In the comments to my ‘Godfather‘ post below, Tim Oren made a really smart comment that elaborated on my idea and turned it into something vaguely practical:
May I suggest an alternative framing that may find some common ground? In the commentary here and on Joe’s post there’s at minimum a volks-wisdom that we can grudgingly trust some newer nuke powers to act responsibly – India, Israel, China (let’s hope), but others we cannot: NK, Pakistan, Iran.
Is question is how to convert that intuition into a framing that is understandable by all, not seen to be simply arbitrary, and is utterly convincing to transgressors in regards of their fate. It should also be able to survive the probably inevitable further proliferation of nuclear power reactors. In short, a de facto effective ‘Nuclear Proliferation Treaty‘, with nasty, sharp, pointy teeth.
A strawman:
* All participating nuclear powers provide samples of output of their reactors to all other powers. If any power is ever caught not doing so, through the national intelligence means of any other power, they are out of the agreement.
* All non-participating powers are in one equivalence class. They may come into compliance only by agreeing and conforming to the above, to the satisfaction of all the currently complying powers.
* Any conventionally or unconventionally delivered nuke having the signature of one of the participating powers makes that party culpable. (A powerful incentive to report any fissile materials losses and enlist everyone in cleaning them up.)
* Any conventionally or unconventionally delivered nuke having no known signature, or one known to originate from a noncompliant power by national intelligence means, means that all noncompliant powers are jointly culpable.
* The target of an attack may deal with the culpable party or parties by any means it feels necessary. Other compliant powers may assist in this, but none will oppose.
This might be stable if enough of the incumbent nuke powers agreed to it as a de facto doctrine. The disclosure part is close enough to the current, ineffective NPT compliance regime that that it might be workable, at least technically.
Tear it up…
I have a few issues – the notion that all noncomplaint powers are jointly responsible is something that will take some serious thought.
But it actually may be a basis for a longer-term stable regime than the shotgun hooked to the piece of string proposal that I originally made, because a) it divides the nuclear world into those that embrace transparency and are willing to be held explicitly accountable, and those who are not; and b) it provides strong incentives to move from the latter to former category.
One factual question to the assembled, and possibly informed, multitude: How feasible and reliable is the identification of a weapon from the isotopic mix found in the fusion products? My strawman makes the assumption this is generally feasible and and discriminatory. OTOH, I saw a comment somewhere (Wretchard’s?) to the effect that this was Tom Clancy fiction. IANA nuclear scientist? Anyone?
It is apparently possible, but not trivial.
I wonder if your argument can hold only if noncompliant states are limited in number, small in size, and lack nuclear retaliatory capabilities. The window for these three conditions is rapidly closing. At some point, we could face the prospect of losing one city after another to terrorist nukes, or retaliating against the suspected source country (or countries) and losing all of our cities.
Just as our national security has effectively collapsed if it turns on whether we can torture terror suspects, so also has it collapsed if it depends on a 100 percent success rate at intercepting black market exports of nuclear devices. We really need to think far more radically about ends and means in the world, about whether national sovereignty has a point beyond which it becomes collectively dysfunctional, and about the long-term future of technology.
Why are you so willing to give up our freedom so these nutballs can have nukes?
Ok- here’s the problem. This sounds EXACTLY LIKE THE AGREEMENT WE HAVE RIGHT NOW THAT NOBODY TAKES SERIOUSLY.
Look, all of those who think there is an international solution to this problem have to take a long hard look at what is happening right this minute. North Korea lit the NPT on fire in front of the whole world, tested a nuclear weapon, and China and Russia _still_ refuse to countenance even thinking about making them pay a price for it. Like any treaty, unless their is a legitimate hammer to fall on transgressors, it is just so many words that make diplomats feel like they actually have a useful job.
We could make that agreement tomorrow, everybody would sign on and smile big photo-op smiles. And the next day when NK laughs and spits on the treaty we will be _exactly where we are now._ Does anybody really think the reason China isnt turning the screws (heck, allowing the screws to be turned) is because we havent etched out just the right legalistic agreement? Come on. This is all about perceived self interest.
The crux of the idea is a good one- any nation in defiance of international nuclear oversite and regulation will, in the case of nuclear attack, be treated as guilty. I’ve made this argument for some time. It is one of the few tools left to provide a powerful incentive not to develope nukes (at least covertly).
However, the idea of the same people sticking spokes in our wheels signing on that is incredible. We all need to repeat this mantra- the nations of the world arent screwing us over because we havent established a unequivacle enough non-proliferation treaty. They are doing it because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain, from their point of view.
For the record, “Victor David Hanson”:http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/2006/10/11/post_2.php is advocating the same thing i’ve been arguing:
_”We should revisit that posture, and inform now a Syria, Iran, and North Korea that if they either house terrorists or proliferate nuclear material, fine?BUT their cities, industries, and militaries will become immediate strategic targets in the hours after a terrorist attack on the U.S. Lunacy is an advantage in nuclear poker, but so far they have had a monopoly on supposed craziness. It is time?to prevent a nuclear 9/11?to remind them that the United States, if hit, will not merely be angry, but become the berserker as well.”_
PRECISELY. We need to get it through our heads. We can’t negotiate China, Russia, or the Euros to get tough- they.dont.care. We need to change circumstances so that it is in their best interest to get tough. We need to provide an incentive for China to real in their satellite. In the Cold War days, the rules of the game were that if you protect your lackey, you will be held resposible for his acts. THAT is what kept the nuke club small. That incentive is gone because we are too big of wussies to make it clear to China that if they intend to protect NK from us they are sharing the same foxhole. Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
David, my hunch is that you are right in terms of initial conditions. This formulation might well be ‘bistable’, in that if enough large powers decided to join in, soon, it would then have enough mass to convince/coerce most new powers to join in. If you can’t get a critical mass of those with large arsenals and conventional delivery means on board, it probably never congeals. We might be at a magic moment when all or most of the major nuke powers may reasonably feel they have something to fear from unconventional delivery of a rogue (ok, ISLAMIST)nuke. The moment will not last, I agree. And the problem will recur with biotech, in 10-20 years, if we get past this one.
Mark, you might notice / have noticed the phrase ‘de facto’ in front of treaty. It’s there advisedly, and the NPT moniker is there only in mockery of the current regime. NON-proliferation is a bust, we’re going to have to deal with a world of proliferation.
The better word would be doctrine. MAD was never a treaty, it was simply a more-or-less acknowledged doctrine on the part of the US and USSR. (As are/were a few other things like ‘blackmail = first use’ and ‘launch on warning’ that the world might do well to remember.) No scrap of paper with Kofi’s sig on it needed, just some pointed throat clearing by the TPTB in a few capitals.
Mr. Holsinger, I’m not sure what that was reponsive to, unless you’re suggesting it’s time to light ’em up right now. If so, just saying so would be clearer.
Tim,
Why should anyone believe we’ll use nukes in the manner envisaged, after our enemies are allowed to produce all they want and establish their own small nuclear deterrents, when we wouldn’t use conventional forces to stop them from building the first place? Especially when we’re so afraid to fight at all that we’ willing to give up the freedom which makes us Americans?
This nutso scheme postulates that we have destroyed what little credibility we have AS OUR FIRST STEP.
If we won’t fight now, before our enemies have nuclear deterrents, why the h*ll should anyone believe that we’ll blast away later?
Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary security will have neither.
So, yes, you do mean light ’em up right now. Thanks for the clarification.
I haven’t said where I stand on pre-emption on either NK or Iran, and that wasn’t the way A.L. framed the post on which I originally commented. I will demur here since that’s not the topic.
I do wonder about your sloganeering. Should we have gone to war with China when we knew they were building a bomb? Did we lose our freedom because we didn’t unleash our own bombs when we found out the Soviets had stolen the design? Do you think that MAD had any less credibility because we did not do so? How do you think Gorbachev would answer that question?
