GUSTERSON AUDIT

M A S S A C H U S E T T S I N S T I T U T E O F T E C H N O L O G Y M A S S A C H U S E T T S I N S T I T U T E O F T E C H N O L O G YApril 2006M I T C E N T E R F O R I N T E R N A T I O N A L S T U D I E S 06-08of the Conventional WisdomA Double Standard on1Nuclear Weapons?Hugh GustersonMIT Center for International Studieshere has long been a widespread perception among U.S. Tdefense intellectuals, politicians and pundits that, while we can live with the nuclear weapons of the five official nuclear nations for the indefinite future, the proliferation of nuclear weap-ons to nuclear-threshold states in the Third World, especially the Islamic world, would be enormously dangerous. This orthodoxy is so much a part of our collective common sense that, like all com-mon sense, it can usually be stated as simple fact without fear of contradiction. It is widely found in the media and in learned jour-nals, and it is shared by liberals as well as conservatives. For example, just as Kenneth Adelman, a senior official in the Reagan administration, said that “the real danger comes from some miserable Third World country which 2decides to use these weapons either out of desperation or incivility,” at the same time Hans Bethe—a physicist revered by many for his work on behalf of disarmament over many decades—said, “There have to be nuclear weapons in the hands of more respon-3sible countries to deter such use” by Third World nations.Center for International ...