книги / Международные отношения России теория и история
..pdfhordes of the injured and disfigured. One of the six survivors, a young woman who was engaged to be married, is left crippled, untreated and in agonising pain for several days. She never sees her fiance again.
It’s impossible to read Hersey’s account without feeling a sense of species shame. And it certainly leaves you in no doubt that such weapons, let alone their modern successors, should never again be used.
But of course a finely written account of the conventional bombing of Tokyo that took place in March 1945 would no doubt leave the reader feeling similarly appalled. As many as 100,000 civilians were killed in the massive fire storms that raged across the Japanese capital. Were their deaths more acceptable, less abominable?
Distinct from the question of the morality of atomic or nuclear weapons is the question of their utility, though the two are frequently confused. There are many observers who look at the horror inflicted upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki and conclude that not only was it wrong but therefore, almost by definition, unnecessary.
This line of thought tends to view the atomic raids on the two cities as if they had little or nothing to do with a desire to end the war with as few casualties – particularly American – as possible. Instead they are seen as a deliberately terrifying exhibition of American military might.
Schlosser, who is a seasoned student and critic of nuclear weapons, does not subscribe to this particular school of historical analysis.
“The real adamant opponents of nuclear weapons argue that they’ve never had any use whatsoever,” he says, “that they didn’t help to end the second world war, that they didn’t prevent the Soviets from overrunning Europe, and I don’t agree with that. I think that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably sped the end of the war. I think that in the absence of nuclear weapons that the Soviet Union would have had hegemony over western Europe.”
He points out that the Japanese killed an estimated 1 million Chinese civilians with chemical and biological weapons alone, and altogether killed between “10 and 15 million people in what is now considered an Asian holocaust”. So the Japanese leadership’s willingness to kill was not to be doubted, nor its determination to defend the country against invasion.
71
All of which means that those who say the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prevented the deaths of hundreds of thousands more soldiers and civilians have, at the least, a respectable point. “But,” adds Schlosser, “I’m not celebrating it or saying it was justified.”
Schlosser is best known for his books Fast Food Nation, a searing exposé of America’s food industry, and Reefer Madness, a provocative examination of the US’s black market in sex and drugs. But for the last seven years he’s been researching and writing about America’s nuclear industry.
He argues that in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, and in particular as a result of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, America had no appetite for further conflict. “The United States essentially demobilised after the second world war to a degree that is astonishing. We got rid of our tanks, ships, planes, cut defence spending by 90% in the expectation that there would be world peace, and then after the Berlin crisis there was this awareness that we had to defend western Europe or let it go to the Soviets. And the only way to do that was nuclear weapons. Now saying that they have served a role in deterrence doesn’t mean that there’s to be acceptance, because all that came at a high potential price.”
In his 2013 book Command and Control he uncovers the many close shaves, accidents and errors that provide a secret and disturbing history of nuclear armaments. In Gods of Metal he looks at several major security breaches, most notably at the Y-2 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, when three religiously motivated trespassers broke into the site and defaced a weapons-grade uranium storage building.
As it turned out they were Catholic pacifists, making a peaceful protest against nuclear weapons. But what if their religious motivation had taken a more aggressive form? And that instead of spraying the walls of the storage site with antiwar slogans, they had blown open those walls and gained access to the large quantities of uranium-235, the fissile material needed to generate a nuclear weapon’s apocalyptic power?
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, the prospect of humanity’s self-inflicted oblivion has subsided, at least in our anxious preoccupations. The impossibly mammoth nuclear arsenal
72
that east and west had aimed at each other has shrunk from around 70,000 warheads to the 16,000 that are now thought to be maintained by the nine nuclear-armed nations: United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
In the 1980s, when the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was at its height, there was much talk about MAD, the fitting acronym for the military doctrine that provided the logic for nuclear deterrence: mutually assured destruction. What prevented one side from launching its weapons was the knowledge that the other would retaliate in kind, meaning that both would be annihilated, along with the rest of us.
That outlook still pertains and may become more relevant as Russia once more steps up its nuclear arms production and the US duly responds. It also operates in the tense standoff between India and Pakistan, and if Iran ever does manage to develop a nuclear weapon, the best that can be hoped for is that it will also govern policy between itself and Israel.
