Given the worrying over nuclear Iran, it is timely to review the rules of nuclear proliferation.
NUCLEAR CRED Otherwise insignificant nations and failed states gain credibility by shorting their own people to divert billions of dollars to acquiring a bomb. Take away that fact from Pakistan, and the United States would probably have reduced aid to such a de facto belligerent long ago. Without the ongoing appearance of possessing nukes, North Korea would probably earn about as much foreign aid as Chad or Niger. What makes France a world player, in a way that the much larger and richer Germany is not, is not just the burdens of German guilt, but also the fact of a nuclear France. The bomb sometimes achieves what even GDP, population, strategic location, or natural resources cannot.
MADNESS AS FORCE MULTIPLIER Presumed madness is a force multiplier of nuclear capability, especially in an Islamic apocalyptic context. Under conventional nuclear deterrence, rough nuclear parity, and the assurance that neither side has a first-strike capability sufficient to render its opponent nuclearly impotent, prevent both wars and nuclear blackmail. But if a head of state can feign insanity, or, better yet, convincingly announce a wish for the apocalypse, then he can, in theory, circumvent some traditional rules of deterrence. An Iranian theocrat’s supposed willingness to use his sole nuclear weapon to wipe out tiny Israel — at the cost of losing 30 million Iranians from retaliation — yields a cheap way to obtain not just parity with Israel, but potentially a nuclear advantage.
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In any given Middle Eastern crisis, a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran will always talk of the return of the hidden imam while threatening to repeat the Holocaust. By these means, it hopes to reap political concessions that its paltry array of nukes would not otherwise warrant. Acting as if one had nothing to lose is an advantage in nuclear poker — analogous to the supposedly prison-bound high-school dropout picking a fight with his graduating, Harvard-bound counterpart.
SORTA, KINDA NUCLEAR All intelligence concerning the current status of the world’s nuclear club is inexact at best. Therefore, to achieve nuclear deterrence, it may not even be necessary for a rogue state to provide conclusive proof that it has nuclear weapons on hand and that they actually work.
Iraq might well never have been able to produce enough weapons-grade plutonium from its Osirak reactor to make a bomb, even had Israel not destroyed the plant in 1981. No matter: Had we known in 1991 that the reactor was intact and had been working for a decade, there is real doubt whether the United States would have dared to invade Iraq during the first Gulf War.
Moammar Qaddafi reportedly gave up his nuclear-weapons program for fear of meeting the same fate as Saddam Hussein. But he may have wrongly surmised, on the basis of our claim that we had invaded Iraq in part to stop Saddam’s WMD program, that the existence of such a program would have prompted a U.S. preemptive response. He might have been more accurate had he concluded that uncertainty about the status of his nuclear acquisition might have convinced the U.S. of the dangers of attacking such a potential nuclear power. Had Qaddafi instead accelerated work on his nuclear program from 2003 to 2011 — even falsely claiming at key intervals that he had a bomb — there is less likelihood that NATO would have bombed him out of power last year.
Syria, after the fall of Saddam, apparently better understood these realities and therefore was racing to enrich uranium and obtain one or two bombs. Israel destroyed its enrichment facility near Deir ez-Zor in 2007 when it was unequivocally clear that Syria was not yet nuclear. Note, as in the case of Saddam Hussein in 1981, that Bashar al-Assad did not retaliate against Israel in 2007 — apparently afraid to engage a nuclear Israel over a matter of nuclear weapons. Had the reactor not been bombed then, today, nearly five years later, Assad might well have been able to at least feign nuclear capability in a way that might have shielded him against foreign pressures.
To this day, we do not know whether North Korea has successfully detonated a nuclear bomb that is easily deliverable. But it does not matter; we need to know only that it has achieved some sort of nuclear reaction that suggests the ability to repeat it a few times. That fact prevents any sort of preemptive attack on a North Korean reactor, giving North Korea the sort of exemption that Iraq, Libya, and Syria never quite achieved.
NUCLEAR STOCKPILES ARE NOT ALL EQUAL The United States, in well-meaning fashion, is supposedly considering unilaterally reducing its nuclear force, perhaps even well below the limits agreed on with the Russians. Rumors circulate that a few in the administration are pondering a more radical reduction, to 400 nukes or even fewer — about what China or India may possess.
On foreign policy he has held out America's hand only to have our enemies slap our face. We will likely be at war with Iran within the next year. The mullahs have taken the measure of our President and come to the conclusion that the only people who fear Barack Obama are Americans. They will continue to develop a nuclear weapon, and war will become inevitable. The death toll in the coming conflagration will be staggering. All as Barack lines up his next putt or takes his umpteenth vacation on America's dime. Maybe he'll give a speech -- he likes that.
