Ending with a bang?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has depended so much on American camaraderie, is being laughed at by the French because of his failed friendship with President Barack Obama. Perhaps Sarkozy had more in common with George W. Bush. But perhaps, it is more likely that the president of the world’s most powerful country does not have a vested interest in a small and decaying country like France. Their cold yet cordial relationship does not merely fuel the gossip among Parisian 70-year-olds. It brings into question Obama’s entire program of denuclearization—a plan that would probably raise Obama’s popularity worldwide.

Cynicism has no place in our 21st-century world, as the students of Columbia well know. It cannot. We cannot un-invent the atomic bomb and, unless we use them, we cannot get to a world free of atomic weapons.

Knowledge does not destroy itself—especially when it is so precious. The goal of the program is to suppress the potential desire to use a nuclear weapon and, in fact, prevent the act of doing so. How is realizing Obama’s project even a remote possibility? Even if we ignore our cynical tendencies, and consider the possibility that the U.S. could have zero nuclear weapons ready to use, what about the rest of the world? In response to Obama’s project, Sarkozy has claimed to oppose the “real world.”

Obama starts his program—you have to start somewhere—with an accord with Russia. The goal, according to the Global Zero website, is to reduce the arsenals of the two leading military powers of the world—Russia and the U.S. The maneuver, thank the capitalist god, is also economically viable. In terms of the sheer number of nuclear weapons, Russia and the U.S. remain completely unrivaled. In fact, the U.S. possesses 10,000 nuclear weapons and Russia 13,000, out of a world total of 24,000 nuclear weapons! If the two powers demilitarize, then, essentially, the world does. But downsizing in smaller countries should not be neglected. Demilitarization must be total to be effective.
It seems, however, that being at the head of the world’s strongest military power makes one forget an essential aspect of smaller nations’ power. Indeed, if Obama agrees to diminish his arsenal, most small countries still might not want to diminish theirs. Even if Russia and the U.S.—which possess the largest numbers of troops in the world—relinquish their arsenals, they will still be militarily unrivaled—and this is not the case of many other countries that possess the atomic bomb.

Here, the inventory is hard to build—between those we know to have the bomb, those who pretend to have it, those who hide it, and those who do not have it but are accused by the U.S. of having it, we can easily get lost. But the small powers that do possess the bomb will not be so keen to let go of their arsenals. France is the first one on a long list.

Indeed, President Sarkozy has openly criticized and refused the idea of getting rid of French nuclear weapons. Why? Probably because Obama’s coldness—he ignored the French president during his Paris visit in June 2009, as well as at the climate summit in Manaus, Brazil, in January—reminded him that France’s power today is extremely limited. Furthermore, France is extremely attached to its nuclear weapons. These weapons, which France always claimed to be for military defense, actually constitute its only military power.

The whole rhetorical scheme of the “protective force” of France, started by de Gaulle in the ’60s and tirelessly referenced today, is based on one principle—France had to have enough nuclear weapons to destroy a certain percentage of Russia, to make sure Russia would not attack it. Clearly, France does not believe in such an idealistic project as Global Zero or in its defense principle. Clearly, for France, peace can only be found in the equilibrium of fear that the distribution of weapons among world powers creates. And all those countries that struggle to have the bomb believe it too. In other words, peace can be found through two means—no weapons at all or weapons for all. Risky.

Thus, if we want to see a world free of nuclear activity, we must strive for a nuclear-free world! If demilitarization has an obvious moral goal, then smaller countries should be included in the discussion as well. Obama’s vague hope that “if big countries set the example, smaller ones will follow” does not leave us quite satiated. If this chimerical accord should take place it must be universal.

If nuclear bombs sprouted up all over the place, especially in very “oily” countries, the U.S. would feel pressure to maintain nuclear protection. Yes, the U.S. currently possesses two-fifths of the world’s arsenal—but how paranoid would the U.S. become if it had no weapons at all, if another country needed only one to annihilate it? How can the U.S. or Russia agree to take the risk of demilitarization?

Yes, Obama’s idealism was always quite refreshing, but one wonders when it will become trite. Yet, as always, it is necessary. For, if the big countries can actually apply it, and the smaller ones join, perhaps our world can become a little less dark and threatening. But Global Zero, to be concrete, should complement its great idealism with a bit of realism, and fight for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons—even if it requires Obama to rally smaller, skeptical powers.

The author is a Columbia College first-year.