Nuclear Hegemony and Technological Relativism

There is no man on earth, not even one who swears off, or by technology, that is not affected by the Technocentrism of the people who control it. We live in an era where high technology is everywhere, and being denied it can cause even the staunchest Luddite to suffer. If, however, that technology poses a threat to another person, it is considered a weapon. I postulate that it is this threat that perpetuates arms races, war, and international sanctions. A line has been drawn in the sand. On one side of the line is an International community with an attitude of “do as I say, not as I do!” On the other side are the nations with limited nuclear capabilities, and are judged “unworthy” to wield such a large stick. Yet states such as Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have sidestepped International regulations and developed or obtained nuclear weapons through various methodologies despite the Technological Relativism espoused by the five permanent members of the UN. We need a pragmatic approach to disarmament--one that does not rely on sanctions as a weapon. While certain states move to build nuclear weapons as a response to the threat of their heavily armed neighbors, other states are favored and wield nuclear authority with impunity.

In 1981, Israel, who feared a nuclear-armed Iraq, launched a pre-emptive strike against their sole nuclear facility. This mission highlights the Technocentrism of the Israelis, and moreover: The West. Their restraint during the 91 Gulf War as SCUD missiles struck their cities in retaliation was a direct result of American diplomacy. The US had built a strong coalition which would have been unsupportive of our actions in the Middle East had the Israelis flew combat missions or deployed ground troops into Iraq. However, in recent years, Israel’s attitude has greatly changed, seemingly mirroring it’s nuclear stockpile. And so it is with the West.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq is case in point. I wish to make perfectly clear that public opinion in the US regarding the state of Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program was flawed and twisted by Technological Relativism. Our foreign policy in the region continues to be flawed and twisted by the Technocentrist Ideologies carried from WWII. Profound collective paranoia has thus resulted.

Let us however look for the source of this paranoia. Early in 1945, the demon of a Nazi Europe having been triumphed, we then turned to keep the Soviets from entering the war in the Pacific, thus threatening our monopoly of post-war Japan. Invasion of the Japanese Mainland seemed imminent. We resorted to the most cost effective strategy available--simply killing the Japanese people with fire. In a 2005 documentary “The Fog of War,” Robert MacNamara noted that if the US had lost the war with Japan, many who prosecuted it would have been tried as war criminals in a Japanese court. The US had killed many, many more civilians with incendiary ordinance than both Little Boy and Fatman. But why was it that the Japanese were pacified by atomic weapons, and not by this constant firebombing? To answer this, one must imagine first one plane dropping an Atomic Weapon, and then compare that to hundreds, if not thousands of such attacks. This is what the Japanese faced; total annihilation.

Surely, they must have wondered what would have happened if they controlled the bomb, and therefore won the war. Would the Americans surrender as they had, or would our military commanders be spared the gallows by a fiery death, along with every one of his countrymen? We, the victors, seem to know without a doubt, that using nuclear weapons in this instance was somehow justified. The thought of hundreds of thousands of American soldier's lives being lost in a conventional war on the streets of Japan seemed too much to bear. Surely, an argument against the use of nuclear weapons in Japan might have seemed unpatriotic, if not downright immoral. But the question remains; what if the Japanese had not surrendered? Would we have carried out our threats of Assured Destruction?

At the end of WWII, the US was the only nation in possession of nuclear weapons. We had become, and still are, the only country to have deployed such a weapon in combat. During the next few decades, it became painfully clear that a monopoly on this technology was not possible, and we compensated for this by simply attempting to build more than everyone else. This logic was also followed by The Soviet Union, and thus, the nuclear arms race had begun. During the Cold War, events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis brought to bear a new and terrifying reality upon the world as a whole. Never had the human race possessed the means for its own destruction. Some saw this as a deterrent. We deemed any exchange of nuclear weapons as a domino effect; where upon Mutually Assured Destruction was inevitable. When confronted with the horrors of WWII, and still reeling from WWI, the world had seen enough of what Mankind was capable of to make the most morbid predictions about a hypothesized WWIII. Presumably, the world would be plunged into a Nuclear Winter and the survivors would surely become extinct--just as the dinosaurs had. Many swallowed this highly publicized scenario whole, and any argument against it naturally became viewed as militaristic, pro-war, or even Nihilistic.

