Centerfield

Laying odds on the unmeasurable is truly a pundit's game. That said, it's VERY worthwhile to discuss nukes.

Regardless of the merits of our current foreign policy directions, we have to recognize that one of its demerits is that by following it, we are essentially teaching other nations that don't see eye to eye with us that if they want to be players, they need nukes.

We can hope that we'll succeed in our efforts at keeping closed or re-closing the scientific pandora's box of nuclear weapons knowledge. My opinion is that as scientific knowledge inexorably expands, the likelihood of keeping such things in the box approaches zero. Which means that at some point, maybe today, maybe in 6 months, maybe in 15 years, but someday, all we will be left with is the hope that the world as we know it doesn't get destroyed because no one who can do it wants to do it.

The control to hope ratio is ever changing, and while it may swing favorably at times, I think that over the long term control will fade and leave wishing. Which suggests that spreading improvent of the human conditin is essential to humankind's survival. HG Well's quote that history is the story of the race between education and catastrophe was never more true nor more paradoxical.

Let's face it, the war on terror is really the more dangerous 2nd chapter of what we called the cold war, which is really, in hindsight, the ongoing battle to not blow ourselves all up now that we know how.

This spectre faded when the Berlin wall came down, but who thought that the wall was a side of Pandora's box? Likely history will regard the late 80's through 2000 as a time when we foolishly celebrated a victory because we misconceptualized the underlying threat as its immediate face.

Posted by: bk at August 11, 2004 01:16 PM

You have some astute observations. However, I think you miss the fact that nations would face much the same motivation to develop nuclear weapons if America was completely isolationist or if it didn't exist at all.

For example look at the arms race the occured between India and Pakistan.... that occured entirely because of the countries interactions with each other with little concern for U.S. involvement.

The nations in whose hands nuclear weapons are most dangerous would have the same desire to develop these weapons regardless of the U.S. stance. Millitary despots, almost by definition, seek to develop the most powerfull armaments they possibly can. They would do so even if the US was completely out of the picture. It would better enable them to project power against thier neighbors and secure thier reign on power internaly. They need no US boogyman as an excuse.

A more significant threat is the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of non-state actors (i.e. terrorists). These people have shown a propensity for suicide attacks and given their very nature (i.e. no open control of territory)...a retaliatory strike is no longer an option for deterence. It is also quite certain that such actors don't always have reasonable demands or motivations for thier actions (unless you call killing anyone who refuses to live under Sharia law reasonable). The one bright spot in all this is that it is NOT lack of knowledge which prevents these actors from developing nukes (any reasonably bright undergrad level physicist possesses sufficient knowledge to build such devices)..... it is lack of sufficient quantity of
the appropriate fissionable material....a physical resource that CAN be restricted a little more effectively then knowledge.

No, the real boogyman that I see lurking in the future is advanced bio-weapons. The sort of stuff that can fit in a dropper yet result in thousands of people being infected with a deadly and highly infectious disease that could spread like wildfire. This is scary stuff because the only threshold for this really is knowledge. Manufacturing such weapons wouldn't neccesarly require equipment much more advanced then that found in a highschool biology classroom....and it could be done from some-ones garage. That is the kind of stuff that really scares the heck out of me.

Posted by: Cengel at August 11, 2004 03:42 PM

bk and Cengel, you both make excellent observations. What I find disturbing is that the United States often fails to pursue a very obvious preventative path; a more even-handed and concerned foreign policy approach with respect to third-world and underdeveloped nations.

It seems that we often fail to look at impoverished nations as the hotspots of the future and breeding grounds for extremists. We fail to seriously and deliberately address the poverty, political injustice, and discontent in these nations until a powder keg blows up in our faces. It really doesn't help that we aren't above propping up a dictatorship, either! I think one of the most significant, yet overlooked statements of the 9/11 Commission was that we have got to re-examine our foreign policy approaches toward these underdeveloped countries.

