RSS Feed MenuThis is a gigantic disaster:
Emblematic of what I am worried about. What can we do about this? Well, for starters, how about we send a démarche to Islamabad that says, “Congratulations, chappies, you just elevated yourselves to the top of our targeting list in the event of a terrorist nuclear attack on the US. Was this little publicity stunt worth the risk?”
You know, one of the ways we convinced the former SSRs to give up their nukes was to give their generals a tour of STRATCOM. Our generals calmly explained the implications of being on the US nuclear forces target list. Intransigent opposition melted away pretty fast.
That was only 15 years ago. 15 years later — and post 9/11 — we are so muddle headed we can’t even have an internal conversation about these things, much less muster the fortitude to actually deter a potential enemy.
dendup // Feb 7, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Or put another way, how do weput the jinni back in the bottle? Our basic mistake was to believe we could use atomic energy to promote world peace, improve the public welfare and strengthen free competition in private enterprise. As long as we believe that idea, the entropy of events like this will overwhelm our efforts to contain the jinni.
Bill Harrison // Feb 7, 2009 at 9:09 pm
It is quite clear that with this move the Zardari government is demonstrating the classic Pakistani two-step Musharraf refined to an art. The question is what will Obama (err. . . I meank Holbrooke) make of it? My guess is not much.
sinz54 // Feb 8, 2009 at 9:36 am
dendup: You gotta be kidding me. Should the Wright Brothers be blamed for the advent of strategic bombing too? Most if not all new technologies eventually find some military application–it’s a choice to adapt them for military uses or not. There is no reason why peaceful civilian nuclear power must necessarily lead to nuclear weapons. Japan gets much of its electricity from nuclear power, but they have zero nuclear weapons. On the other hand, North Korea is in a state of total economic collapse, yet they’re putting all their resources into building atomic bombs which don’t help their starving people one bit. I fail to be alarmed at the possession of nuclear weapons by *responsible* states. Do you lose sleep at night worrying that Britain might nuke us? We keep explaining to you liberals: The issue isn’t the weapons. It’s the aggressive intention of certain despicable regimes. To scale up an old argument: Nuclear weapons don’t kill people, regimes do.
dendup // Feb 8, 2009 at 1:48 pm
The US built Iran’s first nuclear reactor and trained its first technicians in the 1960’s beleiving it was a “responsible state.” Things change. “Nuclear weapons remain one of the most dangerous threats to world survival. Organized a little over three decades ago, the NPT established an important international security
framework. It limited the actions of nuclear weapons states (NWS), restrained non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS) from acquiring nuclear weapons, and framed other cooperative agreements to control proliferation.The recent increase in the number of Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMD) related crises, such as those with Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Iran suggest a stressed nonproliferation regime.Only as good as its member states, the NPT requires steadfast commitment to its charter and policing mechanisms.”….”Adaptive nations have found ways to circumvent the rules perhaps using globalizations new information tools. Pakistan, India, and Israel have simply refused to sign the NPT. North
Korea, once a NPT member, apparently developed nuclear capabilities clandestinely then legally withdrew after complying with IAEA notification procedures.” IRANS NUCLEAR STRATEGY OPTIONS AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IMPLICATIONS byLieutenant Colonel Jimmy D. Davis United States Army Nuclear energy is the first step in making the ammunition. Then we put the gun in the hands of “responsible states” that decide not to be so responsible. A gun that threatens world survival.
jim_knowlton // Feb 8, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Wow…as Michael says, the biggest problem for this development is what it says about our influence within the Pakistani government. Namely, that we have none.
Tighten your chinstraps. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
manton // Feb 8, 2009 at 3:26 pm
dendup is right. Atoms for Peace was a huge and horrible mistake.
RLHotchkiss // Feb 8, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I think if Bush had invaded Iran, or somehow taken out or controlled Pakistan’s nuclear capacity they would be chipping his face on Mount Rushmore, right now. I think it will be the one of greatest mysteries of history how Bush virtually ignored the nuclear armed unstable dictator with close ties to terrorist in Pakistan, and the well armed highly advanced Iran with with close ties to European and Russian arms and technology sources and chose to invade Iraq over which we controlled the airspace and had international inspectors.
dendup // Feb 9, 2009 at 12:47 pm
One hypothesis is that Bush was testing the regime change strategy for non-proliferation Michael Anton and others here have advocated in one way or another. Iraq may have seemed an easy test case for the strategy – one that would allow the US to refine the small quick force idea to quickly topple a rougue regime and then replace it with a more compliant one. The “What Went Wrong in Iraq” series here might be retitled “What Went Wrong with the Bush Non Proliferation Strategy” I’m sure the remaining neo cons feel Bush did not give their approach a fair trail. Even if you think we have won in Iraq, the cost makes repeating this approach as the center piece of non proliferation problematic