Have you an alternative to propose to either this or Marc’s original suggestion?
OK, say you are one of the countries that are not part of the agreement- one of the bad guys. You got nukes. The agreement makes them a liability for you rather than an asset.
1. You can’t use them without getting nuked. No one is required to figure out who did it- they may just hit you no matter how you try to hide.
2. Someone else using nukes can get you nuked. This makes it in your own interest to discourage use by other nuclear powers.
3. Proliferation is a bad idea- giving nukes to someone who may use them will come back to haunt you.
4. This may get you to rethink having nukes at all. Getting anihilated because some other nutball uses them is not appealing.
All of these are good things.
I floated this same idea about a year ago in this comment section and everyone thought I was nuts to suggest nuclear retaliation against other countries without proof. I am sorry to see that it’s catching on. It’s not a good alternative, but none of them are.
If we can’t go to war with Iran or North Korea, then we need a good deterrance regime. This would work. It might even work as unilateral US policy- automatic retaliation against NK and Iran for a terrorist nuclear attack. That would get them to rethink things.
I enjoy figuring out elaborate ways to justify the nuclear annihilation of Damascus as much as the next guy, but this is a little spooky. In proposing this treaty, we would be telling everybody from Paris to Pyongyang that they either sign it or risk being a nuclear target if a rogue bomb goes off. And I thought those Kyoto treaty people were pushy.
Okay, now I get it. This is a good way to convince everybody that we’re flat-out f–king crazy. In fact, we might have left our nuclear football on a subway train.
The consequences described in this post would probably occur without a treaty. What we need to do is convince the nutcases of it.
What do YOU think George Bush would do if an American city goes up in a fireball?
We all know which ideology in the world today is likely to result in a rogue nuke. The correct pre-announced target of a retaliatory strike, should a rogue nuke go off, is a city with small population (thus limiting the number of deaths) but very high value to the main enemy.
Clue: it’s in Saudi Arabia.
Aside from the emotional and moral issues in this argument, ie, people usually feel most justified in attacking those who actually attacked us, there are some major reasons why this won’t work. I went around the barn with some of you guys a couple times earlier on this, apologies for not following up in that thread.
Other than that, I think it is a great idea.
My advice in regards to North Korea is to attack or let them go. At this point, our best policy would be to create as many new problems in the region as possible for the Chinese to deal with — diplomatic scorched earth. Yes, NK might still like shaking the sabre and threatening to send missiles to L.A., but if the real power is a pumped-up Japan and Taiwan, for instance, eveybody in the region will have their eyes on the home game. We have been trying very diligently with other countries to solve NNP. It has not worked. In hindsight, we probably always knew it was going to play out like this. What’s happened is that other countries see advantages in stressing us out with all sorts of issues like NK and the nukes. Fine. If that is the way they want it, perhaps we can start giving them some little problems of their own to deal with.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Final note — as you can see, my criticisms all revolve around the “attack them all” part of the plan, which Tim noted was problematice. On a more positive note, perhaps some sort of certification program isn’t that bad an idea. Certainly we could all come up with standards for nulcear states: security, accountability, posture, open-access, etc. A strong certification program, without any strings or threats of force mentioned and run by some independent agency, has some advantages. If popular, it could be “plugged into” other international bodies, like our MFN, the G8, Security Council membership, etc. This might eventually solve the problem in a roundabout way, but I wouldn’t rely only on this track.
Why does there have to be an agreement of any kind? It can be our doctrine. We know which countries are the ones we don’t trust with nukes. Put them all on the list. If, God forbid, that does happen, and we decide that only some, or perhaps only one, of the rogues pays the price, then that’s what we decide. But all of them would understand that we could be coming after them, and it is our capability to destroy them totally, not any agreement, that will deter an attack.
There is no reason to pretend that the appropriate criteria for the list is compliance with an agreement that the Chinese and perhaps the Russians would find acceptable as the one that would permit them and their client states to continue with their policies of cynically opportunistic proliferation. Membership on the list are the countries WE choose to put on the list. Maybe someday when we’re not the most powerful nation on the planet we’ll find some advantage in surrendering a piece of our sovereignty to the totalitarians in the nuclear club, but there is no reason why we should do so before then. As an example, would anyone expect Israel, which has never acknowledged its nuclear weapons capability, to comply? Would we really think it is in our interest to comply with an agreement to stand aside if a non-compliant Isreal was attacked?
The problem with the certification part is that it would likely require some sort of formal international structure to be practical, and once again we are back to begging China to play ball with us. If we just demand nuclear readouts from every nation on earth, we have no mechanism for that to be taken seriously. If Russia and China refuse Iran and NK will have no problem refusing.
To briefly address Daniel’s points:
_It assumes that every other nation can have the same level of control over their nukes as we do._
No, our current nonsense makes all those assumptions. The new doctrine simply says it is _highly_ in your own best interest to control your nuclear assets, and if you cant it is _clearly_ in your best interest to abandon them.
_It’s not practical from an internal political standpoint. People just aren’t going to vote to support a policy that would essentially involve our first use of nukes against nations which could be innocent of any agression towards us._
We arent threatening to bomb Sweden here. There is no political problem. Outside of the handwringers sect, nobody thinks for a second that if an American city is nuked we will call up the Hardy boys for a full investigation of the mystery and then take the perps to World Court. The reality is we will lash out to make metaphysically certain it cant happen again- and we will do that by destroying the nations pumping out the weapons that did it to the world market. All we would be doing is announcing before hand what our likely response would be anyway. Heck- how many calls would there be to simply blanket the entire Middle East with nukes and be done with it? We are talking about losing perhaps several million Americans in a eye blink.
_Aside from the UN, we’ve already got a list of treaties and allies for this kind of stuff._
This is niether a treaty nor an alliance. Its exactly the opposite. It doesnt require anyone to do anything. It _does_ however provide incentives for all the people that are currently working against us to change course for their own good. Thats the #1 problem right now- Russia and China have nothing to lose and plenty to gain by watching us wallow in this.
_It’s not practical from an external political standpoint. This is not going to win us friends and influence people._
Here is the crux of the matter- people arent going to like us. This is the kind of thinking that got us into this mess. Does NK care what people think? China? Russia? _We_ are the only ones thinking this is a run for Prom King, and that is why we are in this mess. Its better to be fear than loved- and those arent just words they are an absolute truth in a dangerous world.
_It looks desperate and knee-jerkish. Not an argument based on practicality, I know, but I’m jus’ sayin’. _
It is desperate. Thats what makes it believable. Again- we arent talking about the local Macey’s getting car bombed, we are talking about wiping a major US population center off the map. Shouldnt the response to that be desperate?
_It still has the all-or-nothing problem. The real problem we are dealing with in Korea is that we’re playing for all of the marbles here._
And this is an outstanding way to force NK to understand just what that statement means.
Let me just add that I respect Daniel greatly but i think that his arguments in this case are very much the type of post-cold war ‘enlightened’ thinking that have gotten us where we are. To sum up, we shouldnt do the doctrine because: its not fair and people wont like us. Imo, neither of those things should be anything like a deciding factor when we are talking about a nuclear war.
As far as fairness- look, when 5 people rob a bank and a teller gets shot, all are culpable no matter who pulled the trigger. Same thing here- NK and Iran are crossing a line and putting us in this position. Sudan may have an evil government we dont like as well, but they arent on the list because they havent _put themselves on it._ The problem with ascribing Daniel’s type of thinking is that it provides a dangerous incentive the other direction to try to think of ways to proliferate without leaving finger prints. _That_ is the true danger, and that is what The Doctrine is very good at dissincentizing.
