War No More by Robert Hinde and Joseph Rotblat, Pluto Press, 拢10.99, ISBN 0745321917 The British Nuclear Weapons Programme 1952-2002 edited by Douglas Holdstock and Frank Barnaby, Frank Cass, 拢17.50, ISBN 0714683175 Reviewed by Rob Edwards
THESE days it is the moral responsibility of scientists 鈥渘ot knowingly to carry out research that might cause harm to society鈥�, say Robert Hinde and Joseph Rotblat. They argue that the potential risks to humanity of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are so great that it is wrong to earn a living by developing them.
Morality is a theme that permeates their book War No More, and their lives. Rotblat, a physicist who stopped working on the Manhattan atomic bomb project in 1944, was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1995. Hinde, an RAF pilot in the second world war, is now a psychologist at the University of Cambridge, trying to understand the causes of war.
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Their unashamed aim is the abolition of war. They have produced a thoughtful and impassioned manifesto that challenges the morality, not just of scientists, but of leaders, decision-makers and citizens everywhere. They contend that reducing poverty, increasing democracy, improving education and reforming the UN would all help to make wars less likely. In the longer term, they look to the demise of sovereign states and the emergence of 鈥渨orld governance鈥�, aided by advances in mass communications and policed by a global military force.
For these suggestions Hinde and Rotblat may, as they acknowledge, be accused of 鈥渕ushy idealism鈥�. But there is nothing mushy about the ultimate logic of their argument: unless we find a way to live together we will die together.
One of their biggest worries, echoed by many essays in The British Nuclear Weapons Programme 1952 鈥� 2002, is the increasingly hypocritical stance of the US and UK governments. Both are prepared to go to war to rid others of the kind of weapons they possess. As Rotblat observes, what sort of morality is that?