No wonder Saudi Arabia wants nuclear protection - everyone else does too

HARDLY a day goes by without a fresh crisis emerging from the Middle East. Last week, with varying degrees of hysteria, British newspapers revealed Saudi Arabia might be embarking on a nuclear programme. Coming on top of the alleged nuclear ambitions of Iran, this new threat has thrown Western governments into panic. But how serious is the Saudi threat?

The strategy paper outlining Saudi nuclear options is surprisingly temperate in tone. It was inspired by Riyadh’s fears about the volatile state of Middle East politics, not to mention its fragile friendship with the United States. Until now, the Saudis have been content to shelter under the American nuclear umbrella. But American promises of protection seem less reliable since the events of 9/11 and the subsequent decision by the US to withdraw its military forces from Saudi Arabia.

The strategy paper proposes three options. The first is to acquire a nuclear capability as a deterrent against the threat of other nuclear states. This might mean either developing its own bomb, or buying one from another state, perhaps Pakistan. The second is to pursue an alliance with an existing nuclear power - either by patching things up with the United States or forming a new alliance. The final option would be to forge a regional agreement leading to a nuclear-free Middle East.

The third option is a complete non-starter. Everyone knows that, and the Saudis do especially. A nuclear-free Middle East would require both the Pakistanis and the Israelis to destroy their weapons, a possibility about as likely as Scotland winning the World Cup.

The other two options are hardly earth-shattering. Simply stated, the Saudis want a deterrent, either one intrinsically their own, or one borrowed from a friend. They want it because they feel threatened by the Israelis, who have in excess of 200 nuclear weapons, and by the Iranians, who might be developing the bomb. Granted, Riyadh has recently restored relations with Iran, but that relationship remains fragile.

Saudi Arabia’s behaviour is no different from the way every other country in the world has responded to a nuclear threat. The strategy paper is virtually a carbon copy of documents produced by the British in 1945 and the French in the 1950s. In each case, the reasoning is simple: the only effective response to a nuclear bomb is another nuclear bomb. If one’s enemy possesses a nuclear monopoly, two dire possibilities exist - the enemy will either be able to destroy one’s country, or it will be able to extract onerous concessions by threatening destruction.

The proliferation problem arises from the fact that the world has yet to discover a response to the nuclear threat which is more reliable than mutually assured destruction, or MAD. Therefore, however regrettable proliferation might be, in the case of Iran and Saudi Arabia it is entirely understandable. The Saudis are especially perturbed by the reluctance of the International Atomic Energy Authority and the US to put pressure on the Israelis to come clean about their nuclear programme. Policies toward Israel stand in marked contrast to the way the IAEA and the US have reacted to Iran and North Korea. As long as this double standard exists, states such as Saudi Arabia will feel inclined to seek their own protection.

In the current climate, the bomb provides an additional advantage. Given the mood in Washington, with George Bush openly postulating intervention around the globe, America’s enemies understandably see nuclear weapons as the most reliable way to persuade the US to back off. Wannabe nuclear powers will have drawn their own conclusions from recent American eagerness to teach the Iraqis a lesson, and its contrasting reluctance to confront the North Koreans. In the former case, there was no credible nuclear threat, in the latter there might be one.

The world is being taught a lesson about deterrence that it hoped never to learn. In the old days of bipolar rivalries, deterrence seemed stable. But with the Cold War over and animosities much less predictable, the need for nuclear protection is more keenly felt, and the permutations of deterrence are more complicated. Given the uncertainty of the current situation, some nations are no longer willing to shelter under a great power’s nuclear umbrella and are consequently more inclined to go it alone.

It remains to be seen whether deterrence will continue to work. In the 1960s, the French general Pierre Marie Gallois argued there should be no restrictions on membership in the nuclear club, since each nuclear power would deter all the others. More recently, the political analyst John Mearsheimer argued in The New York Times that "nuclear weapons are a superb deterrent for states that feel threatened by rival powers". He feels the world will have to learn to live with proliferation: "We should try to manage and contain this process, but we cannot stop it."

Opponents of the bomb often base their argument on an idealised vision of what human beings might become. Yet they have never provided the magic elixir which will rid the world of aggression. Proponents, on the other hand, are pessimists: they accept man’s flaws and believe the bomb is the first effective impediment to our inclination to destroy each other. It is difficult to reject their argument. Would the crisis of 2002, for instance, have sent India and Pakistan into bloody war, if not for the fact that both had nuclear weapons?

However amoral, expensive and seemingly bankrupt the policy, deterrence remains the most effective defence against nuclear weapons yet conceived. Visions of a nuclear-free world might on the surface seem entrancing, but such a scenario would play into the hands of nuclear outlaws. Nuclear fission cannot, unfortunately, be collectively forgotten.

The current fears about Iran and Saudi Arabia reveal the egotism of the old nuclear powers - the US, Russia, Britain and France. These powers assume the bomb is safe in their hands because they are stable societies. The new, or wannabe, nuclear powers, on the other hand, seem much more dangerous.

What, for instance, would happen if Saudi Arabia obtained the bomb, and then a coup brought to power a government along the lines of the Taliban? While this threat is both real and frightening, it bears mentioning that the only nuclear power which has recently discussed the possibility of actually using nuclear weapons is the United States.

It should come as no surprise that some nations are jealous about the exclusive membership of the nuclear club. While Mearsheimer is probably right to argue that the world will have to learn to live with proliferation, that does not mean the threat of nuclear war will inevitably increase.

While we cannot control proliferation per se, we can take steps to reduce the animosities which cause it. As long as countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia feel threatened they will seek protection in the only way they know how. An aggressive response to Middle East nuclear cravings will not cure the problem, it will only make hunger pains more acute.