Let me step aside and play devil’s advocate for a moment- because there is one major danger that I have identified and think is a stronger counter-argument. If we were to make this threat, it is plausible that China (and possibly Russia) will decide to put NK (and Iran respecively) under their nuclear umbrella, essentially saying that if we do what we say there will be WW3. A new Cold War would develop instantly. Now that may ultimately not be a bad thing, because under that sort of framework we have seen that the Great Powers have a much stronger incentive to keep their satellites in check, but it certainly is something that must be considered carefully from a world stabiliy (economic and political) standpoint.
First of all, who said anything about nuking anyone?
My presumption was that a government-ending conventional strike, plus a strike designed to cripple any accessible nuclear facilities and infrastructure, would be a much more appropriate response.
A.L.
For some reason my trackbacks don’t seem to be taking here lately, so, ping!
AL, for decades the U. S. policy on response to attack has been massive retaliation. Are you proposing that policy be amended to be massive retaliation against the attacker, strategic retaliation against the usual suspects (i.e. non-signatories)?
As a general matter, I think it would be a good idea to initiate talks on this issue, even if they fail. Whispering into the ear of some rogue ambasador that we will take you out might easily be seen as an idle threat unless America makes its commitment public. Even if the talks go nowhere, it presents the framework of our conerns and our willingness to take this action. And these shouldn’t merely be American concerns, the nuclear club all have their enemies.
In fact, I should add, I don’t think it would be agreed to by the nuke community in any serious fashion.
The strawman seeks to incentivise countries from letting fissile material being stolen or misplaced. This draws attention to the fact that there are two problem states: outright enemies, such as NK and Iran and poorly run countries like Russia that are too corrupt or lack a rule of law to adequately protect these materials. And then there will be countries, like Pakistan, that probably float btw/ these two poles.
Any country that can’t look at itself and guarantee with the lives of millions of its citizens that it won’t get pick-pocketed, has every reason to defeat this proposal. Heck, the U.S. didn’t keep all of its nuclear secrets.
Tim,
Did you click on the link in my first post? Did you read it?
Of course not. That would have inhibited your moral superiority games. Which is all you’ve got.
You are not a serious person.
The big problem with any plan that includes “and then we’ll attack them” is that no one really the US believes that the US will attack anyone.
_”My presumption was that a government-ending conventional strike, plus a strike designed to cripple any accessible nuclear facilities and infrastructure, would be a much more appropriate response”_
Have our regime decapitation strikes been so successful in the past that we would actually choose them as our go-to “we’ve just been nuked” policy? It seems to me that if the recent past has shown anything, its that it is _extremely difficult_ to take out an individual or even small group via conventional, and specifically air, attack.
I happen to think KJI isnt exactly crapping his pants after having seen how many hundreds of thousands of tons of TNT we have wasted trying to swat the flies that were the Husseins, OBL, even Gadafhi. We should have learned by now that magic bullets dont work. If you want to change regimes you pretty much have to go in and change them.
AL, do you really think if NYC goes up in flames America is going to settle for either dropping bombs on empty palaces or assembling a massive invasion ala Iraq to depose (and assumedly occupy) a regime like NK? And what happens when NK responds by wiping Seoul off the map?
What is really disconcerting in this conversation is that the nuclear response threshold is really being questioned- and that is very dangerous from a strategic MAD pov. If we are not going to use nukes in this situation because of ‘fairness’ and compassion, how many times can that line be redrawn?
Lets say NK just sells a nuke to somebody and they use it- we trace is unerringly back to NK. Assumedly you would argue we shouldnt nuke them, but should militarilly punish them ie regime change attempt.
Ok- now lets say we’re talking about Iran. Some radical element of the regime goes off the reservation and launches a nuke at a US interest. Do we nuke back or is it the same response?
OK- lets say KJI just flat out launches a nuke at Seattle. It could be argued the dictator is little different than a rogue political group because he doesnt represant his people. Can we, using the same arguments, really nuke NK and kill millions of innocents because of the decisions of one man?
The point is, when it comes to deterrance you have to be very careful about how you demonstrate your decision making in front of the world- because maniacs are watching carefully. That is the kind of thinking they understand. VDH’s argument for The Doctrine is that by displaying our potential of lunacy, we deter the bad guys from pushing the line or worse, trying to game the system. Thats how things worked in the Cold War. Was it really a sane policy to be willing to end life on the planet if Russia invaded West Germany? Of course not! Thats crazy! But by raising a question of whether we would, we helped prevent ever having to find out.
Marc, the way you are talking undermines that system. It makes it even more likely that a rogue regime will try something. If we have all these fine distinction about when it is appropriate to dessimate millions of human beings, it becomes very obvious that we won’t do it no matter the provocation- up to and including retalliating for our own loss of a city or two. That is a horrifically scary thing to telegraph to nations like Iran and NK that have shown no inclination to cower in the face of our conventional strikes you suggest.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, Mark. I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this issue. I would like take the opportunity to clarify and expound on my comment a bit.
I believe when you say that I’m afraid that “people aren’t going to like us” you mischaracterize my argument. Later you said, “The new doctrine simply says it is highly in your own best interest to control your nuclear assets, and if you cant it is clearly in your best interest to abandon them.”
I don’t believe this is the case. If I were a trading partner of a “bad guy” state, I would be incentivized to _change US policy_, not solve world peace. We got nukes running all over the place and the Yanks are saying they will bomb everybody on their crap list if something bad happens? Sounds like it is time to get organized against the Yanks and get that policy changed (or better yet, ignored). People liking us has nothing to do with it — your assumption is that whatever we choose to incentivize will be seen tht way by others. I believe this is not so. There is more than one way to skin a cat (Although I never really understood the benefit in comparing feline defurring technologies)
The real question, as Dave S. points out in his blog, is “How does deterrence work in a multi-party scenario?” My gut feeling is that our disconnect is caused by just this: some folks want to have the old version of deterrence work in the new world, even if they have to pound on it with a rhetorical hammer to make it work.
If my house is broken into, I don’t go burn down the houses of my scumbag neighbors simply because I know they’ve been doing illegal things. It’s not a fairness issue, it a practicality question. Deterrence implies a tit-for-tat, two party mileu. I deter those agents that are engaged in action that I wish to deter. If I choose to deter _an attack_ against me by selecting those agents _engaged in nuclear testing_, then the concept of trade-off is no longer there. It’s just me making up random rules to punish the world because things aren’t going my way. And yes, if you take Iranian oil away from Europe because of NK slipping a bomb to the Pals, you are creating enemies from neutral parties and you appear to be acting capriciously. It is you, not the Norkies, that is the easier risk to mitigate to world trade (and peace).
I’ve hestitated to join in this discussion because I don’t have a lot except rock-throwing to contribute right now. Perhaps there is no _one_ solution: perhaps there is a series of half-baked plans and doctrines that gets us to the point where we can get off this planet and secure humanity for the future. We’ve always had breathing room to ensure the safety of the species in the past. Nuclear technology proliferation, air travel, and the lack of new exploration is combining to put us in a bit of a pickle here.
I’m with Mark on this one: if you’re going to respond, it had better be nuclear. Seems like I read an article today that said the big thing changing because of the Norks is our nuclear posture and trigger level.
If, God forbid, somebody does use a nuke to attack us, we’re obviously going to strike back and strike back hard. History (and the rest of the world) will not be so kind to us if we attack other nations just “for good measure” no matter how mad we are.
I say if we are going to act we should act now. I would recommend stopping all shipping and taking out the Iranian oil fields. Or walking away. But whatever we do, we have to have a posture that allows the rest of the world to easily assess and understand the risk we mean to their interests. The “nuke em all” strategy does that, perhaps not with the side effects desired by its proponents. The transgression is happening right now, not in some mythical future. If we can’t act, that’s okay — we need to just be honest with ourselves about where we are and what realistic options we have.
“Sounds like it is time to get organized against the Yanks and get that policy changed (or better yet, ignored).”
