Bertrand Russell and the issue of preemptive war (written in 2006 for Safe Democracy) By Carlos Escudé The possibility that a theocratic and fundamentalist regime that blackmails the West with an army of 40.000 suicide warriors acquire nuclear weapons, brings to mind the debates that took place between 1945 and 1949, when the Americans held an atomic monopoly. Although there is no longer such a monopoly, there still remains an oligopoly constituted by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus three de facto nuclear states that have never signed the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran would be the first member of the NPT to be allowed to forsake its commitments, and hence there is an analogy between the present situation and the one faced before the USSR broke the American monopoly. In 1945, enlightened individuals were more conscious than today of the possibility that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction unleash a nuclear holocaust, leading to the extermination of the human species. Hence, the Western powers proposed that all of the world’s uranium be administered by the United Nations, which for this purpose would have police powers everywhere except in the United States. This was the so-called Baruch Plan, which the USSR obviously rejected. Once the Soviet attitude was clear, some prominent Europeans proposed using the American atomic monopoly to maintain the monopoly. Best known among these is Winston Churchill. But far less remembered is the fact that Bertrand Russell, perhaps the greatest British pacifist of the 20th Century, loudly advocated for preemptive war up to the time when Soviet Russia finally acquired the Bomb. In order to activate the debate, I will reproduce some of Russell’s arguments for preemptive war, and I invite readers to mentally replace “Soviet Union” for “Iran”, and “Communists” for “Islamist radicals”, every time these words come up. In a 1945 article published in Cavalcade and titled “Humanity’s Last Chance”, the great logician argued that asking the United States to disarm “… is Utopian, since it would involve the voluntary surrender of absolute sovereignty on the part of the United States.” What was not Utopian was for the U.S. to use its monopoly to defend nuclear monopoly. These concepts were reiterated in a private letter to Albert Einstein, in which he said: “I think the only hope of peace (and that a slender one) lies in frightening Russia”. Not long afterwards, in a speech delivered on December 3, 1947, Russell developed these concepts further: “If the whole world outside of Russia were to insist upon international control of atomic energy to the point of going to war on this issue, it is highly probable that the Soviet government would give way (...). If it did not, then if 1  the issue were forced in the next year or two, only one side would have atomic bombs, and the war might be so short as not to involve utter ruin”. Similar was the speech delivered at about the same time at the Royal Empire Society: “I should like to see (…) as close a union as possible of these countries who think it is worthwhile to avoid atomic war. I think that you could get so powerful an alliance that you could turn to Russia and say: ‘It is open to you to join this alliance if you will agree to the terms; if you will not join we shall go to war with you’. I am inclined to think that Russia would acquiesce; if not, provided this is done soon, the world might survive the resulting war and emerge with a single government such as the world needs”. It is worthwhile underlining three elements in Russell’s reasoning: its cosmopolitanism (the strategic objective was to engender a world government of sorts); its realist quality (he understood that it is impossible to disarm a power that already has the Bomb, hence the need for world government to be led by the United States), and his quest for action by a ‘coalition of the willing’ not unlike the one proposed by George W. Bush. Towards 1948 Russell began to doubt that the mere threat of the use of nuclear force would make the Soviets acquiesce to Western pretensions. In an article published on March 6 in The New Leader he warned that they would not back down, but notwithstanding advised to go ahead and make a strong threat. And in a private letter written to Walter Marseille, whose publication by the latter in 1954 caused him considerable embarrassment, the pacifist went all the way, stating: “Communism must be wiped out, and world government must be established… I do not think the Russians will yield without war.” Bertrand Russell’s thought in this period of greatest radicalization is summarized in his lecture of November 1948 at the Westminster School of London. In that presentation, the philosopher referred to the desirability of world government, but considering that the voluntary abdication of sovereignty was unlikely, he concluded that the West must ‘impose’ itself upon the rest of the world, the Soviet Union included. Curiously, in a lecture delivered little before, the British pacifist had come to regret that the United States was not a sufficiently imperialistic country as to easily accept the desirability of preemptive war: “If America were more imperialistic (…) it would be possible for Americans to use their position of temporary superiority to insist upon disarmament, not only in Germany and in Japan, but everywhere except in the United States, or at any rate in every country not prepared to enter into a close military alliance with the United States, involving compulsory sharing of military 2  secrets. During the next few years this policy could be enforced; if one or two wars were necessary, they would be brief, and would soon end in decisive American victory. In this way a new League of Nations could be formed under American leadership, and the peace of the world could surely be established. But I fear that respect for international justice will prevent Washington from adopting this policy.”1 Only after the American nuclear monopoly was broken, with the development of the Bomb by the Soviets in 1949, did Bertrand Russell abandon his public advocacy of preemptive war, to prevent another great power from acquiring this weapon. The hot war advocated by the pacifist did not materialize because the more pragmatic government of the United States opted for a nuclearized Cold War. 1 Ronald William Clark, The Life of Bertrand Russell, London: Jonathan Cape, 1975, pp. 518 y 527-530, cf. Questrer, op. cit. p. 38. 3