The Pipe Dream of Disarmament

The title of this article is terribly misleading and the author fails to make any case at all. He speaks in broad terms:

Yet despite potential flash points with nations such as Russia (over Georgia) or China (over Taiwan), it would be lunacy to engage in combat with either because of the risk of escalation to a nuclear conflict. Abolishing nuclear weapons would obviously not make conflict with those states a good idea, but it would dramatically increase American freedom of action in a crisis. That should make hawks, with their strong faith in the efficacy of American military power, very happy. Indeed, if anyone opposes disarmament, it should be our rivals.

America still has freedom of action, with or without nuclear weapons. The reason for not going into combat against Russia over Georgia is that there is no national interest. I guarantee is a move was made against Poland, the US would respond with military action (under most Presidents - this one, I'm not so sure. He may not have the stomach for it). If China attacks Taiwan, the US would take military action. A carrier battle group is always close enough to defend Taiwan (though I'm not convinced they can't defend themselves).

Nuclear weapons do deter states from attacking us with nuclear weapons -- and few would suggest that we unilaterally give up our arsenal while others retain theirs. But, oddly, it is here that conservatives seem to doubt the utility of nuclear weapons more than their counterparts on the left. Whereas many liberals and realists believe that Iran could be deterred if it built the bomb, conservatives are far less sanguine, insisting that a nuclear Tehran is an unacceptable threat. They too understand that the U.S. arsenal is no guarantor of security, and that even a handful of nuclear weapons in enemy hands threatens to neuter our conventional advantage.

Not the point of deterring a nuclear Iran. Iran is not a threat. Iran's proxies are. Iran has no problem turning over a "suitcase nuke" to a terrorist organization for detonation in Tel Aviv, Paris, London, New York.

Unilaterally giving up our arsenal is exactly what the leftist peaceniks want. It's been that way since the 1960's. The belief is that if we give up ours, everyone else will play nice, too. No, they won't. There are bad governments and people who wish us harm.