by Jurgen Brauer, December 2006
Copyright: J. Brauer. No reproduction without permission.

Until about 1880, there were no traffic laws. Only with the advent of the motor vehicle did they become necessary. The same holds true for nuclear weapons.

“Until about 1880,” writes my friend Dietrich Fischer, “there were no traffic laws.” People jostled, as still they do, and horses and horse-drawn carriages – being stronger than people – took right of way. The invention and increasing use of motor vehicles, however, made the regulation of traffic urgent. It does not matter so much what the precise rules are as that there are rules, understood and followed by all. We drive on the right-hand side in most countries, on the left in a few others. We stop at a red light, and go at green. We even submit ourselves to pass driver’s license tests and – again in some countries – to periodic license renewal. When a rule is broken, an enforcement mechanism is in place to punish violators. Some rules are winked at (driving 40mph in a 35mph zone for instance) because overly strict enforcement itself is costly, annoying, and of limited utility to common safety. But other rules are strictly observed and, if broken, can lead to serious consequences for the rule-violator, in part because of the potential or actual serious consequences suffered by the victims of a rule-violator.

My friend Dietrich makes other interesting observations. For example, just because other people may run a red light does not mean that it is in our interest to do the same! Even though traffic laws restrict our “freedom,” it is obvious that they actually liberate us to go from A to B unharmed. Provocative behavior, such as zigzagging in and out of traffic lanes, often literally leads to only minute time advantages and at the cost of considerable wear and tear on the vehicle and stress on the driver. To accommodate increased traffic, admit younger and older drivers, and permit driving under all weather conditions, we also build safer cars and safer roads. Somehow, any given community manages to take care to regulate its joint behavior with reasonable efficiency. It even manages to include non-driving pedestrians and bicyclists, even wheelchair users, and the deaf and blind, into the overall traffic regulation scheme.

All this is obvious. The point of the story has to do with North Korea’s recently conducted nuclear-weapons test. Even though it appears that the test was botched, it did demonstrate that the North Koreans are close to fielding an atomic arsenal of some kind. (They already have successful ballistic missile capabilities.) In Asia and the Middle East, the atomic sword is being raised higher by the year. Russia, China, India, and Pakistan already have the weapons. Israel has never publicly acknowledged possession of nuclear arms but no one seems to doubt that it already has them as well. North Korea and Iran are in the game. Few appreciate that in Egypt and in Turkey there is open discussion about acquiring nuclear weapons. The members of the “official” nuclear arms club – China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States – have failed to live up to their obligation under an international treaty they created and signed to get rid of their arsenals in good time. Instead of fewer nuclear powers, we witness considerable proliferation. The United States is even about to make a deal with India under which India’s weapons, and their further development, will essentially be formally “blessed” by the United States.

It is an understatement to say that, like motor vehicles, nuclear arms are dangerous.

It is an understatement to say that, like motor vehicles, nuclear arms are dangerous. But they are. That is why the world needs to come to an agreement about effective regulation. We cannot tolerate a situation in which North Korea – or anyone else for that matter – runs the red light! We need the equivalent of traffic laws to put nuclear weapons in check. We also need the equivalent of a driver’s license – for instance, an inspection regime not only of civilian-nuclear but of military-nuclear activities – and we need to voluntarily submit to a global enforcement agency that swiftly and decisively punishes those who would violate certain rules of nuclear behavior. All of us already submit to traffic laws within states; we might as well create and then submit to “nuclear traffic law” across states.

Nuclear weapons proliferation will continue. Yes, there are counter-examples: South Africa eliminated its nuclear weapons in the 1990s, as did Kazakhstan and the Ukraine; Brazil canceled its program just short of a test explosion; and Japan repeatedly promises not to employ its obvious technical prowess to build them in the first place. The problem is that for states fearful of near and far neighbors, nuclear weapons are cheaper than raising, equipping, and training additional battalions and corps of “conventional” armed forces. Billionaire Warren Buffett’s offer to chip in $50 million of his own money to build a global nuclear-fuel bank from which countries can drawn supplies for civilian power generation only fulfills the (useful) function of calling Iran’s bluff: it’s nuclear program is not aimed at civilian but military purposes. To deal with the military side, one needs to deal with Iran’s fears. That may require the United States in particular to deal with its own fears. And that, in turn, requires that voting populations – in both countries – be more adroit in electing competent instead of popular leaders. In the end, we already know that there are no military-nuclear solutions. Thus, saber-rattling notwithstanding, the onus necessarily lies with the quality of diplomatic efforts. Meanwhile, and until the fears subside, nuclear proliferation will continue and so will the ever more urgent need to create appropriate “traffic laws.”