Sixty ex-generals and admirals - including such heavy brass as a former NATO commander, a former Strategic Air Command chief and the commander of gulf war air forces - have stepped forward to urge the gradual elimination of all nuclear weapons. Members of the old ban-the bomb crowd, who were lucky to entice a ragtag ex-corporal in a field jacket to their rallies, must wonder where these stellar warriors were when they needed them.
The answer is that they were behaving responsibly, dutifully defending the country from a Soviet empire that bristled with nuclear-tipped ICBMs aimed our way. Disarmament under those conditions would have invited tragedy. But things have changed. Now it is equally responsible for the generals - untainted by many of the peaceniks' moral smugness - to restart the disarmament debate. There are too many nuclear weapons, and even one detonation could take hundreds of thousands of human lives.To initiate a debate is not automatically to win it, however. George Butler, the ex-SAC commander, berates nuclear weapons as "inherently dangerous, hugely expensive, militarily inefficient and morally indefensible." Well now.
Inherently dangerous? Yes, but acceptably so if the weapons minimize other dangers, like a catastrophic enemy attack. Hugely expensive? Not as expensive as keeping a giant army. (Personnel costs dwarf other military outlays.) Inefficient? Their only use ended a war against fanatical militarists. Morally indefensible? Our awesome atomic arsenal staved off a conventional Soviet-Western war, a field of dreams for the reaper.
Manifestly, as the generals say, the nuclear powers should reduce their arms as much as possible. But how much is safely possible? During recent tensions with China over Taiwan, a Chinese general menacingly wondered if America was willing to sacrifice Los Angeles for the embattled island. Another general, serving nuclear-armed India, mused that the lesson of the gulf war is that you do not fight the United States without nukes. Russia remains restive. Last but not least are the terrorist groups, who, though lacking missiles, might gladly carry an American city to perdition in a Samsonite coffin.
However, decapitating the nuclear hydra is a mission that should be prudently accelerated. The pronouncement of the generals (including former Soviet commander Alexander Lebed) may usefully reconcentrate American and Russian minds on continuing the START arms-reduction process that has holstered thousands of terrible weapons. For this, at least, they deserve a salute.