I can see that- but even so that is a change of the tables. Right now it is up to us to herd the cats and try to establish a favorable equilibrium. I am sure it wouldnt be any easier, heck it must be far harder, for a NK (or even China) to gather up the nations of the world (or even a motley collection) to create some sort of anti-US coallition. That plays to our strength. Because of our ties to each individual nation, it will be almost impossible to do. Right now its up to us to make all these nation act against their short term interests. In your scenario it will be up to Iran and NK to try the same. For once the ‘bottom line’ wont be Irans oil or NKs refugees, it will be trade and good relations with the US. Which do you think 99% of the world will choose?
Obviously we disagree on this concept, and I respect your point of view. But at the bottom of my reasoning is the idea that the current dynamic is in a death spiral. We need to change the rules of the game, and in order to do that we will need to make some people uncomfortable. This is very similar to when Reagan put MX missiles in Europe, and with many of the same counterarguments. If we try to keep reacting to what the rogues are doing, we are doomed. We need to find a way to create a situation where they must react to us, and we have sadly seen that assembling a world coallition of rationality simply is not possible. That has always been the downfall of world government.
Not to beat a dead horse, but my understanding of the technology that NK, Pakistan, and Iran use is the same. The same as China – which is where Khan got his info and sold it to everyone else. India, as far as I know, has a different technology. So isn’t the isotopic mix signature of NK, Iran, and Pakistan the same as China? Seems that we might get that confused.
tblubird
Are you implying that Khan and Pakistan are the source of NK fissile material?
Fletcher and FormerDem, you’ve correctly diagnosed what motivated the original comment: If the worst happens, we’re going to do this anyway. (That’s the way in which it’s like MAD.) Why not say so, and see if others will do the same, in the hopes of achieving a more stable result. If so, great. If not, we’ve got some clarity on where those who might be cooperators or defectors (China, Russia) really stand. Useful either way.
The point that A.L. cites was deliberately left vague. No nation is going to accept prior restraint on its response if it’s been nuked. If it says so, it’s either lying or simply lacks the means. In the case it happens, it’s going to be the combination of public demand and military capabiliity that determines the outcome, whether you’re sitting in DC, Paris, or Moscow. Per A.L., I’d like to think that our capability would cause us to least examine alternatives to a strategic strike, but I’m pretty sure that in the event I’d be one of those deciding it’s time to make an example.
Mr. Holsinger, I did read that article when you first posted it, and skimmed it again when you cited. You advocate a preemptive first strike on Iran. I understand that, in fact I agree with some of it, though I’d not conduct the campaign as you suggest. The frame of A.L.’s original query was what do you do if you don’t preempt. Play or don’t play, but sputtering about ‘giving up our freedom’ when we’re talking about retaliatory doctrine doesn’t seem to me to advance your cause. Neither does ad hominem.
Challenge back to you: Let’s assume we agree that it’s time to at least decapitate Iran and trash its nuke establishment. Great. Now riddle me this: What is the doctrine for doing this again, or not, in the future? Cases might include Venezuela, Brazil, Taiwan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Japan. When does an emergent nuclear state get a preemptory response, or not, and why? Would you extend preemption to nuclear reactors, or just weapons? What do you tell your allies and enemies in the back hallway, and what do you tell the American people to get their backing? What do you do with a state that can actually keep its mouth shut (unless Mr. Ronery and Ahmenutjob) and stages a surprise breakout, see South African history.
Consider the following contexts: Our intelligence agencies are apparently inept at tracking the state of any particular nuclear program. Nuclear power reactors are likely to proliferate more quickly in the next two decades, due to improved designs and a probability that there will be a partial shift from oil driven to electron driven transportation infrastructure. At some point, from 10 to 20 years in the future, the principal WMD threat will change from nukes to bioweapons, that are even harder to track and pose a worse threat.
And we thought the Cold War sucked.
ger5
I don’t know about the fissile material – only the technology. Good point. And I don’t have that answer. So it is the fissile material itself and not the technology ? – makes sense.
_”Per A.L., I’d like to think that our capability would cause us to least examine alternatives to a strategic strike, but I’m pretty sure that in the event I’d be one of those deciding it’s time to make an example.”_
Here’s the mistake that is being made: we are confusing the decision making that would actually be done in the aftermath of a real attack with the stance we take in our policies now.
Its just like the Cold War- it was an open question whether the President would actually end the world if the missiles really flew, or even if the missile crews would turn their keys. But those questions are theoretical, and _must be_ independant of what our public stance is. I mean, imagine if it was stated American nuclear policy during the Cuban Missile Crisis era that we would agonize over whether to respond to an attack or not. Obviously a recipe for tempting the enemy to find out.
Remember: this is all about games theory, not right and wrong.
I’ve been trying to post this for several hours but the stupid board software keeps kicking it back. Let’s see if it goes through this time.
Tim,
Making horrible examples of American enemies who try for nuclear weapons will have a chilling deterrrent effect on would-be emulators. And we need not limit ourselves to Iran.
As an example, North Korea is, for various reasons but most notably topography, wholly vulnerable to transporation infrastructure attack. Mining of its harbors plus the destruction of selected bridges and tunnels with precision-guided munitions, which we could do with carrier aircraft and heavy bombers from Guam (i.e., we wouldn’t need support from our air bases in South Korea and Japan) would bring the regime down in six weeks. The North Korean People’s Army is already three foodless days from mutiny.
The problems with this are political will plus that that North Korea and Iran have a few working U-235 gun-type nukes.
Tim, there are some fundamental problems with the framework you suggest. One is that the framework has as its purpose “providing a stable result,” as you put it, when the circumstance contemplated is a nuclear attack. I would maintain that there is no such thing as a “stable result” once a nuke explodes in a US city, at least until the perpetrator of the attack is destroyed by a US nuclear response which re-validates the US nuclear deterrent and removes the further threat.
The stability you hope to achieve is dependent not upon the nature and effectiveness of the response, but upon the effectiveness of an agreement in limiting the various parties’ responses in the event of a nuclear attack on any one of them.
The first problem with the agreement is technical — I understand that for purposes of argument, you’ve assumed your way out of that problem by establishing as a premise the ability to determine the source of the material used in a bomb by testing the fallout. But you’re ignoring that predictability is a double-edged sword. If something can be predicted, then it is also susceptible of being manipulated. So, the technical linchpin of the scheme, the fallout testing, could be manipulated or could be invalidated entirely if the perpetrator has managed to obtain its nuclear illicitly from another party without that other party’s knowledge. It’s unlikely but not impossible that US nuclear material could be obtained by a rogue nuclear power, but what about Russian nuclear material? How useful is the agreement if the fallout test reveals a US or Russian source?
But its more fundamental than just technical difficulties or vulnerability to theft of nuclear materials. The proposition ignores the likelihood that the relationship between predictability and deterrence is inverse — the more predictable the outcome of a circumstance, more likely that someone will attempt to manipulate the elements of that circumstance to influence the outcome in its favor. And the proposition is weakened still further because predictability or stability — the supposed good to be achieved by the agreement — is achieved by limiting the various parties responses if any one of them is attacked.
To the extent the agreement is expected to work — that is, to the extent the limits on a party’s response are actually expected to be honored — the deterrent effect of a party’s nuclear arsenal is reduced, or even eliminated, in those circumstances in which the party is expected to refrain from using its nuclear weapons in response to the use of nukes by some other nation. Contrast a unilateral declaration that “We will use our nukes, with devastating effect” with an agreement that “we will refrain from using our nukes in X,Y or Z situations.” The unilateral declaration of intent increases the perceived risk for someone else who may be considering whether to perpetrate a nuclear attack, whereas the latter creates an opportunity for an attacker to avoid retaliation — the attacker only has to make circumstances appear to be X, Y or Z. And whether the agreement is actually honored after an attack is entirely beside the point — the mere fact that it is expected to be honored has weakened or removed the deterrent from the circumstances covered by the agreemnet, and increased the chance of an attack actually occurring, after which, all bets are off.
