associated with the establishment of global governance’.^36 Craig has not specified
what he means by this in relation to the control of nuclear weapons, but if he
envisages the creation of a global nuclear authority that would control all nuclear
weapons and materials, it is evident that achieving this will require a radical
transformation in attitudes and beliefs on the part of the existing nuclear-armed
powers (including those currently outside the NPT).
The fundamental problem confronting such a radical transformation is how states
that are mistrustful of the motives and intentions of others can be persuaded to
eliminate their nuclear weapons when others might cheat, with all the dangers of
nuclear blackmail that this would entail. A disarmed nuclear world that was bereft
of trust would be one in which the security dilemma would operate with great
ferocity because states could have little confidence that others would come to their
rescue if they were blackmailed or attacked by a state that had secretly hidden nuclear
weapons. Fearing defections by others, states would hedge by concealing some
weapons, and this led Waltz to argue that returning to zero would lead to ‘the most
dangerous kind of world’ because ‘If any country is foolish enough to get rid of
them, and then someone discovers that these other countries have them, there will
be a rush to rebuild them.’^37
The challenge, then, for those who are not prepared to rest global security
perpetually on the shared fear of nuclear catastrophe is to navigate a safe path to zero.
This depends upon establishing and sustaining a form of ‘global nuclear gover-
nance’^38 (this will require norms, rules, and institutions but not necessarily a world
government) that will reassure states that others have disarmed and are not about to
reveal a hidden arsenal to the world. To be credible, it would also be necessary for
any such disarmament agreement to provide machinery for enforcement in the event
that any government did try to break out. Although some have argued that the threat
to rearm with nuclear weapons in the event of a break-out would be sufficient to
keep a disarmed world stable, basing security in a disarmed nuclear world on nuclear
fear is as problematic and worrying a basis for peace as it is in Waltz’s proliferating
nuclear world.^39
Is there a political alternative to reliance on the fear of nuclear destruction that
can provide security between both nuclear-armed and disarming states? The
remainder of this chapter maps out an alternative path to achieving a world free of
nuclear weapons which is rooted in the theory and practice of security communities
as trust-builders in international relations.
Nuclear trust-building through security communities
The transition from a situation in which the members of the nuclear club possess
thousands of weapons between them, to one in which there are only a few hundred,
or even zero, is much more than a technical question of verifying that the last
few weapons have been dismantled. What is at stake in any such transition is whether
the nuclear powers can learn to base their security on mutual trust rather than
mutual fear.
Beyond Waltz’s nuclear world 255