In the mid-80s I had the pleasure of taking US military history at Central Michigan University. The instructor, long since retired, made it a point of teaching us about history using the tenants of war.
The reason why the stock piles of nuclear weapons worked for keeping the Soviet Armies bottled up for years are nuclear weapons removes "an objective" from a war. Example, if you wish to own a strip of land and a few nukes are set off over that land and your nation's capital then there is no objective. There is no reason to have a war.
The professor had a devil of a time trying to get that point across to the leftist anti-nuke crowd. Nuclear weapons remove objective from war. With no objective then a war is pointless.
What the professor didn't live to see was "objective" works only if the other guy is sane. Russians are quite sane people.
Iran is nuts.
Israel has many great military minds who study history and they have long past come to the conclusion that I have reached: when Iran gets a nuclear weapon, better yet two, the first targets they will hit will be Jerusalem and Washington D.C.
Why? Because the Iranian objectives are to destroy Israel and the great satan of the USA. It matters not that they will be destroyed in return. Indeed, that is Martyrdom, another objective. The Iranian position is the objective in a nuclear exchange are the destruction of Israel and the removal of the US government. They need exactly two nukes to do that.
Israel completely understands this logic. Prior to Obama the defense planners in Washington DC knew this, too. Russia and China know this logic and they must be in sheer terror watching Washington's appeasement.
I give our chances 50-50 from now to 2014 of avoiding a nuclear war.
I totally disagree with the propaganda agenda put forth by this writer. The assertions that Iran is nuts is not backed by any facts and I am certain what would be put forward are all media hype and unsubstantiated half-truths.
We know the game, Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map, even though this was never said. If so show us where with a credible source.
History also contradicts this writer sense as to who is nuts. In 1953, the US imposed the Shah on the Iranian peoples' democratically elected government. Iranian students took Americans hostage after we allowed the Shah to enter the US and assisted him in averting extradition.
We have sanctioned Iran, attacked and occupied countries on each side of Iran and have the world's largest and most powerful naval fleet in the Persian Gulf. We have no historical proof showing Iran as a direct aggressor.
On the other hand, our allies and we have a definite inclination to force our way on others in the name of self-interest. In the vast majority of cases, our self-interest is only for the interest of a few powerful groups controlling the direction our country takes. Our citizens are asked to sacrifice blood and treasure for these groups.
"We have no historical proof showing Iran as a direct aggressor." Who is the 'we' you have defined? Do you have a mouse in your shirt pocket?
Iran attempted to destroy Iraq's reactor in 1980, genius. It was even in the article. C'mon. Only a recent example. Surely you're familiar with the many Persian Empires that have existed throughout the since around 500 BC? Cyrus The Great, Xerxes, Alexander The Great? These names ring no bells? Crack a book already.
"...our allies and we a definite inclination to force on way on others in the name of self-interest." Hate America first, blah,blah, blah. Walk upstairs out of your parents' ganja-smoke-filled basement and get some fresh air, you may be oxygen-deprived.
Not that I'm any great genius, but it's nice to know that I had this figured out in high school:
The Russians were not dumb enough to ever start a nuclear war with us. To use Sting's song (yeah, I know, of all people): The Russians did love their children, too.
It's quite obvious that Iran and many other nutty Islamic countries can't say the same thing, as they actually celebrate suicide bombers and have strapped bombs to women, the mentally disabled and children.
Great article. I wish I could believe that Iran's leadership was faking their insanity. I believe they truly believe what they say. When one is told "facts" from birth, they become as real as the sun coming up tomorrow. Why would't you want to bring back that guy out of the well and head to paradise? How can we trust that is just a power bluff? If we are wrong, the consequences are too big. Do you go all in with your net worth on a pair of duces?
It doesn't hurt for us to occasionally rattle the cage "We begin bombing in five minutes" and if Obama and company keep up the good work we will have less and less to lose in the big game of poker, making us a scary adversary.
A very thought-provoking essay by Mr. Hanson. And, what kind of thoughts does it provoke? In my mind it provokes questions. Such as: Why does our Beloved Leader wish to reduce our stockpile of nuclear weapons to 400, the number which has appeared in the press? What is the rationale behind that particular number? Who are we trying to impress? Clearly not China, which has already taken our measure, as well as our bonds. I suspect that the cynical Mr. Putin will not be impressed either, but perhaps he will be amused. Is our Beloved Leader hoping to set a good example for a cruel world, perhaps hoping to show a skeptical world that, though our heads be empty (as will soon be our coffers), our hearts are pure? Is he trying to justify his Nobel Peace Prize? What good can conceivably come from this gesture? How peaceful will the world become when we de-fang and de-claw our armed forces? I regret that the Reverend Mr. Wright did not place more emphasis upon texts from the Old Testament than apparently he did and that our President's expensive and prestigious education did not include more empirical data, such as the contemplation of examples from the history of the world, than might appear to be the case.