The objective must be to deter the first attack, not to control the response in the event an attack actually occurs. By seeking to do the latter, the agreement all but concedes the circumstance in which it must become applicable.
Tim, I should clarify one statement I made — that the agreement’s effectiveness depends on the limitations it imposes upon a party’s responses to an attack. I didn’t mean to suggest that the agrement would prohibit retaliation (that’s clearly not what you wrote). But I understand that the agreement would seek to limit a party’s responses to a nuclear attack by limiting the targets of its retaliation, and prohibiting it from defending a noncompliant nation that is targeted by a compliant nation, regardless of whether the noncompliant nation is responsible for the first strike (back to my example in which if Israel is non-compliant, the agreement would purport to prevent the US from defending Israel from attack by one of the complying nations). Thus, in that sense, predictability and stability are intended to be achieved by the imposition of external limits on a nation’s responses should an attack occur.
The mathmatics of “Chicken:”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_%28game%29
_A formal version of the game of chicken has been the subject of serious research in game theory. Because the “loss” of swerving is so trivial compared to the crash that occurs if nobody swerves, the reasonable strategy would seem to be to swerve before a crash is likely. Yet, knowing this, if one believes one’s opponent to be reasonable, one may well decide not to swerve at all, in the belief that he will be reasonable and decide to swerve, leaving the other player the winner. This unstable strategy can be formalized by saying there is more than one Nash equilibrium, which is a pair of strategies for which neither player gains by changing his own strategy while the other stays the same. (In this case, the equilibria are the two situations wherein one player swerves while the other does not.)_
_One tactic in the game is for one party to signal their intentions convincingly before the game begins. For example, if one party were to ostentatiously disable their steering wheel just before the match, the other party would be compelled to swerve. This shows that, in some circumstances, reducing one’s own options can be a good strategy._
FormerDem, Mark already said what I would have: This is about ‘stability’ in the games theory sense, and needs the same type of analysis re payoffs for collaborators and defectors.
I can see the point that leaving wiggle room in the range of responses may be counterproductive. As stated, it may suggest uncertainty of the severity of response, where it was meant to indicate that there is no UPPER limit imposed on severity by any injured party. So, a straw hat for the straw man:
* The American doctrine that a WMD attack will be met with a strategic response remains in effect.
One may assume that other powers might well clarify their own response doctrine in a like fashion. As per Mark, yes there’s always some residual doubt as to how the doctrine will be executed in the event, and that’s a bit of the point.
Far from being ‘nice words’ as suggested somewhere backthread, this is about as sick as it gets. But if we want to look at alternatives to a string of premptive wars, or to Wretchard’s 2nd Conjecture, we have to talk about it.
_I have a few issues – the notion that all noncomplaint powers are jointly responsible is something that will take some serious thought._
Treaties aside, de facto or otherwise, what other choice would an attacked nation have other than to retaliate on all the likely suspects/noncompliance powers? I can’t see ANY US President merely sitting around and waiting for the next detonation. I suspect such a targeting strategy is already in place by the US military planners. I’m not a fan of depending on signatures for identification of the source since such things can be too easily rigged by the technos. I do know this for a fact – just a couple of US nuclear subs could reduce several suspect countries to goat pastures for the foreseeable future. And I don’t think China or Russia would do much of anything as long as the missiles didn’t fall on them.
The flaw in much of the reasoning in the comments so far have to do with confusing source of weaponry with perpetrator. The fact is that terrorists cannot operate very well, if at all, without the operational support of NATIONS. So the question should be, in the event of a US city(or cities) being nuked, is not the source of the weaponry(which would be impossible to accurately determine anyway) but which nations have nurtured terrorism. Those nations that have supported terrorism, that have provided funds, safe haven, transportation and training to terrorists should be the targets, whether they actually supplied the suitcase nuke or not they would all be culpable for using terrorism over the years to wage war by proxy against the US. They would all have contributed to the growth of terrorism which resulted in a nuked USA.
Mark. I think we agree on the nature of the problem, that is, it is in a downward spiral. I also think we agree that whatever solution we have should change the current paradigm.
Having said that, we are not playing a game of chicken. Us and the Norkies or the Iranians, sure. But we got chickens all over the place, dude. Sure, the Big Chicken right now is Mr. Ronery, but there are plenty more. We got a farm full of chickens, and somebody just blew the wall out of the chicken coop. Looks like an escape attempt. Adding to that, with BioWeapons coming online in another couple of decades, we got more than chickens. I don’t know, call them pigs. There could be hundreds of them running all over the place before too long as well.
In fact, the countless nature of our chickens and pigs gives us reason for pause. Should we blow up the farm if one makes a wrong move? Pick out some of the chickens and hold them hostage to our health? Perhaps shoot a few chickens so the rest know we’re serious? Remember that most of the chickens have not escaped yet. Maybe we kill the ones that are currently loose. But the pigs are coming no matter what we do about our chicken problem.
I think I’ve taken that analogy about as far as it will go, but from a policy perspective it sounds to me like you are trying to assume a fixed number of clear actors that we can persuade to act as it suits us. Large groups of things tend to have their own emergent behavior that cannot always be predicted. That’s why this problem is of a different sort. You need to pick another mathematician, maybe Lorenz or Gleick instead of Nash.
The U.S. clearly has the means to conquer most any country lacking a nuclear deterrent, and forcibly change its regime, if occupation is not intended.
In terms of countries which might go nuclear and also pose a threat to us, ability to resist conquest by American ground forces is pretty limited. Iran is one example – the major reasons for not invading it are the costs of long-term occupation (particularly that occupation would require calling up most of the Army Reserves and National Guard for several years) plus that Iran already has a few U-235 nuclear weapons plus some primitive plutonium-imploision devices (I wouldn’t call those “weapons” – they’re just too bulky and fragile for that term). Iranian ground forces are a joke.
Letting such nutball regimes develop nuclear weapons also lets them develop primitive nuclear deterrents against any sort of American attack, including the apocalyptic genocidal variety under discussion.
You people advocating that sort of deterrent are in pure fantasyland. If the U.S. even breathes such a threat, our enemies with nukes will put a high priority on developing minimal nuclear and biological weapon deterrents against such American attack. Together they can do a fair job of inflicting awful losses on us. And they’ll have every reason to do so given the certainty of America inflicting nuclear genocide on them.
OK, strictly speaking we wouldn’t necessarily have to promise to “attack them all” in the event of a terrorist strike. It’d probably be enough to guarantee the total annihilation of one such nation, but not specify which.
The problem is, there might be a regime radical enough to “roll the dice” and we’d have to continue the onslaught after the second attack. It isn’t easy to ignore Wretchard’s conjectures. It’s not all about deterrence. It might also be about counter-attack.
I think Tim’s strategy is worth exploring, but I’m afraid that a world that has just seen a nuclear terrorist strike would no longer be the world that established the agreement. We’re blinded by context, so it’s hard to see what effect such a radical change in context would have.
If we can’t at leat establish the likelihood of some ledges to prevent the ball from falling all the way to the bottom, then it might well be prudent for one of the rational actors (who can effectively negotiate) to initiate a first strike against a rogue. If the calculus indicates that this is the only reliable way to keep the ball from plunging into the abyss, then it’s a rational and wise act.
What a freakin’ nightmare!
_”from a policy perspective it sounds to me like you are trying to assume a fixed number of clear actors that we can persuade to act as it suits us. Large groups of things tend to have their own emergent behavior that cannot always be predicted.”_
The advantage of The Doctrine… really the whole point, is that it creates a ginormous dissincentive for joining the group you are talking about. Right now we essentially have two players. Its plausible that this threat could coerce a deal out of NK in which they are allowed in the ‘respectable’ club so long as we can track their nukes- basically what Tim is saying. So we could bring it down to 1.