I agree that I don't think we can close Pandora's Box with respect to science used for weapons, but we should certainly start being much more involved in eliminating the conditions and policies that cause people to bear so much ill-will toward us in the first place.

Posted by: AmyE at August 11, 2004 04:14 PM

I just have another comment to add. Coincidentally, my local NPR station was just talking about this very issue. The experts kept saying that the U.S. is not doing enough at a fast enough pace to keep nuclear material out of the terrorists hands.

I emailed in to the show and asked them to ask the experts about the steps that we should be taking. Shockingly, they took my question! They said that it's really a two-fold process.

1)Highly enriched uranium needs to be better consolidated. Consolidated to fewer sites and then to fewer buildings on those sites. Consolidation toward elimination should be the goal.

2) International standards regarding secure storage of this type of material need to be developed and implemented.

The expert said that in his opinion, the actions of our government are not matching up to the rhetoric.

Posted by: AmyE at August 11, 2004 05:39 PM

"the actions of our government are not matching up to the rhetoric"

Well, we've been busy, I guess. This issue tops the list of reasons for strong international cooperation and leadership.

Posted by: Erasmus at August 11, 2004 07:24 PM

You all make very important points.

I'm afraid with all the recent news in regards to Iran and its nuclear program, Iran will be the defining issue for the next administration regardless of who is elected. While one may not agree with this analysis of the Winds of Change guys, the fact that inspectors have found traces of enriched uranium is very troubling.

Instead of arguing Vietnam war records, it would be nice for both candidates to talk frankly on how they will deal with nuclear proliferation and Iran. I share Cengel's concern long term in regards to bio-weapons, but how we deal with Iran in the near term is a big concern for me.

Posted by: Will at August 11, 2004 07:27 PM

This is a pretty good thread, I think!

It seems to me that we are doing pretty well on working on nonproliferation and nuclear security standards with countries interested in working with us, to the extent that they are willing to work with us within limits of local pride and interest, and bureaucratic stupidities on all sides. Criticism is much easier than getting things done, especially in this arena, because of national pride.

Note that at this point, it isn't knowledge that's the limitation on nuclear arms spread, but rather a so-far-sufficiently-effective embargo on weapons-grade nuclear material.

Despite the highly distributed nature of terrorism, it does have the advantage that we won't all fry together as we go. Not a terribly cheery cheery thought, but there you go....

I think the comment on impoverished nations and propping up dictators is a good one, but it raises a question from this very war. Attempts to unimpoverish Afghanistan without invading it were total failures (a bipartisan failure, at that). But we had to decisively prop up one dictator, and temporarily give aid and support to some others. Was that the right thing to do, given that it was basically the Republic of Al'Qaeda? I think it was the right thing because of several counterweighting factors, but it seems worth consideration to me.

Iran is a tough question. It makes me very glad I'm not President.

Posted by: Jon Kay at August 12, 2004 12:53 AM

Oh, yes - loving useless statistics, I think
Kristof is probably about right on the nuclear
danger level.

Posted by: Jon Kay at August 12, 2004 01:18 AM

I have long been writing my own feared odds at a nuke going off in the next 4 years; dependent on who is elected:
Bush - 10%
Kerry - 40%

It's a race -- democracy & Human Rights in the ME before ... or after terrorists get nukes from non-democratic states.

I think Sudan should get humanitarian regime change immediatly -- with military assistance, if necessary. Iran, after a final ultimatum, should have US military inspectors all over their country looking unhindered at any records not destroyed in the "entrance".

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at August 12, 2004 05:01 AM

Cengel's right to point out that the motivation to get nukes to be a player exists to some extent regardless of our foreign policy. Our current policy only focuses the desire.

When I spoke of knowledge and the pandora's box, I was construing knowledge much more broadly than those who have pointed out that the knowledge is already out there, it's the fissionable material that is the gap.

