Zia Mian

Bush's War

Zia Mian — 2006-04-22T00:10:00Z

It is now just over three years since the United States attacked and occupied Iraq. The war came despite determined resistance from public opinion around the world. People took to the streets in a massive popular mobilization that was arguably the largest political protest since the anti-nuclear movement of the early 1980s. The New York Times described it as a struggle between “two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.” United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan told a BBC interviewer that he considered the war in Iraq to be “illegal.” But neither public opinion nor international law was organized enough yet to stop the United States when it had chosen war. (...)

- / Foreign Policy In Focus

Controlling the Bomb

Zia Mian — 2006-04-04T22:03:42Z

The United States is trying to prevent Iran from acquiring the capacity to make nuclear weapons. This is only the most recent of its seemingly endless series of battles over the past 60 years to control which other countries have access to these weapons. In this time it has failed to understand that as a nuclear-armed superpower it is as much part of the problem as part of the solution. As the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca explained almost 2000 years ago, "Power over life and death-don't be proud of it. Whatever they fear from you, you'll be threatened with."

The United States was the first country to build an atomic bomb. It is the only one to have used them in war. Recognizing the enormous power of nuclear weapons, it considered how to protect its nuclear monopoly even before it had built the bomb. Leslie Groves, who was in charge of the bomb project, proposed in 1943 that the United States try to acquire total control of all the known uranium supplies in the world, to stop anyone else having access even to the basic material from which nuclear weapons are made.

Having built and used the atomic bomb, the United States adopted a policy of monopoly and exclusion, to keep what was called its "winning weapon." It refused initially to cooperate with its closest wartime ally, the UK, to help it acquire nuclear weapons. Britain went ahead and built one anyway.

The first "proliferation" fear was the Soviet Union-which also had been a U.S. ally in the war. There was a debate in the United States in 1947 about whether to pre-emptively attack the Soviet Union, including with nuclear weapons, both to check its rise and to stop it acquiring its own nuclear forces. U.S. war planners proposed that the policy should be that “The mere manufacture of nuclear weapons by another power, or even the procurement of fissile materials, might constitute grounds for action.” The United States did not help France with its nuclear weapons program, but did not block its ally either when in the early 1950s it decided to go nuclear. But it was a different story when it came to China 10 years later.

The United States considered attacking China when it looked like China might be about to acquire nuclear weapons. In April 1963, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff made plans that ranged from conventional air attacks to a tactical nuclear attack on Chinese nuclear weapons facilities. There was a similar study by the U.S. State Department in 1964. Among the other options proposed were sanctions, infiltration, subversion and sabotage, and invasion. (...)

- / Foreign Policy In Focus

The nuclear complex: America, the bomb, and Osama bin Laden

Pervez Hoodbhoy, Zia Mian — 2006-02-16T20:10:49Z

This article is adapted from Pervez Hoodbhoy, "When?" (Los Angeles Times, 10 July 2005) and "Bin Laden and Hiroshima" (Znet, August 2005)

The twin ambitions of American empire and radical Islamism could bring nuclear catastrophe to the world. A different ethical and political project is urgently needed, say the Pakistani scholars Pervez Hoodbhoy & Zia Mian.

"Power over life and death - don't be proud of it.
Whatever they fear from you, you'll be threatened with." —Seneca (Roman philosopher and statesman)

The decisions to incinerate Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 were not taken in anger. White men in grey business suits and military uniforms, concluded after much deliberation that the United States "could not give the Japanese any warning; that we could not concentrate on a civilian area; but that we should seek to make a profound psychological impression on as many of the inhabitants as possible... [and] the most desirable target would be a vital war plant employing a large number of workers and closely surrounded by workers' houses". It was justified by the belief that it would be cheaper in American lives to release the nuclear genie. Besides, it was such a marvellous thing to show Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

The victorious are rarely encumbered by remorse. Headlines like "Jap City No More" brought the news to a joyous America. Crowds gathered in New York's Times Square to celebrate; there was less of the enemy left. The president responsible for giving the order, Harry Truman, said: "When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true." Not surprisingly, six decades later, even American liberals remain ambivalent about the morality of nuking the two Japanese cities. (...)

- / openDemocracy

Controlling the Bomb

Zia Mian — 2006-02-15T09:34:00Z

Since the US and other nuclear powers are not engaged in disarmament, countries hopeful of possessing the "absolute weapon" are not convinced about why they should be denied. The threatened use of force only persuades them further that possessing the bomb would assure security.

US efforts to check "proliferation" are hypocritical as well as ineffective. Since the US (and other nuclear powers) are not engaged in disarmament, the hopefuls are not convinced about why they should be denied the "absolute weapon". The use of force (as against Iraq in 2003 and now a looming possibility against Iran) only serves to make other states believe that if only they had the bomb they would be safe.

The United States is trying to prevent Iran from acquiring the capacity to make nuclear weapons. This is only the most recent of its seemingly endless series of battles over the past 60 years to control which other countries have access to these weapons. In this time it has failed to understand that as a nuclear-armed superpower it is as much part of the problem as part of the solution. As the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca explained almost 2000 years ago, “power over life and death - don't be proud of it. Whatever they fear from you, you'll be threatened with.”