Meanwhile there are plenty of actors watching. You are suggesting their are dozens just waiting to jump into our crosshairs- I would suggest that the ones left have a level of natural caution that the Mullahs and KJI scoffed at. Why in the world they would voluntarilly put a nuclear target on their foreheads at this date is beyond me… _unless our forbearance and wishy-washiness gives them reason to._
I think your scenario implies a good deal of these other nations acting in unison, not unlike lemmings. The idea being if they can all rush to get nukes they can screw up the deterrance system we’re talking about. That seems incredibly unlikely to me- these regimes are distrustful by their natures. Sure they work together when their is no risk, but nobody is gonna want to not have a chair when the music stops.
I still dont understand how making it our national policy that we will only use nuclear weapons against rogue nuclear powers will make non-nuclear regimes want nukes. That makes no sense to me. You seem to be assuming that other nations are just looking for an excuse to stick a spoke in our wheels- which is true when there is no cost. It is not true when the cost is this heavy.
And I still dont accept your premise that the Cold War was a completely 2-sided conflict either. Israel, South Africa, Pakistan, and India were all playing their own nuclear games- and thats just who we know of. If your logic is correct there should have been the same incentive to join the nuke club back then for 3rd parties, but by and large it didnt happen (SA gave up their nukes voluntarilly). Our invasion of Iraq resulted in Libyas nuclear program residing in Tennessee. The point is that nations arent staying out of the nuclear business out of fear of the UN, they do is because its expensive- in both money and safety. Nukes may shield you from conventional attack but they put a big nuclear target on your chest. I dont see 10 more nations racing to join a death list.
Yes Tom. The current argument about policy positions has many false assumptions:
Nightmare is the right word. The best course from what I can see is an immediate attack on North Korea, either that or walking away. The mistake we made, many years ago, was not putting into place an “immediate attack” policy to prevent nations from going nuclear. Looking back, it’s really the only rational policy to have. But that ship has already sailed, I’m afraid. Walking away might be our actual future, no matter how the policy stances and posturing plays out.
_” Iran is one example – the major reasons for not invading it are the costs of long-term occupation (particularly that occupation would require calling up most of the Army Reserves and National Guard for several years) plus that Iran already has a few U-235 nuclear weapons plus some primitive plutonium-imploision devices (I wouldn’t call those “weapons” – they’re just too bulky and fragile for that term).”_
Here we go again. NK apparently cant even “demonstrate”:http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NKOREA?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-10-13-11-30-29 they have a single working nuke, and you are still claiming for a fact Iran has a full scale arsenal?
_”Letting such nutball regimes develop nuclear weapons also lets them develop primitive nuclear deterrents against any sort of American attack, including the apocalyptic genocidal variety under discussion.”_
Well clearly thats what they would hope… but it would basically have to be something offshore. For once i have no doubt about something- a proper full scale nuclear assault will neutralize any WMD deterrent in a rogue nation. They don’t have second strike capabilities. Your point is better taken in the context of what we would do give Armed Liberals suggestion- trying to regime change via conventional attack is very _unlikely_ to destroy these nations WMD stockpiles 100%.
_”If the U.S. even breathes such a threat, our enemies with nukes will put a high priority on developing minimal nuclear and biological weapon deterrents against such American attack. Together they can do a fair job of inflicting awful losses on us. And they’ll have every reason to do so given the certainty of America inflicting nuclear genocide on them.”_
Who, how, and when? Again you are assuming a level of coordination that is fantastic. Lets say a nuke goes off in Los Angeles- our missile subs could flatten NK and Iran utterly, systematically, at the exact same moment, with so little warning it would be preposterous for these nations to respond. Nuclear tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a sub off the coast of NK could devastate the nation entirely within perhaps 5 minutes of launch and likely with no radar warning anyway. Iran would be slightly trickier but with proper timing and assuming the Tomahawks can fly under radar as advertised the same result. Once the obvious leadership and known threats (and everything within 50 miles around them) are demolished in the first 10 minutes of the war they didnt know had started- followup attacks can within the hour mop up everything that is left desperately trying to figure out what just happened. We are good at this kind of scenario, _really good._ We spent over 50 years figuring out how to do this kind of thing flawlessly. God willing we will never have to- but our enemies should know that we can and will if they insist on putting us in this position. And all they have to do to opt out is _stop developing nuclear weapons._
And for the record we didnt spend trillions in defense funding building nuclear subs and B-2s to bounce rubble in Iraq or Serbia. They were designed to execute the kind of total saturation, instantly unsurviveable attack that i just laid out. Our conventional military that has worked so brilliantly in the last couple wars is the tip of the iceburg. Our bigmoney technology was developed to devastate the entire Soviet Union to such an extant they wouldnt be able to respond. Second strike nuclear subs prevent that scenario, but that didnt stop us trying (and vice-versa). NK or Iran wouldnt stand a chance.
Mark in the interest of trying to at least illuminate the issue, I’ll go another round. Hey — maybe I’m smoking crack here. Some folks on WoC talk about argumentation, but I’m here for group analysis and shared understanding. Maybe you’ve got a better handle on this. I’m not convinced that you do, but I respect your opinion and I’m just trying to figure this out with everybody else.
_”So we could bring it down to 1″_ — yes. If possible, this might be a way out. I’ve already said the use of force makes some sense in this regard.
_”You are suggesting their are dozens just waiting to jump into our crosshairs”_ LOL. Not at all. I’m suggesting that instead of dozens jumping into our crosshairs, you’d tick off tens of thousands of businesspeople all over the world because you’ve introduced risk into their financial equations that has nothing to do with them or the countries they are doing business with. I’m further suggesting that by fighting the free market like this, you’re going to lose. Big time. Easier to change the US than fix lots of little actors, even if we are the ones that are “right”.
_”I still dont understand how making it our national policy that we will only use nuclear weapons against rogue nuclear powers will make non-nuclear regimes want nukes. That makes no sense to me.”_ — Countries want nukes for all kinds of reasons. Our policies have little to do with it. The big deal about the fearless midget getting nukes is not that there is simply another nuclear power, it is that we probably have lost control over NGOs getting nukes. So national policies, smashional policies. They are probably too blunt a tool in a world of Al Qaedas.
_”I dont see 10 more nations racing to join a death list”_ I don’t either, thank goodness. But when bio weapons come out they won’t have to. Smaller and smaller political units are getting bigger and bigger bombs. That’s the real problem. The Norks are just rubbing our faces in it. What are we going to do?
“I’m suggesting that instead of dozens jumping into our crosshairs, you’d tick off tens of thousands of businesspeople all over the world because you’ve introduced risk into their financial equations”
I find this highly overstated. If so how could any business have been done in the Cold War when these kinds of threats were de rigueor? Markets dont concern themselves with the dialog and diplomacy of last resort to that degree. We are talking about the context of an issue where nuclear weapons are destroying American cities. Business folk contemplating _that_ scenario wont be thinking about the fallout for Pyongyang, I think. Again, we are making a threat _strictly_ in the context of a scenario so nightmarish it makes the stability of the market seem like a sick joke. We’ve been rattling nuclear sabres for years for all kinds of reasons. This instance isnt going to turn the world on its head.
_”Countries want nukes for all kinds of reasons. Our policies have little to do with it. The big deal about the fearless midget getting nukes is not that there is simply another nuclear power, it is that we probably have lost control over NGOs getting nukes.”_
Well under the assumption that we arent going to preemptively go to war to stop it (and god knows _that_ would have a bigger impact on your business communities), i dont see any good way short of blatant death threats. And we need to stop it. So do we war now and make every international scenario you’ve laid out come true, or do we try the horrific threat?
“But when bio weapons come out they won’t have to. Smaller and smaller political units are getting bigger and bigger bombs. That’s the real problem. The Norks are just rubbing our faces in it. What are we going to do?”