However, as Schlosser says: “The problem with nuclear deterrence is that it requires secular rational thought on both sides of the equation. We now have ideologies glorifying, celebrating the slaughter of civilians. And willing to die to facilitate the slaughter of civilians and the destruction of cultural monuments. So that makes this technology even more dangerous.”
Schlosser notes that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida, has quoted with approval a radical imam’s view that using a nuclear weapon against the US that destroyed “tens of millions” of Americans would be sanctified by God and therefore “permissible”.
The age of mutually assured destruction seems to have been replaced by one of religiously sanctioned extermination. If, that is, the religious zealots can get their hands on a nuclear weapon. Given the precarious nature of the Pakistani state, which boasts the world’s fastestgrowing nuclear arsenal, and its deep penetration by religious zealots, such an eventuality is not utterly inconceivable. And in the nuclear theatre, what is not utterly inconceivable is a serious threat because, as Schlosser repeatedly states, we’re dealing with very low probabilities but extremely large consequences. Sometimes there are black swans and it
73
would be preferable, all things considered, if they were not accompanied by the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Also in the realm of the not utterly inconceivable is the construction of an improvised nuclear device. Here there is a distinction to be drawn with so-called “dirty bombs” which, as Schlosser explains, are fairly easy to build but possess limited lethality. A dirty bomb could be made from a radioisotope gathered from a hospital and then attached to a pipe bomb. “That’s the most likely form of nuclear terrorism and it’s the least dangerous,” says Schlosser, “in the sense that it would contaminate part of the city with radioactivity but it wouldn’t kill many people. It would just lower the real-estate values.”
But an improvised nuclear device is a homemade nuclear weapon. It doesn’t require extraordinary ingenuity to build, as long as the terrorists aren’t much concerned about a controlled detonation that enables their escape – ie it would suit a suicide bomber, and there appears to be no shortage of those. What it does require is weapons-grade uranium in sufficient quantity.
“The greatest challenge for [would-be nuclear] terrorists has been, how do you get the weapons-grade uranium?” says Schlosser. “Gods of Metal is a description of how they could have done it. Had there been a dozen activists who had been trained with weapons, as opposed to three who believed in peace, love and understanding, they could have readily made a nuclear device on that site and set it off, and that would have had horrific consequences for the state of Tennessee and the eastern seaboard.”
For Schlosser, who expresses a great deal of sympathy for the activists in Tennessee, the breach of security they achieved points to a wider malaise than slack guarding. It’s symptomatic of a general complacency about the danger that nuclear weapons represent. In some way we have normalised their existence. We’ve grown accustomed to their being there and not being used. While they remain objects of fear in military terms, they have been slowly stripped of dread in the cultural imagination.
In short, we’ve stopped asking “What if?” And yet, as Schlosser reminds us, there have been studies in recent years that suggest that if India and Pakistan were to have a relatively limited nuclear exchange as many as a billion people could be killed.
74
That is a scale of disaster beyond our comprehension. What if indeed. But nonetheless it’s our duty to try to comprehend it rather than push it to the back our minds, to sit behind our concerns about the economy, Syria, Islamic State (Isis), and the future of the euro. Because if we don’t address worst-case scenarios, we will be less able to avoid them.
That said, what are we supposed to do once we’ve fully taken on board just how destructive these weapons are? At one point in Gods of Metal Schlosser ventriloquises military experts and academics who believe that getting rid of nuclear weapons is a dangerous fantasy. “A treaty to abolish nuclear weapons,” he writes, “would be as effective as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, an international agreement, signed by the United States in 1928, that outlawed war.”
After all, in a world in which a rogue state like North Korea, a dysfunctional state like Pakistan and an increasingly bellicose state like Russia all possess the bomb, what major power is going to lead the way and unilaterally disarm?
Schlosser knows such arguments all too well but he doesn’t accept that there’s nothing that can be done. “Without being utopian about the possibility of eliminating this threat next week, you reduce the number of nuclear missiles in the world, you reduce the amount of bomb-grade fissile material in the world, and you do everything you can to guard and protect both that still exists. The proliferation of nuclear weapons, the spread of bomb-making ability, and the lack of proper investment in security is a recipe for disaster.”
