Commentary
Regardless of the outcome, there’s another path to ensuring that progress doesn’t stall.
Zaur Shiriyev
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The Taming of the Great Nuclear Powers
Nuclear weapons have unintended beneficial consequences, argues Godfried van Benthem van den Bergh. They can make the intended development of a more peaceful global and political order possible. The Carnegie Nonproliferation Program presents this paper in hopes of furthering international dialogue and debate on the nuclear order, including the abolition of nuclear weapons.
By Godfried van Benthem van den Bergh
Published on May 21, 2009
In this Policy Outlook Godfried van Benthem van den Bergh, an eminent Dutch scholar, argues that nuclear weapons have unintended beneficial consequences. They can make the intended development of a more peaceful global and political order possible. The Carnegie Nonproliferation Program presents this paper in hopes of furthering international dialogue and debate on the nuclear order, including the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Summary
- Nuclear weapons have intended beneficial consequences. They compelled the major powers to avoid war among themselves, even as they conducted an arms race and competition in the Third World.
- Over time, the restraint imposed by nuclear weapons leads to security cooperation "within rivalry."
- Nuclear weapons do not enable their possessors to gain positive political results, for example, through blackmail or territorial aggrandizement.
- In this sense, nuclear weapons help produce stability and order.
- The positive effects of nuclear weapons can and should be achieved at drastically lower numbers than the United States and Russia currently possess.
- The nonproliferation regime should be improved in order to prevent destabilizing rapid proliferation, and nondiscriminatory measures should be part of this improvement.
About the Author
Godfried van Benthem van den Bergh was professor of international relations at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. He has been a Harkness Fellow at Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley; chairman of the Board of the Netherlands Association for International Affairs; and member of the Advisory Council for International Affairs of the Dutch Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense. Among his publications are The Nuclear Revolution and the End of the Cold War: Forced Restraint (Basingstoke and London, 1992) and Naar een Nucleaire Wereldorde (Amsterdam, 2008).
About the Author
Godfried van Benthem van den Bergh
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
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