This is when we started to see our Nuclear Hegemony come into play. There is an underlying Ideology throughout all nations which posses, or seek to posses nuclear arms. First, such nations feel they have just cause to procure such weapons, as the US did, in hopes that it might actually save lives as a last resort. Second, nuclear arms are considered a deterrent. Here is the Technocentrism that accompanies Nationalism. The argument for nukes as a warning against aggression is characterized by a Nationalistic Ideology of moral superiority through Nuclear Hegemony. Obviously, this is erroneous, for the only countries capable of such attacks are the ones who possess the weapons in the first place.

However, “war” did not end on August 9th, 1947—the day the second Atomic Bomb exploded over Japan. With the successful routing of Germany's Fascist Regime and Japan’s Empire, Communism became our new enemy. The Military Industrial Complex rode atop Nationalistic agendas for Nuclear Hegemony, and the Cold War was the result. We still held to Technocentric Ideologies as we raced the Soviet Union on a never-ending quest to out-threat the other. Thus we gave birth to the bastard child of science and politics; Nuclear Technology. Whether or not the Human race was prepared for it, or even aware of it, the threat of this Technology introduced us to a new paradigm of fear. Billions of people were practicing “duck and cover” to prepare for a war with an Evil Empire on the other side of the world. The backwards logic of MAD escaped the minds of billions, and we continued to stockpile these weapons, adding fuel to the unlit fire.

As long as there are weapons in existence that are capable of Xenocide on a Hyper-Biblical scale, the world will never be free from this form of Technological Relativism. Why, then, have we followed this route for so long, answering threats with threats, and not diplomacy?

My approach to this question has little to do with the policies or rhetoric used by our leaders; rather these policies and rhetoric are a direct result of nuclear threats. Thus, it is the failure of the Military Industrial Complex to use this technology as a tool, rather than a weapon.

There is a very prominent misconception about armed conflict in our world. Most people are taught that war is the result of conflicting cultural ideologies such as Religion, or political systems. We learn that the largely moderate (and docile) public fall victims to war because of the extremist few who come to power through various methods. It is these “bad apples” that are therefore responsible for war. Sadly, this is far from the truth. What causes war then, if not Ideological indifferences?

Let us look at the structure of these Ideological systems. These systems require resources to run. When resources run low, they must acquire more—
Adapt, or perish. To fuel the political machines of these groups, they must provide for their constituents and ensure a certain quality of living. They must also defend against other groups, which pose a threat to their resources (read: way of life). Thus, Nuclear Technology is a shortcut of sorts. I often think what the world would look like if the energy used to make nuclear weapons, their delivery systems, and the entire infrastructure we have developed were instead used for peaceful purposes.

One might postulate that the Space Race was a positive result of the Cold War, and hostile politics were somehow responsible for bringing about these new and amazing Technological discoveries. This argument contradicts much of what I have mentioned above. But when we look at the amount of energy we have used to develop the war machine, versus what we could have used that energy for, things like oil and natural gas would be of little importance. However, this line of thinking can fail to grasp this plain, and simple fact: there is no difference between 'tools' and 'weapons'. There is a difference between intentions behind certain policies, but if we lift the veil of Technological Relativism, our goals are all the same; a better quality of life. What stands in our way is not the Technologies themselves, rather our Nationalistic, Relativistic, and Ideological use of our resources. The solution is altruism. Much of our clout in international politics comes from the altruism expressed not in Political Ideologies (giving the “gift” of Democracy to Germany and Japan), but in our willingness to share our Technological advancements.

