Stoopid Stuff

Nuclear Proliferation

This is serious. And every single thing being done to manage and contain proliferation is at best useless, and frequently counterproductive. It's weird, and if it wasn't so serious it would be laughable. Who's in charge here, anyway? How do these supposedly bright international arbiters of nuclear materials and development decide on their strategies and tactics? Throwing darts? Magic 8-Ball?

One of the most intractable problems in the non-proliferation community is the lack of a unified goal. While the IAEA seeks to work with signatories of the NPT in a consistent and ongoing fashion, none of the nuclear weapons states can agree on a single goal. The NPT has within it a goal for the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons. It also has guarantees that any signatory nation can develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. As long as the existing nuclear weapons states can ignore their obligations under the NPT which they chose to sign, how can they demand that other nations live up to their agreements? For that matter, when they demand that certain states not be entitled to the very rights they were granted by signing the NPT, particulary when non-signatory nations achieve statuses beyond legality, one can understand their concern.

And it has been misused, misapplied and unfairly enforced for years. Of course, like so much else, the Bush/Cheney administration has made it into an utter joke, merely an extension of ideology-driven policy. It's hard even to find a place to start. Israel, never a signatory to the NPT, is in possession of hundreds of advanced nuclear weapons. Even as Bush/Cheney call for a denuclearized middle east. How are you to get there without ever suggesting that Israel give up her weapons? And how can you logically insist that her enemies cannot have the very weapons you wink at?

And then there's India and Pakistan. Neither signatories to the NPT, both now officially nuclear weapons states. And of course, both, as "strategic allies" of the United States, must be not only forgiven their transgressions, but in a lesson learned well in Washington of late, those transgressions must be made retroactively legal so as not to cause future legal or political problems. And yet, the 800 pound gorilla in the room is that there cannot be a "small" nuclear exchange. Just a few dozen warheads detonated in South Asia will destroy the Ozone Layer at mid-latitudes, causing the deaths of 50-75% of Americans and Europeans in just a few generations.

What of the lesson of North Korea? When you threaten your enemies collectively, and then proceed to invade and occupy one of them, the rest do learn to take your bellicose posturing more seriously. Of course, the unintended consequences of that is that, rather than bowing to your demands, they seek a way to deter your aggression. And the lesson has been learned, never to be put back in the strategic bottle. A nation with nuclear weapons is invulnerable from conventional invasion, occupation, or "regime change". North Korea can now negotiate with the US from a position of strength, indeed, on the strategic board, as equals, for they have nuclear warheads with which they can threaten South Korea and Japan. Do not for a moment think that this message has not been heard in capitols from Riyadh to Tokyo.

Despite there being no evidence that they have a weapons development program, and the nuclear fuel cycle development program they ARE running is not only entirely legal but specifically allowed under the NPT which they, unlike India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, signed and have honored, who could blame Iran for feeling threatened and seeking the same nuclear deterrent that has worked so well for North Korea?

There are so many failings in the American approach to non-proliferation, it's difficult to even find a place to start. The definition of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" is foolhardy. To somehow equate and try to manage Chemical, Biological and Nuclear weapons as being essentially the same thing has no value, makes no sense, and makes the undertaking fundamentally impossible. Everybody has chemical weapons. You cannot prevent this, but chemical weapons do not belong in the WMD category. They are primarily a battlefield weapon, albeit one of marginal utility and one that is just as likely to kill your troops, downwind civilians or livestock as it is to kill enemy soldiers. If a nation has a pesticide industry, a pharmaceutical industry, or a chemical industry, they can make chemical weapons. So any definition of WMD that includes chemical weapons is self-defeating on it's face. Bio weapons are not as simple to develop or manufacture as some have suggested. It's certainly possible to visualize a vector that might, if virulent enough, cause widespread death and panic. But it's not controllable, and there's no good way to use it as anything other than a terror weapon. Sure, it would be a damn good terror weapon, and smart people need to be thinking about this, but it clearly has no place in a non-proliferation discussion.

The first step in any serious non-proliferation program would be the unilateral disarmament of the United States. We could easily build down to 1000 warheads. Think about that. 1000 warheads, while a small fraction of what we have in current inventories, would be more than enough nuclear firepower to act as a strategic deterrent. The US would not be threatened, and would have an opportunity to see what the rest of the world might do. Perhaps, and I think it fairly likely, other nations would gladly seize the opportunity to reduce their nuclear stockpiles and the associated wasteful expenditures.

Weapons designs are getting close to a hundred years old. The ability to build a nuclear weapon, given a supply of fissile material, is virtually universal. Therefore, the Bush administration's attempt to embargo knowledge is doomed to failure. Knowledge can be acquired on the open market. See AQ Kahn. The only real solution is to find a way to control the worlds supply of fissile material. And the only way all nations are going to accept that program is for it to be completely de-coupled from any nation's political agenda. If the system cannot be trusted, it will not be used. Any third grader could come up with a system that would work. The question is, will the existing powers allow it? The answer is obviously no.

Non-proliferation is a problem that the world must confront. But it must be confronted honestly and fairly, with the same options and responsibilities extended to every party. If ideology and political expediency is allowed to interfere with a workable solution, the future is not only ugly, but likely quite short. As long as the likes of Dick Cheney and Vlad Putin are the responsible parties, the human race has very little in the way of a future. And of course, the ones with the weapons make the weapons rules. So check your hope at the door...

posted by mikey @ 5:11 PM