Nuclear weapons come with a hidden cost: they erode democracy. In every nuclear state, secrecy, executive powers and stifled debate cut the public off from their government’s nuclear decision-making. Sterre van Buuren explains why this is – and why citizens must still push for more accountability
In a meeting in 1974, US President Richard Nixon bragged he could 'go in my office and pick up a telephone, and in 25 minutes, millions of people will be dead'. It was true. Like every US president since 1945, he had the sole legal authority to start a nuclear war, with neither checks nor balances to stop him. And so, at a time when most Americans had turned against the war, their government reportedly threatened Hanoi with an atomic bomb no less than thirteen times.
Such a misalignment between what citizens might want and what governments do is not unique to America in the 1970s. In every nuclear-armed state, day-to-day policy is made by a small group of military, scientific and bureaucratic experts in the executive branch of government. Parliaments, courts, and citizens are sidelined. At the highest level, only Presidents have the legal authority to launch the weapons. This 'nuclear monarchy' is checked by one or two officers, at best.
Nuclear weapons are also cloaked in secrecy. Basic facts about the weapons themselves, like their cost, the risk of accidents, and their strategic utility, are hidden. Only two nuclear states – France and the US – publish how many warheads they possess. Israel does not even formally acknowledge its arsenal while India hides the costs even of its nuclear energy programme. All states are purposefully ambiguous about if, how, and when they might use their weapons. Archives documenting nuclear choices take decades to declassify or may be perpetually sealed.
That vagueness is supposed to keep nuclear threats believable, but can also be counterproductive and necessarily cripples political debate. Open debate is limited when political figures who take a clear stance against using nuclear weapons, either in general or in specific cases, may be easily cast as threats to national security.
What makes nuclear weapons so singularly undemocratic? Part of the explanation lies in the technology itself: no other type of weapon is as fast and destructive. One estimate suggests current US nuclear war plans would kill around 90 million within three hours. Such indiscriminate violence – not to mention the devastation of the global climate that would follow – is itself a far cry from democratic principles of equality. Even if every American and every Russian got to vote on nuclear war, still only around 6% of humanity would have had a say in ending civilisation.
Even if every American and every Russian got to vote on nuclear war, only around 6% of humanity would have had a say in ending civilisation
Adding to the antidemocratic potential is the fact that an actual nuclear war would need just a handful of people to be waged. This is unique compared with the thousands needed for even a highly automated conventional war. Independence from societal participation makes the 'nuclear monarchy' possible. In practice, at the start of a nuclear war, the 1.4 billion people of democratic India would be represented by just as many persons as their neighbours in Pakistan. If these representatives go rogue and start a war no one wants, the decision cannot be reversed or democratically contested.
Being able to irreversibly destroy democracy not just in their home countries but across the globe makes nuclear weapons fundamentally undemocratic. In that sense, the only guarantee for functional democratic governance is nuclear disarmament. However, many limits stem from avoidable political choices around nuclear deterrence.
The complex relationship between deterrence, democracy, and security is better tackled in a full-length journal article. But at its most basic, nuclear deterrence is uncertain and – in a world without effective defence against others’ nuclear missiles – incredibly risky. Whether nuclear deterrence is 'effective' is not about what a state does so much as how adversaries perceive it. How easy or hard it is to deter them is therefore fundamentally unknowable.
Nuclear deterrence is uncertain and – in a world without effective defence against others’ nuclear missiles – incredibly risky
Given the catastrophic risk of nuclear war, states are incentivised to assume the worst. And the harder deterrence is assumed to be, the more de-democratisation seems necessary. If government transparency makes it hard to bluff or may reveal some vulnerability, far-reaching secrecy is a tempting choice. Similarly, threats of retaliation are marginally more believable when power is concentrated with one leader (or, as is also common, handed to local military commanders).
Undemocratic nuclear governance, then, is not necessarily more effective. It may in fact be less so. But because of the high stakes and low certainty of nuclear deterrence, states can easily step onto a slippery slope.
In choosing less democracy, deterrence 'effectiveness' is not the only factor to consider. For one, nuclear deterrence is not enough to prevent nuclear weapons going off. Humanity narrowly avoided nuclear war because of 'plain dumb luck' and accidents were prevented by disobedience, technological failure, and the weather. Facing the dangers of such accidental disasters is complicated when secrecy hinders us from learning crucial lessons from history or assessing modern risks of climate change.
Starting a nuclear war is probably the most impactful single decision a state can make. We should never exempt it from the people’s right to rule
Moreover, without accountability, decision-makers can pursue harmful or dangerous policies. During French nuclear testing in Polynesia, as at other test sites, secrecy facilitated the radiological poisoning of thousands of civilians. Abdicating democratic control entrusts the fate of the world to fallible men and women who may make decisions based on emotion or inadvertently send their nuclear codes to the dry cleaners.
There is a straightforwardly principled argument for re-democratising nuclear policy. Starting a nuclear war is probably the most impactful single decision a state can make. If we care about democracy, it cannot be the one decision we exempt from the people’s right to rule. Though nuclear weapons remain fundamentally undemocratic in some ways, limits to democracy should not be taken for granted. Existing arrangements should be questioned, both in terms of the concrete goals they serve and of the risks they create. Citizens of nuclear-armed states have a right to demand more transparency, open debate, and inclusive decision-making.
