It hung over our heads in the 70s then went away for 40 years enabling the world to live relatively free from looming fear. In a nuclear war there is nowhere in the world that is safe. On The Beach the Neville Shute novel of the time says it all. The old nuclear war joke asks: Q. What do you do in a nuclear war? A. Put your head between your knees and kiss your arse goodbye.
Now nuclear arsenal building is back on the agenda. The US is leading a quite desperate struggle to prevent nuclear weapons proliferatin around the world to rogue states with mad leaders to unstable states and to terrorists. The four nations which are at the centre of its concers are Iran North Korea Pakistan and China. And now Burma.
This is the central geo-strategic struggle of our time.
The Wikileaks profoundly confirm the narrative which the US and Australian governments have been broadcasting relating to Iran North Korea China and the Middle East. The over-arching theme of the cables is the growing danger of the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology and the sustained difficlut pretty thankless task the Americans are engaged in on behalf of all of us to try to stop this from happening.
One of the clear revelations from the leaked cables is that numerous Arab leaders have asked the Americans to take military action to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons. The United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia Egypt Bahrain Jordan are all deeply distressed about Iran’s nuclear threat and its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The role of China and North Korea in helping Iran become a nuclear weapons state is also clear in the Wikileaks and deeply disturbing. The cables claim at least 10 shipments of missile components have gone through China from North Korea. America has made repeated entreaties to Beijing to stop North Korean nuclear assistance to Iran.
The Wikileaks cables also show the extreme danger of nuclear weapons proliferation from Pakistan. They show just how bad the situation really is how much effort the Americans are making to contain it and how relatively little help they get from their allies.
On the home front in the US the White House is under tight time pressures to persuade a single Republican senator John Kyl of Arizona to back a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. Moscow warns that failure could start a new arms race. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that if ratification stalled in Washington Moscow will have to react somehow. Russia will simply be obligated to ensure its security with different means including the deployment of new nuclear missiles.
Mr Obama has made the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) treaty which would slash the Russian and US long-range nuclear arsenals by a third his foreign policy priority for this session of congress.
Let’s pray that all efforts to contain nuclear proliferation are successful.