The reading and class discussions for this week looked at how war, not peace, has been the universal default mode. The author looks at history to make the claim that we need to “rediscover peace, not war, as humanity’s central concern” (Gittings).
Gittings analyzed the history of the globalization of nuclear proliferation. Most countries have used the excuse that the future is uncertain so we must be prepared with nuclear weapons. They state that it would not be wise to predict the unpredictable in the times to come. The current global state mentality is the assumption that the future is too uncertain to be safely predicted, or at least set an extremely high threshold for the abandonment of such an assumption (Gittings 392).
Countries have also used their nuclear programs as a source of national pride such as China and France. Gittings states that the United States sees their nuclear program as indispensible and a part of their claim to possess (391).
There have been proposals of disarmament throughout the years in fear of a “nuclear tipping point”. People have called for total elimination of nuclear weapons and believed this was possible through a gradual and phased movement forward without artificially leaping ahead (Gittings 392). US ambassador Christina Rocca said to the 2006 UN Conference of Disarmament that the objective of all states should be to create an international situation in which it is no longer necessary for anyone to rely upon nuclear weapons for security (393). In reality, an international environment of disarmament is only possible only if human behavior will change. This requires a new global ethic where we prepare for peace not war.