The US was the first country to build an atomic bomb. It is the only one to have used them in war. Recognising the enormous power of nuclear weapons, it considered how to protect its nuclear monopoly even before it had built the bomb. Leslie Groves, who was in charge of the bomb project, proposed in 1943 that the US try to acquire total control of all the known uranium supplies in the world, to stop anyone else having access even to the basic material from which nuclear weapons are made. (...)

[Volume 41 No 6 | February 11, 2006]

- / Economic and Political Weekly

Blinded by the Bomb

Zia Mian — 2005-11-19T04:54:00Z

For decades, leaders of India and Pakistan have been bewitched by the power of the bomb. Regardless of their various other differences, they seem to have believed that the threat of massive destruction represented by nuclear weapons is a force for good, and that the weapons themselves are vital to the well-being of their respective countries. President A P J Abdul Kalam, for instance, has claimed that nuclear weapons are “truly weapons of peace”. For his part, President Pervez Musharraf has declared that his country's nuclear weapons are as critical and important as national security, the economy and Kashmir.

For those not blinded by the Bomb, however, the pursuit of nuclear weapons has brought nothing but a competition in destructive capabilities and crisis after crisis. The Cold War seemed proof enough, but the lessons have been lost to those who rule in India and Pakistan. New Delhi's nuclear ambitions have served only to encourage Islamabad to follow blindly. The 1974 nuclear test at Pokhran sharpened Pakistan's determination not to be left behind and, as many had feared, the bomb was not willing to be left in the shadows for long. First India and then Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in May 1998. (...)

- / ZNet

Feeding the Nuclear Fire

MV Ramana, Zia Mian — 2005-09-10T03:45:00Z

This article was first published in Economic and Political Weekly, August 27, 2005.

The July 18 joint statement by US president George Bush and prime minister Manmohan Singh has attracted a great deal of comment. The focus has been the possible consequences of US promises to support India's nuclear energy programme in exchange for India clearly separating its military and civilian nuclear facilities and programmes, and opening the latter to international inspection.

Much of the debate on the deal has been between what can be broadly called the nuclear hawks and the nuclear nationalists. The nuclear hawks believe India's nuclear programme is a great success and more than able to take care of itself. They see the deal as imposing unnecessary constraints on the programme and making more difficult the creation of the large nuclear arsenal, including thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs), that they believe is essential for India to be a ‘great power.' (...)

- / ZNet

Unravelling of the US Military

Zia Mian — 2005-07-30T04:44:00Z

In a recent speech at Fort Bragg, a major US military base, president Bush declared, "There is no higher calling than service in our armed forces." It seems fewer and fewer young Americans and their parents agree with him. The US military is finding it increasingly difficult to sustain itself. This is despite what at first sight should be fruitful conditions for military recruitment: the events of September 11 and the fears about terrorism; the argument by the Bush administration that the global war on terrorism must be fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and other such faraway places, or it will end up having to be fought at home; and America's ongoing wars that bring to the screens daily stories of heroic 'warriors' liberating and defending the innocent. (...)

[July 23, 2005]

- / ZNet, Economic and Political Weekly

Lingering Shadows

Zia Mian — 2005-06-12T18:50:26Z

The 60th anniversary commemorating the end of the second world war in Europe was recently observed, yet there has been little introspection of the dangers the war unleashed; the threats that still persist, in more virulent a form. The nuclear race between the two original superpowers that began towards the end of the war continues unabated. But the post-cold war world is now a more vulnerable one, as several more countries continue to build on and develop their own nuclear stockpiles.

Recent weeks have seen many events commemorating the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war. There has been little or no discussion of some of the most important and enduring legacies of that war that have cast a long shadow ever since. Nationalism, industrial production, the bureaucratic state, and science and technology were harnessed to the cause of war in terrible new ways. It brought us the gas chambers, the systematic bombing of cities and nuclear weapons. These three forms of modern violence are different in some significant ways, but they shared important features. Among these were centralized authority, extensive compartmentalization of responsibilities, tasks and knowledge accompanied by strong organizational loyalty, along with scientific rationalization for the policy and technical ways of distancing perpetrators from victims. (...)

[May 28-June 4, 2005]

- / ZNet, Economic and Political Weekly

A New American Century?

Zia Mian — 2005-05-05T10:36:26Z

In 1997, a group of conservative American politicians, academics, and policy brokers announced “The Project for a New American Century.” The members included a who's who of important players in the Bush administration since 2001, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff), Paul Wolfowitz, formerly in the defense department and newly appointed president of the World Bank, and Zalmay Khalilzad (who has served until recently as the ambassador to Afghanistan and is now the ambassador to Iraq). It also includes Jeb Bush, President Bush's brother.

- / Foreign Policy In Focus

Peace in South Asia?

Justin Podur, Zia Mian — 2004-02-05T06:00:00Z

South Asia Watch

In the first week of January (before the recent revelations about Pakistan's nuclear scientist's activities) a summit was held in Islamabad between Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf of Pakistan. The summit, the conference that preceded it, and the talks that are to follow, have been hailed as a "breakthrough" in India - Pakistan relations, with peace between the two countries and in the disputed region of Kashmir closer than ever in the recent past. (...)