What I am thinking is that over the long term, knowledge expands to the point where many know how to make a nuke from soup to nuts, which includes starting with a uranium mine and having the know-how to get all the way to a mushroom cloud. (Of course, complete knowledge alone is insufficient, you also need means, but presumedly the means could be found supposing sufficient motivation.)

The larger point I want to stress is that we need to think long and hard about whether it's really FEASIBLE over the long term to simply deny the right to make nukes to other nations we don't like. Do we really have the resources and the allies that will allow us to simply go down the list and tell 3, 5, 10, 20 countries "you can't have nukes because we don't trust you?" Is this really going to work?

Certainly it makes sense from a short-term national security point of view, but I think we need to transition as quickly as possible to the phase where we focus on fostering the "we don't blow ourselves up because we don't want to" Earth.

We've got 140,000 troops in Iraq, plus the ones in Afghanistan. Neither shows much sign that we'll be able to significantly reduce our presence soon without cooperation from allies with able and willing troops. I'm as concerned about Iran as the next guy, but do we really have the means to rattle sabers at Iran and North Korea and then back it up if they tell us to go play in traffic? Who'll have our back then? If we invade Iran and Musharraf gets assassinated, are you going to tell me we won't have a world war with all or most of the middle east lined up against us?

I think we need to do our very best to make Iraq our model, and adopt a cold war attitude towards NK and Iran. Iran is a real threat, but I don't knoiw that we're in a position to steamroll them.

Posted by: bk at August 12, 2004 09:32 AM

"Iran is a real threat, but I don't knoiw that we're in a position to steamroll them."

Well said, bk. I have been worrying about this ever since the talk surrounding Iran started getting a little louder. In my opinion, we simply don't have the money or the manpower to *do* anything about it if Iran doesn't want to play ball. And with our credibility erroded, are other nations going to be eager to join us in trying to contain Iran, or will they be stuck questioning the accuracy of our intelligence and our motives?

I know that John Kerry has been promising to increase our troops by 40,000, but how? Is there a mad rush to enlist with two wars going on? And where's the money going to come from? He's been making an awful lot of expensive promises at a time when we have a huge deficit, and I can't believe that all of this money is going to be gained simply by rolling back Mr. Bush's tax cuts. It concerns me. By the way, I hope I haven't offended anyone by my Mr. Kerry comments. Just my opinions. If it helps, I'm not fan of George Bush, either! :-)

Posted by: AmyE at August 12, 2004 11:04 AM

Again you have very good points, BK. The one real problem with the MAD doctrine in the 21st century is when you start talking about proliferation to non-state actors and unconventional means of delivery.

If a suitcase bomb goes off in an American city, who do you launch a retalitory strike against? If it's some-one like Al-Quayda that's responsible.... where do you hit them?

In order for MAD to work you've got to be able to recognize where the strike is coming from and have a clearly identifiable target to launch a counter-strike. That worked great in the Cold War days....but it is a very different world we are looking at today.

Posted by: Cengel at August 12, 2004 11:16 AM

Cengel, agreed entirely. MAD doctrine only has much appropriateness with state level actors. So that means to me that it may well be our best alternative against NK and IRan due to our current engagements and limited resources.

Non-state actors are a real problem. It's primarily because of them that I advocate a transition or rather a gradual change of emphasis at some time to fostering "we don't blow us up because no one wants to...."

A problem with brinksmanship is that it forces people to pick sides. It's not much good at bringing the angry, alienated, and dispossessed back into the fold.

A good profiler will see that the non-state actors we are most worried about overseas are very similar to the angry violent alienated males causing domestic violence and terrorism.

Only if such actors see opportunity and hope for a future that holds some good earthly things for them will we be to keep them from the angry self-righteous siren song of charismatic fundamentalist zealots.

At some point our enemy is a lack of earthly hope. This is a viewpoint that may be easy to dismiss when someone halfway across the country blows away a half-dozen co-workers. that guy is just a nut, just wrong headed, a mental case, a bad seed. But take the same guy and put his hands on the trigger of a nuke, and all of sudden it seems reasonable to say, geez, maybe we should have taken the incidence of such people more seriously.

