Nuclear disarmament, the ultimate act of faith

The arguments for creating nuclear weapons always seem to center on matters of national security. Owning nuclear weapons provides a sense of protection for a country on two fronts. The most obvious is that they can be used to defend one’s country when under attack. However, the more persuasive argument for nuclear build up is as an offensive strategy, i.e. if we have nuclear weapons it will discourage foreign countries from attacking us because they know that if they do, we’ll blow them to kingdom come.

How can a reasonable citizen disagree with that argument? There is a seductive logic in believing that a rational enemy will avoid certain death by attacking us and therefore by owning the most deadly and destructive weapons currently available we have guaranteed our national security. We have taken control of the situation by preparing wisely and therefore can now rest easy knowing that our fate is in our own hands.

But can we? One of the annoying challenges to our position is that our enemies refuse to behave rationally! So owning a powerful nuclear arsenal doesn’t seem to be nearly as effective at deterring deadly terrorist attacks as we had planned. Perhaps it is because our enemies know that we are reluctant to actually use the weapons of mass destruction because once mass destruction begins, it is impossible to contain. And while many might be able to agree that having the weapons to wage war is a “sensible security measure”, using them to initiate Armageddon is fraught with ethical issues for even the most aggressive nationalist because in the end, everyone is likely to lose. The loss of life and level of human tragedy will be on an unimaginable scale, particularly the loss of innocent lives. Therefore, one could argue that there is a strong religious pro-life argument to be made for nuclear disarmament based on the desire to adhere to God’s commandment, “thou shall not kill”.

Nuclear disarmament however is a higher order still because it requires countries to do more than promise not to make more weapons or use the ones they already have. It requires powerful countries, like the U.S. to commit to destroy the weapons they already have! It is not a call for a truce – it is a call for a rebalancing of power. And that takes faith in a higher power to believe that when we give up control of our manmade weapons of mass destruction we will not be immediately delivered over to what we perceive to be the enemy for them to destroy us at their will. President Obama and the UN Security Council have asked the world to take a bold step towards creating a new future where the lion can truly lay down with the lamb. The lion will still clearly be stronger and more powerful than the lamb but both can come to the table without fear of annihilation by the other and therefore the possibilities of new types of relationships are endless.

A fairy tale ending? Perhaps. But our faith leads us to believe that even this is possible. And it is clear that the alternative ending could be an endless nightmare.