2007 - John Gittings - After Trident: Peace or Proliferation?

John Gittings

After Trident: Peace or Proliferation?

Watch the video recording here.

The lecture was published in the December 2007 issue of International Relations (Vol. 21, #4, pp. 387-410). A direct link to download a pdf version of the article from Sage is available here.

Synopsis: "The British government decision on Trident renewal forms part of a much wider rebuff to the non-proliferation and peace agenda. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) risks total collapse at its next review; new nuclear powers are setting the pace for others; another “war” is being threatened which will last "for generations". There has been no post-cold war dividend, and the chance to make up for lost time has been missed. War, not peace, is once again seen as the universal default mode.

It is now clear that traditional arguments in favour of peace and non-proliferation are never going to succeed. The view that one "cannot predict the unpredictable", used to justify the Trident renewal, will always result in decisions being reached on a worst-case scenario. New arguments need to be developed with a broader appeal based not only on strategic calculation but on a compelling alternative world view. Looking both forward and back into history, we have to rediscover peace, not war, as humanity's central concern. Just as the test of the good ruler was to maintain peace within the four corners of the kingdom, so today modern states have a shared obligation to exercise good governance across the globe. The effort to reshape our common goals will require a sustained exercise in the re-eduction of elites, and the mobilisation of multitudes."

John Gittings is a distinuished journalist (he was China specialist and foreign leader writer at The Guardian from 1982-2003) and writer. His latest publication is entitled The Changing Face of China: From Mao to Market (Oxford University Press, 2005). http://www.johngittings.com/