The UK became the world’s third nuclear power seven years after Hiroshima in October 1952. Ever since the argument has waxed and waned over whether the nation has any real need for nuclear weapons. During the cold war it was said by opponents that our nuclear arsenal served only to make us a Soviet target. Now it is said that it’s a geopolitical anachronism, a relic from an era when Britain was a major imperial power, a hugely expensive means of pretending that we are more important than we are.
Jeremy Corbyn, the frontrunner in the Labour leadership contest, has made it clear that he does not want Britain to renew the Trident programme, the permanently patrolling submarine system that is the means of delivery for our stockpile of thermonuclear weapons.
75
CND, of which Corbyn is vice-chairman, claims that Trident will cost £100bn to update. The government’s projections are significantly lower – but then government projections usually are. Before Corbyn’s unlikely leadership challenge, the issue of nuclear weapons had not had much political traction since the Labour party dropped its unpopular unilateral disarmament policy in the early 1990s.
What did Schlosser think we should do about renewing Trident? “I’m not going to wade into that loaded issue except to say that the
proponents of Trident are the ones who must justify spending that amount of money on this weapon system. And to the degree that your government is planning massive investments in this technology, everybody should know about it, think about it and discuss whether it’s a good idea, and especially discuss what are they for, where are they aimed and how and when will they be used. Because if your government does those things it’s in your name.”
It’s a laudable perspective but not one necessarily shared by many in the population at large, who seem to want to know that Trident is there, but not exactly what it’s doing there. That’s the psychological beauty of a submarine – it’s out there, under the water, out of sight and out of mind. There is no specific location like Oak Ridge that reminds us of the potential destruction in our midst.
We can both know and not know, which is a dual mindset that has governed much of our thinking about nuclear weapons ever since those twin flashes of reality 70 years ago announced a frightening new age of conceivable cataclysm.
To think too much about nuclear armaments is to risk a lifetime of fear and paranoia, whereas to think too little is to fall into a state of denial. Somewhere between those two extremes is a space for rational discussion and debate. The problem is that when it comes to weapons that can kill billions and poison the planet for a generation all rational discussion sounds mad. But the alternative is irrational discussion and that’s unlikely to take us very far.
One of the key elements of an effective deterrence programme is to promote the belief that, when it comes down to it, the possessor of nuclear weapons is prepared to use them. But the lesson that Hiroshima, the victim
76
of the most primitive nuclear technology, must teach us is that no one should be prepared to use them. And if no one is prepared to use them, that’s a good basis for the commitment that no one should possess them. Seventy years on, Hiroshima also deserves the promise: never again.
9. Ознакомьтесь со статьёй в «The Guardian» о воссоединении Германии. Какие последствия воссоединения имело для населения бывших ГДР и ФРГ?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/02/german- reunification-25-years-on-how-different-are-east-and-west-really
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Friday 2 October 2015 17.47 BST
German reunification 25 years on: how different are east and west really
After two and a half decades of growing back together, huge gaps remain between the two former halves. We take a look at how they compare
When East and West Germany reunited 25 years ago this weekend, the country was drunk on euphoria and a sense of heightened optimism. While reigning chancellor Helmut Kohl promised “flourishing landscapes”, his predecessor Willy Brandt produced the now legendary sentence: “What belongs together, will grow together”. But how united is Germany a generation on?
The Berlin Institute for Population and Development concluded in a recent study that half of all Germans believe there are more differences between “Ossis” (easterners) and “Wessis” (westerners) than commonalities.
The report, titled How reunification is going – how far a oncedivided Germany has grown together again, found there is now little to distinguish life in the east and west in many regards, but there are still huge differences.
The fact that it was possible to bring the two systems together “is a miracle for which it is hard to find a historical equivalent,” said the institute’s director, Reiner Klingholz.
“There is no example of merging two states with such vastly different political systems that has worked so smoothly. But this
77
reunification was, and continues to be, far more difficult to achieve than was thought during the exuberance of the reunification celebrations.
“Even if the two parts were only separated for 41 years – that’s less than two generations – the citizens of east and west were socialised in such a different way that in retrospect the idea that integration would be swift was utopian.”
