“We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.”
The suicidal nature of nuclear weapons has long been recognized by the man responsible for their being brought into this world. Oppenheimer’s belated wisdom, however, never translated into sound policy, and for the ensuing decades, the United States has struggled to come to grips with the horrible reality of Oppenheimer’s creation.
In 2010 I wrote a book, Dangerous Ground: America’s failed Arms Control policy, from FDR to Obama, to put into historical perspective America’s tortuous relationship with nuclear weapons, and our seeming inability to free ourselves from this scourge through the vehicle of arms control. At the time, I was hopeful that the new administration of President Barack Obama might be able to put into action the promise of his words signaling an intent to awaken America from its nuclear nightmare.
In the decade that followed, I watched in frustration as President Obama failed to overcome America’s national addiction to nuclear weapons, falling victim to the same policy traps and bureaucratic inertia as had his predecessors. I then watched in horror as his successor, Donald Trump, assumed control of the White House and began eviscerating what remained of the delicate framework of arms control that had served to keep the nuclear genie contained in its bottle.
Oppenheimer’s analogy of two scorpions worked during the Cold War, when nuclear parity existed between the United States and the Soviet Union. Today, however, the United States, having convinced itself that it prevailed in the Cold War and that it reigns supreme as the sole remaining superpower on the planet, no longer views nuclear weapons as the vehicle for mutual suicide that gave meaning to Oppenheimer’s analogy. As any military veteran who has spent time in the deserts of the Middle East knows, not all scorpions are equal—if you put a superior scorpion in a bottle with its inferior, it will emerge victorious.
That is the reality of how America views its relationship with nuclear weapons today—there may be many scorpions in the bottle, but only one scorpion king, the supreme scorpion who has the capacity to exterminate all others. In its mind, America is the Scorpion King.
In light of the failure of the Obama administration to effectively curtail the threat of nuclear weapons, and the Trump administration’s embrace of the notion of American nuclear supremacy, I felt that it was time for my history of America’s relationship with nuclear weapons to be updated so that it captured the eight years of the Obama Presidency and the first term of the Trump Presidency. This updated edition does not have the same optimistic outlook as the original, and accordingly I’ve changed the title of the book to reflect this more sober reality—Scorpion King: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.
Scorpion Kings are not, however, all powerful. Indeed, the diabolical reality of the scorpion is captured in a fable attributed to Aesop:
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion says, “Because if I do, I will die too.”
The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp “Why?”
Replies the scorpion: “It is my nature…”
Just how dangerous is a nation that has given in twice to the temptation to use them? America has convinced itself that it can responsibly assume the mantle of the Scorpion King, but a harsh reality is the scorpion, true to its nature, will one day destroy itself, and everything around it.
Unless the United States can free itself from its 75-year addiction to nuclear weapons, this is the inevitable fate of Americans and all humanity—global annihilation at the hands of a nation unable and/or unwilling to distance itself from that which will ultimately bring about its demise.
This updated edition of my history of America’s relationship with nuclear weapons is offered as a humble, yet furtive, effort to educate and inform the American people and the world about the dangers inherent in any policy built upon the wrongful premise of the United States’ ability to serve as a responsible steward of the power Oppenheimer rightly called “the destroyer of Worlds.”