Pakistan's detonation last week of five nuclear bombs, in direct response to India's similar tests in earlier May (ETS!, May 19, 1998), may well be a gift to the world. While confirming what anybody who followed the issue knew--both countries have been confirmed as having nuclear stockpiles for decades--world outrage over the tests may finally provide the momentum needed to abolish nuclear weapons.

That the very idea of nuclear abolition sounds outlandish is a testimony to the degree to which the United States, politically, has been the main obstacle. U.S. policy--over decades and over the last three weeks--has been to bribe or terrorize smaller countries in the vain hope of containing a technology that has now existed for 53 years. Contrast this with how quickly the world has been changed by technological advances in the last decade--the first bomb was exploded before the U.S. had broadcast television stations--and you'll understand just how idiotic this policy has been.

The United States is hopelessly wed to its nukes, and the bond is financial, not military. In nearly a decade since the collapse of Communism, no Pentagon official has been able to articulate a military reason for the existence of Nuclear America--yet Clinton is increasing nuclear spending by 20%, ushering in a new era of high-tech weaponry that the U.S. (hypocritically) is continuing to develop and test through computer simulation.

The money involved is enormous. Portions of it flow to Washington State--through Boeing, through the Trident subs at Bangor (30 miles across the Sound in Kitsap County), and of course through Hanford. But far more flows out of Washington State, a gift from taxpayers to the shareholders and CEOs of the U.S. military-parasitical complex.

Money and misguided nationalism also drove the India and Pakistan tests, and ultimately demonstrate why Bill Clinton's economic sanctions are worse than useless. Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, is a businessman; his advisors, noting a 30% drop in Pakistan's stock market since India's tests, surely calculated the costs of international sanctions before proceeding.

As we noted after India's tests, the main effect for Pakistan is that it is now "officially" a nuclear power and therefore situated to benefit from the U.S.-imposed terms of the proposed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Once such a treaty is signed--rewarding the new members of the "club"--sanctions will probably be lifted, perhaps even retroactively. The remaining "secret" nuclear powers, with the possible exception of Taiwan, are economically or militarily dependent enough on the U.S. that they're not likely to blow up bombs soon.

But that club gets less and less exclusive; the technology is well-established and (by modern standards) primitive. Reports keep surfacing that the extensive array of nukes in the former Soviet Union is either poorly tended or subject to theft and smuggling. Bill Clinton, and other world leaders, can't level economic sanctions on everyone; what they must do is develop a protocol for the international disposition of such omnicidal weapons.

That protocol can only be abolition. As with chemical and biological weapons--used widely in World War I before they were outlawed--it's eminently possible. Although not perfect, the abolition of nuclear weapons would provide a framework for sanctions against countries which (as with chemical or biological weapons) attempt to develop and store them.

A 1996 World Court ruling on the illegality of using nuclear weapons in war (as though they have peacetime uses) has provided impetus for a number of proposals outlining the steps toward nuclear abolition. Perhaps most notably, the Canberra Commission report, by an international group of nuclear and military experts (the lead U.S. representative was Robert McNamara), spelled out a detailed plan. It's doable. And even with the costs of dismantling and cleanup, it would save the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars (and create jobs in the interim!). What's needed is the political will.

In this context, we have Bill Clinton--upping the ante while slapping the wrists of India and Pakistan for wanting what the U.S. reserves to itself. And we have Washington's state politicians of both parties--all too willing to promote nuclearism at Hanford in exchange for their cut. Both are willing to put their short-term interests ahead of the long-term interests of their country and humanity.

The only thing that will reverse those priorities is public pressure. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the election of Clinton, the anti-nuclear movement in the U.S. essentially collapsed. It's time to rebuild, and to call for an end to nuclear weapons, once and for all.