I RESPOND to replies by Brian Quail and Tom McFadyen of July 21 to my earlier letter. I entirely agree that we should eliminate nuclear weapons and the sooner the better.

However, an element of naive idealism has crept into the thinking. The weapons themselves are not “illegal” and possession of them is not actually a war crime. They could be, of course, if they were internationally recognised as such, but are as yet not. And even if they are, who is going to do anything about the states that thumb their noses to international order?

I appreciate the sentiments, however, very well-intentioned as they are. The only actual point of disagreement is the process of ridding ourselves of these monstrosities. While we could remove them from our country, other states will still possess them, of which at least two have declared themselves as our enemies and have openly threatened their use. One of which has already directly made such threats to anyone who opposes its invasion of another country.

Yes, we need to continue the campaign of removal, but that has to be matched by similar moves in those other countries. Sadly, because of the despotic nature of their regimes, such protests as we have the safe luxury of carrying out are expressly forbidden. We need to encourage a much wider world movement to remove the weapons.

Much countries in the “West” have left themselves in a very vulnerable position due to successive premature “peace dividend” conventional defence cutbacks, meaning that we rely increasingly if not almost entirely on an early nuclear retaliation in the event of an attack. This itself is a potential existential disaster in the making, and of course done in the name of austerity tax cuts for the benefit of a few.

Naive idealism does not learn from history. Time and time again we have seen that the policy of appeasement does not work when a state is intent on some imperialistic adventure, and that is precisely why Putin has been emboldened since the late 90s to invade numerous neighbouring countries. All he has to do, as he has already, is to threaten supporters of his victims with nuclear retaliation if they dare to interfere in his ambitions.

The reason the US was the only country to actually use these weapons, after a lot of soul-searching, was that Japan did not. They have not been used since because of the risk and consequences of retaliation.

I was not arguing against any protests, policies or widespread desires to rid the world of nuclear war capabilities (despite the fact that the technology will always be there – forever), and I welcome the fact that as an independent nation we would have the power to remove them from our territory. However, again history has a lesson. Ukraine possessed nuclear weapons and gave them up on the promises of safety. Look what has happened – they still got invaded by Russian forces operating under the premise that the West would not physically intervene because of fears of escalation and the open nuclear threats from Putin. Did not having the means of meeting like with like deter Putin? Invasions happen solely because the aggressor thinks they can win, and if they have a nuclear trump card it merely emboldens them.

Iran is openly developing its own nuclear capability at the same time as fomenting trouble throughout the Middle East and declared intentions to eliminate Israel. That and similar nations have a suicide culture and have a belief of eternal salvation if they can eliminate those they choose as enemies. Nations and regimes with ideologies that don’t care about future survival are clearly not interested in one-sided disarmaments, seeing them as a weakness to be exploited.

Naive idealism does not prevent aggressors from being aggressive. Pragmatic idealism, which is all I argued in favour of, is the only practical solution. We need to work towards full universal nuclear disarmament and the elimination of autocratic dictatorships, whether capitalist or socialist. Declaring ourselves willing to disarm is a first step, but needs to be met by similar policies elsewhere. There is sadly an increasing tendency in politics to see things as binary, polarised, left or right, one or the other, with a reduced amount of pragmatic analysis to cope with the many shades of grey that exist and get in the way of the ideals.

While we could bask in the glory of elimination, it does not stop us being on the receiving end of the consequences if someone else uses them. As with anything international, it is not as easy as it all sounds.

Nick Cole
Meigle, Perthshire