer dominate the global climate, he explained; instead, it is driven by the G-20 nations but characterized by the presence of rogue states and sub-state actors in its shadows.

For the former group, this “transition to a more open system, a more polycentric system” has changed the “currency of power…from military power to economic competitiveness.” With so much interdependency between nations, Burt suggests that “nuclear weapons as deterrence…become increasingly irrelevant” and “threatening unacceptable damage with nuclear weapons no longer seems like a rational foreign policy decision.”

However, along with this nuclear fall(out) from grace among the big players, Burt called attention to the “other side of this G-20 world…a darker world, of rogue states like North Korea and Iran, failing states like Pakistan, and sub-state actors—some of them entirely irrational—i.e. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban” for whom nuclear weapons are increasingly attractive—and attainable. Or as Burt put it, “you don’t have to break the genetic code to figure out how to make a nuclear weapon. You can find the plans on the internet.”

The only way to defuse the nuclear threat, Burt argued, is by “delegitimizing nuclear weapons in the same way that we have largely succeeded in delegitimizing biological and chemical weapons.” To do so, Burt placed the burden on existing nuclear powers; Global Zero lobbies for countries like the U.S. and Russia to make a serious effort towards the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. If the world’s key economic players do not ostracize the countries that refuse to join in this effort, he said, the actors on the “dark side” will have no incentive to ebb their own nuclear ambitions.

Burt’s geopolitical diagnosis took on a sense of urgency as he discussed the need for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) that is currently before Congress to be approved. The treaty would enact a reduction of the number of American and Russian deployed nuclear weapons to 1,550 each; Burt expressed his belief that “if we can’t get this rather modest existing treaty ratified, then all bets are off about the ability to pursue this ambitious two-decade goal of nuclear elimination.” But if we can translate dialogue into action on the part of the U.S. and Russia, Burt envisioned the possibility of a “reverse cascade effect” that pulls more and more countries into the de-proliferation movement until a “global zero” world free of nuclear weapons is not just a possibility but a probability.

Although the future of New START remains uncertain in the bureaucratic channels of Capitol Hill, Burt praised President Obama for “put[ting] nuclear weapons back on the front page.” Closing with a question-and-answer session, Burt maintained that the issue of de-proliferation, however tricky, is here to stay.

The takeaway message: while nuclear weapons may no longer serve U.S. interests, their elimination definitely does. International stability? I think we can all drink to that.