Op-ed: A Nuclear Arms Reality Check

When it comes to nuclear disarmament, Obama seems to be showing his idealistic side, writes New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. Obama's calls for a world without nuclear weapons are stark contrast to the realistic and, even "cold-eyed," approach he has taken with regards to other foreign policy agenda items. (China and human rights, for example.)
 
Is Obama living in a fantasy world? According to Douthat, perhaps the goal shouldn't be a "global zero." At the heart of the problem, he writes, is the assumption that by eliminating the U.S. stockpile of nuclear arms, other countries will no longer feel the need to have their own.
 
The notion that lesser powers only want nuclear weapons because the United States has so many reflects a peculiar kind of American provincialism. In reality, nuclearization is usually driven by regional concerns — from India’s rivalry with Pakistan to Israel’s fear of Middle Eastern encirclement. So is disarmament, when it happens: South Africa gave up its nuclear capability only after it gave up apartheid, and Brazil and Argentina dropped their nascent programs as part of a broader march toward regional détente.
 
Moreover, even when the fear of American power is a factor in a country’s quest for W.M.D., the fear of our nuclear weapons usually isn’t. Saddam Hussein wasn’t chasing fissile material because he thought the United States would drop an ICBM on Baghdad. For rogue states, the bomb is an obvious way to offset America’s enormous conventional military advantage — and this will hold true no matter how low our nuclear stockpiles go.
 
That isn't to say the United States should not enter into agreements that reduce the amount of nuclear weapons we have, Douthat suggests. But a dose of reality is needed. "[W]hen it comes to containing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, the existing American arsenal simply isn’t part of the problem. And if Iran does acquire the bomb, our nuclear deterrent will quickly become an important part of the solution," Douthat writes.