{"id":1236,"date":"2006-10-14T01:05:55","date_gmt":"2006-10-14T01:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-10-14T01:07:09","modified_gmt":"2006-10-14T01:07:09","slug":"speaking_of_nuc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1236","title":{"rendered":"Speaking Of Nuclear Deterrence…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a good NYT article suggesting<\/a> that the Administration is looking at new deterrence models, and on the technical difficulties involved in doing so:<\/p>\n

Security specialists said Mr. Bush’s warning signaled a significant expansion of longstanding policies of deterrence, extending the threat of reprisals to the transfer of nuclear weapons or materials to another country or to terrorists.<\/p>\n

\nThat has long been a concern about the North Korean program, but the tools to prevent it are still limited.<\/p>\n

\nRobert Joseph, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, said in an interview on Thursday that “to be credible, declaratory policy must be backed up by effective capabilities.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s how it’s done:<\/p>\n

The Pentagon, in carrying out one of its most sensitive missions, maintains a team of nuclear experts to analyze the fallout from any nuclear attack by terrorists, not only to identify the attackers but also to figure out where they got their bomb.<\/p>\n

\nSeparately, the International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations unit based in Vienna, compiles identifying markers drawn from the chemistry and physics of processes that produce radioactive material in nuclear programs around the world.<\/p>\n

\nUsing that kind of data and technology, it might be possible to figure out the likely origin of an intercepted shipment of bomb material … or of the radioactive debris of a weapon that was used. The atomic energy agency’s inspectors have significant records from their time in North Korea before they were expelled, and they could rule out many other possible sources of radioactive material by calling on records from nations that cooperate with the agency. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And what it means:<\/p>\n

Mr. Bush’s statement was viewed by national security experts as a major shift in deterrence doctrine, one that acknowledges that the mission today is no longer preventing North Korea from building a nuclear weapon, but deterring its use or transfer.<\/p>\n

\n“The administration will continue saying that a nuclear weapon in North Korea is unacceptable, but in fact they are beginning to accept it,” said Scott D. Sagan, director of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. “The administration is switching from a nonproliferation policy to a deterrence and defense policy. It is a form of containment rather than a form of nonproliferation.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And why it’s hard:<\/p>\n

…while the Bush administration at first charged that North Korea had been the source of Libya’s uranium, experts spent months trying to determine whether the contents of the cask had come from there as well or whether it had been filled up elsewhere. The result: plenty of suspicions, but no hard proof.<\/p>\n

\n“We took months and months and months and still couldn’t come to a 100 percent conclusion,” one senior administration official said this year. “That happens. But it doesn’t help you justify a counterstrike against someone.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NYT has an excellent article that gives background on the issues in unclear nuclear deterence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}