My philosophical approach to the area of nuclear technology is not a unique one. Many of the ideas, which I have mentioned thus far, have been taken directly from the media, public, as well as private discourse and of course books. Avoiding Technocentrism is an effort in understanding scientific research, as well as an approach towards a dialog of equality. Nuclear physics has provided us with an immensely powerful tool for improving human life. Sadly, as we deployed new nuclear reactors, they also helped provide us with much of the material for WMD's. As the demand for acquiring these weapons increased seemingly exponentially, we became fixated on building better, more powerful devices. The MAD pundits must have felt a smug sense of satisfaction when we detonated our first “Hydrogen Bomb”. Powered by fusion--the fusing together of atoms, this new weapon was orders of magnitude stronger than previous designs. Now, at last we had a weapon that satisfied the requirements for the MAD Theory.

Where was the H-Bomb's peaceful cousin, the Fusion Reactor?

For the last 60 years, the world watched closely as the US has failed to lead by example and abandon Technocentrist Ideologies. As the world stood of awe of the US and Soviet Union's metamorphosis into Global Super Powers, many other nations worked to keep up with the Jonses.

We watched Mao, with tremendous help from Stalin, and an untold amount of economic suffrage amongst its collective agricultural workers, eventually join the nuclear club. Our involvement in Korea and Vietnam were simply conflicts directed against China’s influence in the region, and did little to slow the onset of the Cold War, nuclear proliferation, or Communism as a whole.

We watched as this prolonged US involvement in South East Asia moved North Korea towards starting it’s own nuclear program. Isolated and threatened, their nuclear strategy much resembled China's. UN sanctions, droughts and a poor economy decimated the North Koreans. It has been argued that North Korea's nuclear ambitions took more lives than several atomic bombs could have. And yet, here they are; a nuclear-armed state.

We watched as India and Pakistan initiated their own arms race. A. Q. Khan, a scientist from Pakistan, had shopped plans out to several nations, including Iran. It seemed that nuclear technology had been open sourced. Now Iran stands to become the newest society to wield this sword.

We are now watching the West’s prolonged involvement in the Middle East turn just as it did in South East Asia.

Afghanistan

What follows is a brief look at Afghanistan’s recent history as one of many battlefields for America's proxy-wars, and how it devolved into a breeding ground for religious extremism, religious oppression, war profiteering, and narcotic production. These “proxy-wars” were ultimately fought in the place of an escalated Cold War, or in effect; WWIII. As it stands now, Afghanistan still suffers from a constant state of war, and is intoxicated with decades-old ideological hatred.

In the post-modern era, industrialization reigns supreme, and conflict zones, such as Afghanistan, are poor areas for investment. The level of involvement by the international community in curbing such violence remains directly proportional to that nation's potential to develop industrially. Lack of modern highways, railways, and airports are not the only factors that keep foreign investors out of undeveloped countries. Warring factions, who are supplied through complicated networks of drug money and clandestine operations, often use extreme ideologies to control the public. Foreign policy in regards to these nations can have lasting effects; plunging them into never-ending wars. Often these groups are responsible for the worst possible war crimes. The sad fact is that these types of organizations have been used as proxy-soldiers in many wars, and at the same time, denounced as terrorist organizations.

Our “victory” over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and the subsequent retooling of our military, was followed by a chain of events which led to many armed conflicts around the world--mostly involving nations that had played the role of pawns in our “harmless” game between superpowers. Global arms dealers, carefully placated by these two great harbingers of war, took advantage of military surpluses,and fueled racial, ethnic and tribal conflicts. In our failure to use diplomacy to stamp out these fires, we neglected the billions of people affected by this arms race.

In WWII, we learned that as rebuilding must follow “hot” wars, there was naturally political aftermath in this Cold War to be addressed. However, the global arms trade is still huge; the US defense budget is larger now than it has ever been, and nuclear proliferation has continued at a steady pace for decades. Did the Cold War not end? Or is the military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower spoke of in his farewell address to the American people just as alive today as it was in 1961? The war machine has not slowed, and the world is still polluted with its foul waste.

In actuality, the collapse of the USSR was not due to Democratic superiority, the CIA, or even the proxy-war in Afghanistan. It was due to economic factors, primarily, and the people of Russia had decided that their political system must first change in order to have an effective economy in the post-modern, corporate, capitalist world.