Posted by: bk at August 12, 2004 02:14 PM

I don't think military intervention would be our first choice with Iran, and perhaps there is a diplomatic solution that can be made. Diplomacy has its costs at times, as AmyE mentioned in her first comment, and it may well require us to turn our backs on pro-democracy Iranians. I think nukes in Iran is a much more grave threat than NK, if only because of their long history of sponsoring terrorism.

Whether we're able to suck it up and let Iran become a nuclear power may be a moot point. I don't think Israel can tolerate a nuclear-armed Tehran, and I fear a military strike by Israel will greatly increase the chance of a regional conflict. How that plays out, including the reaction of the EU is hard to predict.

We definitely live in dangerous times. As BK mentions, we're stretched pretty thin. Not only is Pakistan an issue, but it seems like every time we use our military resources, we quietly worry about China invading Taiwan.

Posted by: Will at August 12, 2004 02:29 PM

Will, I think your comment does a great job of illustrating just how interdependent the countries of the world have become. No single player can make a move in any direction without taking the risk of setting off a potentially catastrophic chain of events across the globe.

I think this means we really have to sit down and figure out what our role on the world stage is now and what it should be from here on forward. Specifically, I think that we need to re-examine what it means to be a "superpower." Does this have the same meaning that it did during the Cold War (i.e., possessing the capability to out-spy, out-spend, and out-gun our opponents), or do we need to craft a new definition--perhaps one that is based more on taking the lead in diplomacy and in bringing all players ("good guys" and unsavory characters) to the table to try to come to some sort of global understanding? I realize this is probably pie-in-the-sky, typical democrat "can't we all just get along" delusional optimism (heck, we can't even bring all the players to the table in our own country), but as Cenegal pointed out, the world has changed, and guns don't work if you don't know where to point them. Maybe we need to change with the times and try some new approaches.

Posted by: AmyE at August 12, 2004 03:02 PM

...taking the lead in diplomacy and in bringing all players ("good guys" and unsavory characters) to the table to try to come to some sort of global understanding...

Isn't that what the U.N. is for? It seems that we have that mechanism in place. I don't think it's achieving the desired results, though.
Posted by: David Fleck at August 13, 2004 09:32 AM

Good point, David! :-)

I think as the U.S. has recently demonstrated, however, that we even have the power to diminish role of the U.N.! To use the phrase that bk used with respect to Iran, what can the U.N. do if *we* tell *them* to "go play in traffic?"

Posted by: AmyE at August 13, 2004 09:57 AM

The problem with the UN is the giant gap bewteen its goals in theory and its goals in practice. The Un really functions primarily as a layer of bureaucracy at the international level with the players having mixed motives and negotiating with a real lack of good faith in many cases Too many jaded opportunists, not enough idealistic consensus put into actual practice. until the UN shows that in serious cases it is willing to take forcefully take matters into its own hands insetad of endlessly search for ways to avoid force no matter what, its utility will continue to be seriously limited.

I think a promising idea related to the UN is the democracy caucus, which might even morph into a separate organization.

When you think about things like Saddam Hussein using the UN to play laps round the mulberry bush and the various spectacles of obviously despotic and anti-humanitarian regimes holding key positions on various UN councils, it sure suggests that we need something like the UN that's willing take a harder line on a variety of issues, and is not willing to let just about anyone be a member. I don't think the prospects of this are very good over the short term, but maybe someday. The hope to me would be that a core group of forceful and charismatic leaders of democratic nations would be willing to take a strong leadership role at the UN as outspoken advocates for democracy. This to me would mean an alliance of the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, a growing handful of "new Europe" nations, and a handful of like-minded Asian and Middle Eastern nations willing to stick their necks out for a positive global future.

Posted by: bk at August 13, 2004 10:50 AM