The other issue with the current administration's policy of unilaterally cutting nuclear weapons is that it actually encourages other countries to build up their nuclear arsennal instead of decreasing them. Why build up your nuclear weapon inventory when it would take over 1000 weapons to be in the first rank of nuclear powers? Lowering the bar to several hundred weapons is only going to make other countries start to think that it would not be that expensive to upgrade their status in the club of nations with an inventory of nuclear weapons.
One small quibble with your last paragraph, where you mention natural gas and electrical power relative to the need for nuclear facilities. I've seen this confusion in a number of recent articles and its worth clarification that nuclear energy and nuclear weapons are two very different beasts. The issue is one of uranium enrichment, where lower levels are suitable for energy generation, while much higher levels are enrichment are required for weapon use.
Iran was offered supply of fissionable materials suitable for energy. They declined to pursue their own enrichment. Later IAEA inspections found that Iran's enrichment facilities were far beyond what's necessary for solely for production of power-plant suitable uranium. Then later still, inspectors found traces of highly-enriched uranium of the type necessary for weaponization.
It confuses the issues by including the any mention of nuclear energy in discussions about the current issues with Iran. Its not about energy, oil, etc, but solely about Iran's ability to produce weapons.
VDH could have added a sentence in there to explain the reference, namely that Iran has held for years that they are developing nuclear capabilities in order to provide power. Your comment lays this bare as it has been shown that their levels of enrichment (a lengthy and expensive process) are far beyond that needed for power generation and are now approaching that needed for weaponization.
I think the fact we keep poo-pooing the Iranian comments about their intent. Unless we are positive we should take them at their crazy word.
We can only hope the children in the White House read this, but then again, it is undoubtedly not part of their worldview, so in all probability it will be ignored.
If Iran does eventually develop a serviceable nuke it will put them on the A-list of countries that are vulnerable to nuclear retaliation. Aside from Israel, no country now would apply such a weapon on Iran without sustaining a nuclear attack.
Now might be a good time for Israel to consider the actual meaning of the "eye-for-an-eye" Mitzvah. It goes: Let punishment be proportional to the injury sustained. It need not be lesser and it should not be greater.
Don't forget that it was the United States that brought the nuclear world into existence followed by the then USSR. We are also the first ones to use it, as well as poisoning the ocean with all those nuclear tests we conducted in the Pacific and all those other tests we conducted in New Mexico with some radioactivity still handing around. Ever since then the only nations we want and allow to have them are our friends. If the Iranians overthrew their present government and installed one friendly to us, I dare say it would then be ok for them to have at least one nuclear missile. However, lets say the Iranians produce a nuke missile and launch it on our buddy Israel, they must know that we (and others) will have every right to retaliate and they would be demolished in a very short period of time. Also, had they (Iran) not threatened those little darlings the Israelis the U.S. would probably not be reacting as such.
Your point being...? It doesn't take that much logic to reason out why we only want our allies to have weapons with this amount of destructive power. Why would we want our enemies, who have sworn to destroy the USA, to have nuclear capabilities? And, of course, we will protect our allies as, to put it simply, they are our allies.
So, if Israel misses much at all, it's extremely harmful to them with no gain. You're saying Iran understands that too and likely has prepared. Given that we have barely been able to stop the UN from directly enabling rocket attacks on Israel with a more committed President Bush, Israel will pay an awful price in the long run anyway.
So get used to the idea of a crazy Iranian nuke powered middle east? And Russia (and maybe China) becomes the umbrella power?
Worst case (my fear) thinking: What else could change? The US may not be static in its status as a functioning democratic protector. The US is in danger of becoming an executive bureaucratic authoritative state - with more characteristics of a soviet than a democracy? Much more so than is Europe. There is no intra-nationalism to break the US bureaucracy apart. Give us a couple of generations to grow a more brazen executive branch of agencies, civilian corps, military and czars (with a dependent bankrupt electorate of an impotent legislature) that already recognizes none of the legal and traditional bounds that its predecessors did. Will that executive branch permit Russia and China to dominate a proliferated world? Will it seek to submit Russia and China to a one-world government where there is only bureaucratic authority and no pretense of democratic republic? When I look at our current executive, I see someone who may be the ultimate dupe of totalitarianism’s claim to have an ideology.
Years ago, when it was fashionable on US college campuses to foam at the mouth about any sort of trade relations with apartheid South Africa, I asked a politically correct but somewhat cynical friend of mine, an historian, whether he would favor treating the evil white racists with the same kid gloves with which all the good liberals were treating the Soviet Union if they too had nuclear missiles pointed at America, he immediately relied: "You betcha!"