But that is outside of this scenario. Syria isnt going to send anthrax into Boston because we nuke North Korea in retaliation for DC getting fried. The beauty of the idea is that it strictly draws a line around exactly _one_ unnacceptable activity- illicit production of nuclear weapons. That, and that alone is intolerable to us in the event we have been atomically attacked by parties unknown.
It provides an easy way out too- just abandon nuclear weapons verifiably. No more death threats- go about being a bastard regime brutalizing your people.
Dan,
That’s because they are fantasy narcissists who identify themselves as America. They simply cannot conceive of our enemies as anything more than passive objects. They have great difficulty thinking about what our enemies might do because they are far more concerned with what America does.
Mark B,,
You should learn more about biological weapons before posting about their use.
Ok Mark. We’re just not going to agree on this. Too many problems with premises.
“When you guys get to the part where we build fortresses in mines and take up polygamy with ten attractive females for each of us for the survival of the species”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove#Plot, I’m there for you. If there’s a list, btw, be sure I’m on it.
Daniel, you’re off base on the business thing. To enlarge on Mark’s rebuttal:
First, you might notice that the Dow hit a new high the same week that Kimmie fired his squid. That’s just one data point, but it’s the case that public markets tend to underestimate SHTF probabilities. Don’t take my word, try this book by Nassim Taleb, whose blurb says he manages a ‘crisis-hunting trading firm’. A real intellectual romp, and perhaps practical if you’d enjoy making money in a rather morbid way.
More pragmatically, right now, the places most likely to be on the non-compliant list would be NK, Iran and Pakistan. They aren’t exactly big contributors to the international markets. The markets will go straight to hell if the balloon goes up, but the incremental risk in those countries doesn’t move the needle. Forget the nukes, the Vogons could show up tomorrow and pave them over for a hyperspatial bypass, and the markets wouldn’t miss a beat.
With one big exception of course – Iran’s oil. That’s one gotcha in any Iranian takedown scenario, either this one or Tom’s, because both China and Japan are highly dependent on it. That is a good way to spread a war. In the nuclear SHTF scenario, they probably each get a short call to say we’re going to leave the oil rigs standing and we’ll work it out later. In the preemption scenario, you’d better have a modus vivendi worked out in advance, but that’s another post.
squid s/b squib, though it is an interesting image…
Tom: _You people advocating that sort of deterrent are in pure fantasyland. If the U.S. even breathes such a threat, our enemies with nukes will put a high priority on developing minimal nuclear and biological weapon deterrents against such American attack. Together they can do a fair job of inflicting awful losses on us. And they’ll have every reason to do so given the certainty of America inflicting nuclear genocide on them._
I’m afraid the commentator hasn’t noticed that America’s enemies are trying right now to the best of their ability to inflict _awful losses on us_. The really awful loss will be the countless millions(not just Americans) who will die if the terrorists ever succeed with a WMD attack on the US.
Daniel: _grackle said “The fact is that terrorists cannot operate very well, if at all, without the operational support of NATIONS.” — Yes, grackle, that is the current operating premise. After some years of experience in the war on terror, however, I think you overstate the connection. We should prevent nations from turning a blind eye, but as Pakistan is demonstrating, there are many levels of participation._
Pakistan wouldn’t be on my retaliation list. Behavior after 9/11 would be my litmus for inclusion and exclusion. And there is room in my mind for born-again-ex-terrorist-sponsors. For instance if Syria stopped all the crap they’re doing in Iraq, closed their terrorist training camps, ponied up the terrorists they presently harbor and otherwise stopped trying to do the US harm, Assad would be off the list. At the risk of stating the obvious in my hypothetical countries with friendly, helpful leaders would of course not be retaliated on. And I really do not think I’m overstating the importance of the sponsorship of terrorism by rogue nations. Without such sponsorship terrorists would have a difficult time just traveling across borders, not to mention training and funding – and of course only nations are capable of providing the nukes in the first place; a nuke, even the dirty bomb variety, is not something put together by a small group in a safehouse like IEDs or bomb-vests.
“Mark B,,
You should learn more about biological weapons before posting about their use.”
Tom, glass houses and stones my friend. If i seem dismissive of biologicals in this context, it’s because i am. If Iran and NK have developed an effective, deployable, population killer while completely hiding the infastructure from the world (you generally dont grow world class biologists from rocks) and manage to create a surviveable deployment plan- well we’ve got a big problem no matter what we do. I’ll take my chances, biologicals are desprately tricky to get right. I find the world we know about scary enough without taking wild assumptions as givens
Mark B.,
You have no inhibitions about the U.S. inflicting nuclear genocide on wide areas of the world at once, yet seem unaware of the incentives this gives potential victims.
And you know nothing of biological weapons as they exist today, let alone what is on the near horizon.
On this one you are in monkyboy’s league.
Tom H, it’s one thing to be wrong – which I think you are in a number of areas – but it’s another thing to be an ass on someone else’s thread.
Until you can lower the level of insult and replace it with supported argument, can I suggest that you take a step away from the keyboard for a bit?
A.L.
_You have no inhibitions about the U.S. inflicting nuclear genocide on wide areas of the world at once, yet seem unaware of the incentives this gives potential victims. And you know nothing of biological weapons as they exist today, let alone what is on the near horizon._
Genocide: the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
We are discussing the prevention of terrorism and possible retaliation in the event of a large-scale WMD terrorism attack on the US but some apparently view retaliation as genocide. Personally I don’t view terrorists or terrorist supporters as “victims” in any sense of the word.
The real victims would be millions of Americans followed by many millions of the inhabitants of a few rogue states. In the event that it happened I would feel very sorry for those millions but not sorry enough to sit around waiting for the terrorists to strike America again.
The commentator, in writing of “incentives,” also seemingly believes that present day terrorists and their rogue nation supporters are holding back in their efforts to do harm to the US, an attitude that seems to ignore all the terrorism activity that has occurred in the past few years.
Danziger,
Liberals use name-calling in place of argument. You prove that over and over. And now you have no cover.
OK, MODERATORS, DANZIGER HAS CALLED ME A FOOL AND AN ASS IN HIS RECENT WOC THREADS. I’M CALLING HIM ON IT.
Danziger, you WILL apologize right now, and watch your language with me in the future, or I will respond in kind.
[ Tom, it doesn’t work that way. Check the “Winds Comments Policy”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/003367.php and comment #63. –Marshal Festus 10/14/06 5:40pm]
Here’s a summary of a comment I made about this post at Glittering Eye that I thought I should add here:
The whole proposal is based on a fundamental ignorance of nuclear technology. The biggest problem from a technical standpoint is that the proposal does nothing for uranium weapons which don?t require reactors to produce. Also, sampling of reactor fuel will not necessarily give a ?fingerprint? to determine where plutonium from an exploded weapon came from. It all depends on how the plutonium was made in the reactor and how it is reprocessed. Sampling fuel on plutonium production reactors won?t tell you anything because the material does not come from the fuel itself. Finally, it does nothing for hundreds (if not thousands) of tons of uranium and plutonium that have already been produced worldwide, to say nothing of existing nuclear weapons.
Politically, I don?t see how any nuclear country, especially those with nukes, would ever agree to this, especially considering the level of intrusiveness necessary to ensure compliance. Certainly the US, China and Russia would not.
OK, maybe free hugs would be a good thing after all…
I’m not sure I can defend it, but my gut tells me that just about any price paid up front is cheap compared to about any consequence on the back end. If a weapon is going to be used, it’s better were it used initially by one of the “rational actors” rather than one of the rogues, because the former can stop the performance based on a coherent set of conditions.
When I say “just about any price paid up front” I mean, in general, a conventional invasion force along with a conventional mobilization. The most dangerous aspect of our current situation is that we don’t have the resources to pay that up front price. So the first order of business has to be about getting it, by whatever means necessary. It might well be possible to develop a conventional force capable of deterring a WMD attack, but we’ll need to demonstrate the capability somewhere.