Klingholz estimates that it will take at least another generation before the two parts have truly grown back together. One major piece of evidence for that, he says, is that “many Wessis have never even been to the east,” while most Ossis have been to the west.
Here is how they compare on key indicators:
Wealth
States in the former west continue to be considerably richer than those in the former east, where ordinary households own far less than half of the wealth accumulated by those in the west.
Of the 500 richest Germans, only 21 are in the east and, of those, 14 are in Berlin. Of the 20 most prosperous cities, only one – Jena – is in the east.
There are many reasons for the differences, including the fact that wages in the east continue to be lower – at €2,800 (£2,075) a month, people earn about two-thirds of the average wage in the west – and that property in the east is only worth half as much in the west.
Another factor is that while Kohl declared wages and pensions should be translated one to one into West Marks in 1990, savings were only translated at a rate of two East Marks to one West Mark. On top of that, as owning property was generally taboo in East Germany, families have less to pass on to their children.
The net wealth of the average westerner is about €153,200 per person. In eastern households it is not even half that. Indeed, east Germans with net assets of at least €110,000 are considered to belong to the richest 10% of adults; in the west, €240,000 is the minimum.
As cars are the most conspicuous indication of a German’s wealth, it is worth noting that a west German is twice as likely to drive a BMW, with an East German twice as likely to drive a Skoda.
78
Poverty and health
The risk of an east German slipping into poverty is about 25% higher than that of a west German. However, life expectancy has risen considerably in the east since reunification, with women now on a par with their western counterparts. For men, it is slightly lower in the former east.
In terms of health, the concerns are similar, with obesity having increased in the east from between 12%-16% in 1999 to an average of 18% in 2013, and in the west from less than 10%-12% in 1999 to between 14% and 18% in 2013
Productivity
Productivity in the former east was 70% of that in the west in 1991 and rose to just 73% in 2012, in part a legacy of the number of factories that were bought by west German industrialists and deliberately run into the ground to scotch competition as well as the inefficiency of many companies in the east.
None of the 30 largest companies listed on the German stock market are based in the east. Experts say the fact that most of the large industry and production bases are in the west and that those in the east are far smaller – with most employers in agriculture or service industries like meat-processing and call centres – will have a long-term effect of increasingly holding back the economy in the east and ensuring that the wage discrepancy remains and likely worsens.
Women
In east Germany, more women work (75%) than in the west, (70%), a legacy of a socialist system in which women were encouraged to work and which boasted full employment. In reality, it meant women were pressurised to run a household as well as work full time, a fact that was rarely acknowledged.
As a result, childcare facilities in the east are far superior to those in the west, where every fourth child under three is in a nursery; in the east, it is more than half.
79
In 1994, polls showed that almost 70% of west German women said children under school age suffered when their mothers worked. Their attitude is now more in line with that of east German women (for whom working and bringing up children has long been the norm), with only 30% of Wessi women now holding that opinion.
East German mothers return to work after childbirth much earlier than their west German counterparts and are more inclined to work fulltime. Even part-time working mothers in the east work on average six hours longer than those in the west.
Partnerships
While long-term relationships between Ossis and Wessis were once highly unusual, they now account for about 10% of all partnerships, as likely as a relationship between a German and an immigrant, experts say. Most common is a partnership made up of women from the east and men from the west. Experts have suggested that this is because women prioritise status and wealth when looking for a partner. East-west partnerships are often referred to as “Wossis”.
Voluntary sector
While 37% of west Germans are involved in some sort of voluntary activity – from the fire brigade to church charities – only 30% of east Germans are. Analysts say this is a legacy of the East German state obliging its citizens to carry out supposedly voluntary activities, thereby giving it a negative connotation, and that civil society is still less developed in the former east.
Consumption
Consumer goods were one of the most immediate attractions for east Germans when the Berlin Wall fell, with Levi jeans, Milka chocolate bars and video recorders initially being the most popular goods.
There are few products from the East German era that have made it on to the supermarket shelves of the united Germany. However, Rotkäppchen Sekt, or Red-Riding Hood sparkling wine, Spee washing powder, Radeberger Pilsner and Bautz’ner mustard are among the
80