Take, for example, China; changes in how they participate in world trade over the last two decades have placed them in a position where political reform is following economic policies. No tremendous upheaval here! China has now become the next superpower, filling the vacuum left by the Soviet Union.

During the “Cold War”, inaccurately named for its lack of “hot” conflicts; there was a war in Afghanistan that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. There was also another war raging; the “War on Drugs”.

As the Regan Administration was helping to funnel arms to Iran and Nicaragua during the Iran Contra scandal, we openly supported the “freedom fighters” of Afghanistan in their fight against the Soviet invasion. As Manuel Noriega trafficked cocaine from Panama, the US surely looked away. The Taliban trafficked heroin from Afghanistan, and again the United States surely looked away. Many delegates from the Taliban were welcomed by the US, and diplomatic ties remained strong all the way up to the 1990's. The ill-fated Columbia Shuttle launch was even dedicated to these freedom fighters by our late movie-star president.

The export of heroin had become a major source of funding for the Taliban, as Afghanistan has the perfect environment to grow Opium poppies; high altitude, and little to no law enforcement. The warlords who were now in control used trade routes to funnel drugs, arms, and goods throughout the region. These trade routes are called the Silk Road. Thousands of years ago, they were the same routes used by Buddhist monks who carved those giant Bamiyan Buddhas, which were used by the Taliban for target practice. As the Taliban rose to power and flooded the world with cheap heroin, one could argue that we lost the “War on Drugs” just as Russia had lost the “Cold War”.

The failed state of Afghanistan was not only a failure on the part of the US, but Iran, Pakistan, Russia, the UN, and the world as a whole. Afghanistan has always been a sick nation, for which the world has no cure; we can only try to quarantine the threat, and foster social reform with compassionate diplomacy. Violence in Afghanistan resembles that of the Cold War era, only now, we call it terrorism. Religious Extremists were allowed to run rampant for many years, but we failed to take notice until we became their victims. The Bush Administration had sought to enact a policy of containment, and yet, like Iraq, the international force in place there has yet to rebuild after the US led invasion.

The attacks of 9-11 subverted the US's technological superiority in a much different way--reinvented the wheel, as it were. No longer was warfare confined to conventional, or nuclear weapons. People became the new Atomic Bomb. Technological Relativism failed to respond effectively to this new weapon: Forced Mutually Assured Destruction. Terrorism was now employing its own Ideological Weapon; using Martyrdom as its Uranium, and Jihad as its Plutonium. Death was forced upon the victims, and assured for the attackers. Our nuclear weapons were useless; a Secular Nation cannot respond to Religious Extremism with collective brute force, as we responded to Japan's Aggression in WWII. Nor could we respond with state-sanctioned suicide attacks of our own.

Do we still not realize that the rhetoric aimed at us all this time was coming from nations who feared a nuclear state, and resented us for our foreign policy that revolves around our status as one? Are we still holding onto our atomic weapons for any good reason, except to symbolize our alleged Moral Superiority? What were the 9-11 hijackers trying to accomplish? Did they succeed? And most importantly; what if they had procured a nuclear weapon?

Perhaps the hijackers viewed the victims of 9-11 in the same manner that President Truman viewed the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, these young Muslim men were convinced that their actions would somehow save lives among their people. In most societies, it seems morbid to want to read someone's suicide note--even more so when that person committed a homicide on their way out. Why should we care? Well for one, it might give us a chance to prevent it from happening again. It might, however, do nothing but anger us. Or perhaps we do not have to look that far for the answer because it has been lying underneath our feet for decades.

Neologisms, catch phrases, and lofty terms coined for these most devastating conflicts make me sick. The lives of innocent people and soldiers deserve more intelligent discussions in our media than what certain pundits spout from their dirty little mouths. Concept-wars are not a new thing for the American public, and we should instead learn some history about what we read, focusing on the roots of these problems. Perhaps the reader might be interested enough to find out what our next concept-war will entail.