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Classroom on the Quad
Welcome and Introductions
Bruce Knauft, Faculty Council

Jim Grimsley, Faculty Council

Purvi Patel, College Council

Donna Wong, Campus Life

Iraq: The Challenge of Responsibility
Rick Doner, Political Science

Weapons of Mass Destruction and U.S. Foreign Policy
Dan Reiter, Political Science

A Call to Words
Asanka Pathiraja, Foreign Policy Exchange

Hearing in Eqanimity: Deciding Your Path
Bobbi Patterson, Religion

The Necessity of War with Iraq
Bob Bartlett, Political Science

The Humanitarian Cost of War
Laurie Patton, Religion

A Man of Honor: The President's Noble Vision
Daniel Hauck, College Republicans

Women: War and Peace
Lili Baxter, Women's Studies

The Morality of War
James Tarter, Students for War Against Terrorism

Speak Up or Get Out
Erin Harte, Young Democrats

War Does Not Resolve Conflict, War Is Conflict
Mark Goodale, Anthropology

A War of Liberation
Frank Lechner, Sociology

A Call to Consciousness, A Litany of Questions
Juana Clem McGhee, Institute for Comparative and International Studies

Student Activism: Ways to Be Involved
Erik Fyfe and Rachael Spiewak, Emory Peace Coalition

Cross-Cultural Communication: U.S. and Iraq
Devin Stewart, Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies

The U.S. Has Never Been Alone in the World
William Chace, University President

Good afternoon. As we all know, in Iraq the iron dice of war have been rolled, and we now can only hope for an outcome that is swift, victorious, and has a minimum of bloodshed.

Important foreign policy questions remain, however. Iraq is the first application of the administration’s new strategy of preventive war, launching attacks against states which might pose future threats to American security. In particular, preventive war is touted as one way to stem the spread of nuclear weapons.

Specifically, there is a very real chance that preventive war may be employed against other anti-American nuclear aspirants, in particular North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Indeed, the one-liner circulating in Washington these days is, “men invade Baghdad, real men invade Teheran.”

Preventive war is a bad policy solution to the problem of nuclear proliferation. First, preventive war is not necessary to prevent the aggressive use of nuclear weapons. The historical record indicates that nuclear weapons are very poor tools for aggressive foreign policy aims. Nuclear weapons did not help the US win in Vietnam, they did not help France keep Algeria, they did not help Britain keep its colonial empire, they have not helped China conquer or neutralize Taiwan, they have not helped either India or Pakistan achieve its aims in Kashmir, they have not helped North Korea eliminate the American presence in South Korea, and they have not helped Israel digest the occupied territories.

Further, the destabilizing threat of nuclear weapons is reduced even further if America commits itself to deterring the use of nuclear weapons. America has a long history of successfully deterring nuclear-armed, anti-American dictators from launching aggressive moves. Specifically, we deterred the Soviet Union and Communist China, and North Korea from launching major acts of aggression. Deterring states such as North Korea, Syria, and Iran should be especially easy, as all are much less powerful than the United States, and would have much smaller nuclear arsenals.

A second concern is that these states might pass nuclear weapons on to terrorist groups. The detonation of a nuclear weapon in an American city, is, in the words of Tom Clancy, truly “The Sum of All Fears.” However, the likelihood of rogue nuclear states passing off a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group has been exaggerated, as these governments have important incentives not to give away nuclear weapons.

These states would have very small nuclear arsenals, so parting with even a single nuclear weapon significantly diminishes its national nuclear stockpile.

Such a strategy might backfire, as the terrorist group might use the nuclear weapon against the donor state. For example, Syria is a secular government, and might not trust al Qaeda or even Hezbollah with a nuclear weapon.

Such nuclear donors could not be certain they would not suffer American retaliation. To put a finer point on it, the rather questionable foreign policy gain a state like Iran might gain by destroying an American city is much less than the risk it would incur of attracting American nuclear retaliation.

Still, one might argue that even a small risk of nuclear terrorism justifies preventive war, as the impact of nuclear terrorism is so awful that we should embrace any strategy which might reduce the chances of a nuclear terrorist attack.

The premium on the insurance policy of preventive war is too high to pay, however. For starters, the act of preventive war itself may make terrorism more likely, by stimulating anti-Americanism around the world, which will hinder cooperation on counter-terrorism efforts and facilitate the recruiting efforts of terrorist groups.

The fiscal cost is also not trivial. Consider that the administration’s latest estimate for the cost of the war on Iraq is $63 billion. If you really want to fight terror, that $63 billion could be spent much more efficiently elsewhere than on preventive war against Iraq, on priorities including: improving port security, equipping fire and police departments with chemical and biological protective gear, rebuilding Afghanistan, giving aid to prop up pro-Western Muslim leaders such as Egypt’s Mubarak and Pakistan’s Musharaf, allotting billions in aid as a carrot to persuade the Israelis and Palestinians to make progress towards peace, etc.

And this is to say nothing of the human costs of war, both in terms of American and civilian casualties.

In sum, we should not rely on preventive war as a solution to nuclear proliferation. Deterrence can effectively safeguard international peace, and preventive war is not likely to substantially reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism, especially in contrast to other possible measures.