The tulip or the star?
AL, the problem with non-nuclear retaliation is that it’s quite possible to game. You smuggle in two weapons, set one off, then just after (just before?) the blast, announce that there are more weapons in place and that you can set them off any time you like. Or -don’t- announce it and flatten a second city when the first strike reports start rolling in. For extra fun, start blowing up cities in other countries and saying “it’s the US’s fault for having declared war upon us!”
We’re emphatically not interested in getting into a game where someone tries to gauge our response and figure out how to blunt it. That’s why US-Soviet nuclear exchange models weren’t based on a few bombs at a time. If there is a level of “acceptable losses to nuclear attack”, you’re incentivizing your enemies to find it. If you make it clear that this number does not exist – that a single nuclear attack turns the US from our usual easygoing selves into slavering mass-murderers who will kill anybody who looks at us funny, basically – you discourage this kind of thinking.
(The chicken metaphor is apt. There may be 100 people charging toward you on the highway, but if you are driving a large 18-wheeler with trailer, and they are all on scooters, and you’re waving the steering wheel out the window, are they all going to charge you at once in hopes that their collective corpses will somehow stop you? Nope, they’ll get the hell out of the way!)
An effective biological weapon must be self localizing or an anti-dote or vaccine must be developed and distributed.
Other wise it is a suicide bomber tactic that could result in self destruction as well as destruction of the enemy.
A couple of notes:
Demo said “When I say “just about any price paid up front” I mean, in general, a conventional invasion force along with a conventional mobilization. The most dangerous aspect of our current situation is that we don’t have the resources to pay that up front price.”
Then Avatar said, “AL, the problem with non-nuclear retaliation is that it’s quite possible to game.”
I suggest that the current game theory, massive conventional forces backed by overwelming nukes aimed at Russia (or China or whoever), is wearing a little thin. We have attrited our conventional ground forces for shiny new toys and half-fought insurgencies, and we’re still sitting around debating targeting strategies for the nukes.
The chicken metaphor still don’t work for me, since I believe those hundred people are coming at us from various directions not a single source, i.e., they are all not looking for a single trade in the same context. Plus some of the skateboarders might very well be invisible to us. There are a lot of new issues in this brave new world.
I feel that my initial comment in #12, added to Andy’s point in #58, make for some serious consideration by those in the “one move and the whole room goes down” crowd.
Tom, you’re off this thread. Go read the WoC comments policy and think hard about what you’re doing.
A.L.
Dan:
By “up front cost” I’m not talking about deterrence, but intervention. It ought to be clear by now that what the world can no longer afford are totalitarian regimes… so we have to bring those to an end. One way or another. And if we don’t pony up now the price to be paid after one of them sponsors or launches an attack against one of the democracies will be orders of magnitude higher.
For N. Korea, we need to play the Japan card. Nothing short of that will do, but it also requires Japan’s cooperation. As an absolute last resort we’re better off invading N. Korea ourselves rather than waiting around for them to cause trouble. I realize the risks, but they pale in comparison to the risk of doing nothing.
_As an absolute last resort we’re better off invading N. Korea ourselves rather than waiting around for them to cause trouble. I realize the risks, but they pale in comparison to the risk of doing nothing._
I agree that a military intervention in North Korea would probably save much heartbreak down the road but such an action, for domestic political reasons, is not even remotely feasible. It’s sure fun to fantasize about, though, sort of like the if I only had a time machine I could go back and kill Hitler type of daydream. But face it, Bush has better chance of turning into an Eskimo than he does mounting a military operation against North Korea – the exception being if NOK is stupid enough to attack the US.
Stranger things have happen.
I would like to point out a possibly larger problem, connected with the problems of nuclear proliferation and terrorist states.
The point is that within a couple of decades, there will be technologies available which make nukes, or even bioweapons, look harmless. I don’t want to bang on about the Singularity, but it looks as if the progress of Moore’s Law and the surprisingly fast development of nanotech are going to give us some stuff that humanity is just not ready to deal with.
Nukes cause huge damage, but are self-limiting. Bioweapons kill many, but will eventually burn themselves out if only by killing the possible targets.
However, grey goo is not self-limiting and may be possible to design in such a way that it doesn’t stop until every living thing is dead. EVERYTHING. No bacteria, no plants, no animals, no fish, and especially and obviously no humans. It will be possible to destroy all life, in such a way that it can’t possibly arise again – unless the goo itself evolves.
Or create replicating assemblers that generate CFC as a metabolic product. CFC is the most potent greenhouse gas known.
The point is, this and many other apocalyptic horrors are just around the corner. The human race needs to grow up FAST, and we need to get off this mudball. All our eggs in one basket – and someone has just put the basket on the fire.
And the most technologically advanced nation on Earth, with the most resources, is grinding its treasure and the blood of its best into the sand of Iraq. Time it stopped.
If we have to kill a few million of the enemy, so what? Better that than the whole human race, and all the other life that may someday succeed us.
Fletcher makes a great point.
At the risk of sounding even more strange than I already do, I believe the singularity cometh, and I’m not taking odds against the Omega Point. (“see today’s blog entry”:http://www.WhatToFix.com)
The problem when we get into talking about global existential questions is that we don’t have a bunch of other intelligent worlds to compare ourselves to. We’re the only one. So it’s not like we could look at alien civilization A, B, or C and somehow draw lessons — we’re in the dark.
I’m not a big grey goo fan, but Mr. Christian is bang on that it is not just nuclear technology that we have to worry about. It’s not that simple.
“Enrio Fermi once asked if life is so prevalant in the universe, where are they?”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox One of the answers is: it is in the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself. Can’t say I’m happy with that answer, but it exists and we must acknowledge it is a possibility.
It seems to me that _this_ is the nature of the game theory we should be talking about: how to get our species spread out far enough that any one technology does not have the capability to kill all of us (and our technology and culture, which is just as important). In fact, it’s the only game in town. If you are having problems splitting up the pie, bake a bigger pie. We may easily get into a spot within 50 years where there is no finite answer as long as we are all earth-bound: the ratio personal power to lunatics is too high. If that is the end-game, then I say take out whoever might bring the endgame on quicker while we build some mass-drivers, blimps-to-space, or anything else that will start spreading us out a bit more. America used to be across the ocean, which kept us out of many of these power games back when they weren’t so serious. That spatial lesson shouldn’t be forgotten.
Note to posters. Looks like if you have more than one link in your comment you get put in the detention zone until a moderator can get to you. I must have missed this announcement.
Tim,
Your strawman’s new hat doesn’t really change anything; it merely confirms that your strawman doesn’t include Marc’s radical and dangerous notion that a nuclear attack won’t earn a massive nuclear response, but rather a regime decapitation.
My biggest problem with the strawman continues to be that it is an agreement and not just a unilateral doctrine. The focus on origin of nuclear materials is, in an agreement, a flaw that could be exploited. And that flaw is not adequately dealt with by permitting the reporting of missing material. Would a compliant nation cease to have responsibility for material it reports as missing? If not, then why report missing material? If so, then the agreement accelerates the development of clandestine markets for nuclear materials by providing cash-poor but compliant members of the nuclear club with at least one free pass for their own materials and an incentive to broker transactions in materials originating elsewhere.
In a unilateral doctrine, origin of materials could be only one factor in determining the target of the response. As a doctrine only, the strawman might not create the desired control of nuclear materials, but the control achieved by an agreement is probably illusory, even if the increased danger an agreement would cause is not.
Also, if there is already significant amounts of unaccounted for nuclear material out there (from the former USSR, perhaps?), it’s already too late for the strawman as an agreement.
December 2006 – a Foreign Policy article comes out offering a very similar straw man: “Who Pays When the Bomb Goes Off?”:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3653
But y’all read Winds, so you didn’t have to wait.