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Nuclear specter haunts NATO's war By Alex Zaitchik In April, the Czech Association of Psychologists reported a steep increase in anxiety among small children over nuclear war. The organization clearly attributed this anxiety to the destabilizing effect of NATO's bombing campaign on world affairs. That children with no memory of the Cold War have been able to internalize this threat is a remarkable testament to the extent of this newfound instability. However unsophisticated their logic, the inchoate fears of these children are rooted in a basic, inescapable fact of NATO's air war: It has made a dangerous world much more dangerous. It doesn't take a hardened realist in the State Department -- although it might take a 10-year-old -- to see that since the war began, the atomic clock has edged closer toward midnight. Having come of age under the first Reagan administration, quite possibly the most hawkish of the entire Cold War atomic era, I have never for a moment shed my youthful fear of nuclear war. Too formative to purge, it fluctuates in intensity to the rhythm of events. Like anyone aware of the power of these weapons, I carry it around in the pit of my stomach, like inoperable cancer, a weight that, depending on the night's news, interferes with my digestion and invades my dreams, littering them with horrific, charred visions of The Day After, a 1983 cimematic vison of life after a nuclear holocaust. Since the start of NATO's bombing, I have, together with the children of this generation, experienced a resurgence of dread. Disquieting developments have been accelerated and pushed once again to the fore, making one nostalgic for the early '90s, when we allowed ourselves to believe that the nuclear threat was over, as if thousands of nuclear warheads could be magically transformed into park benches by the self-deluded zeitgeist of the op-ed pages. Indeed, the current bombing and its subsequent geopolitical fallout have brought us back to the future with a vengeance. Countries that once represented hope for the future control of nuclear weapons, such as Ukraine, are re-examining or repudiating their prior non-nuclear status. Small states that had been signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are rethinking their defense strategies in light of NATO force against a sovereign state. If it could happen to Yugoslavia, why not us? And would it have happened to Yugoslavia had it possessed a nuclear arsenal? These are the questions NATO has raised for every state, large and small. If force is the only arbiter in the 21st century, then a nuclear deterrent becomes a prerequisite accessory to any meaningful defense. But however damaging to the future of the NPT, NATO's war has more urgently undermined decades of arms-control negotiations with Russia, still the largest nuclear threat with tens of thousands of ballistic missiles and a famously insecure military infrastructure. START-2, which would have halved this ominous arsenal, is now a rotting carcass in the Duma. START-3, which stood on deck, has been pushed into the realm of fantasy. Russia has suspended its cooperation with NATO and cast severe doubts upon future Partnership for Peace operations, including crucial contacts between U.S. and Russian command and control centers that would mitigate the threat of false launches and radar misreads. Furthermore, and perhaps most distressing of all, Russia has refused U.S. aid in improving its Y2K readiness and publicly increased the role of nuclear weapons in its military doctrine. Hawks are on the offensive, and an opaque wall of distrust has replaced whatever reassuring transparency had been tortuously built up before the bombing. That NATO would so thoughtlessly squander these hard-won achievements boggles the imagination and quickens the heart. Regardless of any eventual diplomatic settlement that may or may not include the Russians, NATO has given lie to earlier claims that it is a purely defensive alliance. Its new doctrine of intervention cum aerial bombardment guarantees that future NATO expansion will meet with fierce diplomatic and possibly military opposition by Russia. The Russians see the current war as a precedent for NATO intervention in other parts of the former Soviet sphere and enlargement as a blatant attempt to shore up bases as part of an offense-oriented strategy toward the Eurasian mainland. NATO has done precious little to demonstrate it intends otherwise. Nor are the nuclear dimensions of NATO's war limited to the realm of the geostrategic. Its alleged use of depleted uranium (DU) bombs undermines Washington's moral authority and makes laughable its strong-armed attempts to curb the proliferation of unconventional arms. DU casings, which were dropped during the Gulf War in southern Iraq, are linked to high cancer rates and have been known to poison land and water for generations. If NATO is continuing to use these weapons, it sets a chilling precedent that, together with the act of bombing itself, does not bode well for a future international order based upon a respect for law and human decency. --The writer is a teacher and journalist in Prague |
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The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.