Nuclear Power and Force: A World Without Rules

Confronted with the perplexity of almost all of his allies, and even of the Pope, on the attack unleashed by the United States and Israel against Iran, Donald Trump’s recurrent answer is that it is absolutely necessary to dismantle any possibility that Iran get nuclear weapons.

It seems important to note here that the United States had obtained guarantees from Iran about a purely non-military use of nuclear energy in the first half of the years 2010, guarantees to be confirmed through repeated visits from the International Atomic Energy Agency. During the first Trump administration, the United States withdrew from this agreement and Iran felt free to resume its acquisition of nuclear energy for both civilian and military purposes. In other words, it is important to remember that just over ten years ago a diplomatic agreement had been reached, and now the United States is trying to achieve the same result through military means, at immense direct cost for itself and equally immense indirect costs for the entire world. From this calculation, I exclude the incalculable cost of lives lost across the region.

An increasingly fragile balance

The fear of nuclear war has marked more than eighty years of world history, intensifying when the Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb around the 1950s. From that point on, however, fear was accompanied by the hope that so-called mutually assured destruction would serve as a sufficient deterrent to prevent the use of atomic weapons by those who possessed them. Some theorists of political realism even suggest that we owe this decades-long period of “only cold” war, precisely to nuclear weapons.

This balance has been repeatedly shaken since the late 1990s, and the conditions that prevented the world from sliding into a new world war seem to have weakened. And yet, for Europeans and Americans, wars appeared to occur nearby perhaps, but always “elsewhere.” Even Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 seems to have confirmed that none of the nuclear powers would be willing to oppose Russian advances at the risk of triggering the first global conflict under the shadow of atomic bombs. The principle of deterrence seems to survive—for now—even in the presence of reckless and unpredictable leaders. But for how long can we still rely on it?

The war in Iran awakens us from our renewed torpor and reminds us that we remain only a minimal distance away from the sudden annihilation of the planet.

Forgotten lessons from the 20th century

Seventy years ago, Karl Jaspers—a German existentialist philosopher—entrusted his reflections on the atomic bomb and the future of humanity future in its shadow to a series of radio programs broadcast on German radio. Unlike other philosophers such as Bertrand Russell or Günther Anders, who in the same period were strongly critical of the acquisition and potential use of the atomic bomb, Jaspers expressed a kind of unconditional loyalty toward the United States and a strong hostility toward the Soviet Union, which he viewed as a totalitarian state and, in this sense, entirely similar to Nazi Germany. For Jaspers, freedom and independence from the Soviet Union took precedence over peace. He saw possession of the bomb—and the credible threat of its use—as an indispensable condition for the survival of the West. If for Bertrand Russell the enemy of civilization was violence, for Jaspers it was the Soviet Union. For Anders, on the other hand, even considering the possible use of atomic weapons was already a concession to totalitarianism.

These thinkers from the past offer, I believe, valuable insights for reflecting on our present. I would like, however, to return to Jaspers’ intellectual and political stance—that nuclear weapons are justified with totalitarianism looming on the horizon—and reflect on two elements in particular.

A breakdown of trust among allies

Both concern the fact that the United States expect now from the world an acquiescence to its will similar to the one shown by Jaspers toward the American administrations of his time.

The first element is strategic. Jaspers trusted completely that the United States would save Germany—and indeed the entire “West”—in the face of a possible Soviet invasion. That trust was certainly not unfounded in those years. But what about now? President Trump misses no opportunity to criticize Europe for its lack of loyalty in response to American demands for military support in this war. Recently, Trump singled out Italy, declaring that just as this country did not support the United States in its time of need, so the United States will not support Italy when it might need it. These statements threaten far more than Italy, Europe, or the United States’ historical allies. They threaten also the United States and the global order.

When only force remains

And here I move from the strategic level to that of principles.

As eloquently mentioned by the Prime Minister of Canada in his historic speech at the World Forum in Davos, the order established after World War II was not perfect, but the decision—first and foremost by the United States—to give a legal framework to international politics starting from the Nuremberg Trials made it possible to create a blueprint of predictability, and therefore of trust in certain principles of political action, based on fundamental rules that enabled a degree of cooperation among nations. This legal framework is now being mocked by the very country that promoted it, and the blueprint has been torn apart. We have returned to a more cynical form of nationalism, one that is contemptuous of rules and decency. The idea of legitimacy withers, leaving only brute force.

But the history of political thought—from Plato to Aristotle, and even through Machiavelli and Hobbes, up to our own time with Hannah Arendt and Václav Havel—reminds us that an order based solely on force is not truly an order: the strongest must either constantly look over its shoulder or construct an appearance of legitimacy. Donald Trump appears increasingly contemptuous of any legitimacy not grounded in brute force. Therefore, he is left with the need to constantly look over his shoulder. The rest of us, those who still believe—if not in justice and decency, at least in order—are left with the task of stubbornly reaffirming its importance.