Imagine a world where nuclear weapons are simultaneously a factor for stability to be invoked when arguing against US missile defense, something to be abolished when arguing against the US arsenal, and something to be feared when describing terrorism, at a time when those who seek nuclear weapons are within an ace of being left alone to develop them undisturbed, save for diplomatic inconvenience. What would you call this world? Why, our world.
Tigerhawk is perplexed at an AP analysis piece which call characterized the just-cancelled missile defense system in Eastern Europe “a grave threat to Russian national security”. Since missile defense doesn’t kill anything except things which are aimed killing millions, why is it a threat? Is it because it undermines the stabilizing effect of the Russian nuclear arsenal? Tigerhawk writes:
My understanding had been that an anti-missile missile — a missile used to shoot down an incoming offensive missile — has itself very little offensive capability, nor can it easily be reconfigured to have offensive capability. … Did Moscow mean it in the sense of the argument put forward during the Cold War that any weapons system that threatened the concept of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction, that each side would annihilate the other in a nuclear exchange) was inherently destabilizing and indeed provocative?
Tigerhawk is rightfully puzzled. Let’s grant for a moment that nuclear deterrence has kept the peace for decades. Then why is the same President who is against missile defense also attempting to abolish nuclear weapons? An advocacy organization called Global Zero says:
We believe that whatever stabilizing impact nuclear weapons may have had during the Cold War, any residual benefits of these arsenals are now overshadowed by the growing risks of proliferation and the related risk of nuclear terrorism.
In April of this year, Presidents Obama and Medvedev jointly declared their commitment to “achieving a nuclear free world”. As these two presidents and other leaders begin to pursue the important near-term measures presented in London and Prague – all of which we fully endorse – we are developing a practical, end-to-end strategy – including near, medium and long-term steps – for the phased, verified, proportionate reduction of all nuclear weapons to zero.
Missile defense objectively assists in anti-proliferation. It reduces the military utility of small nuclear arsenals, hence it removes the incentive to acquire WMDs. It makes waging proxy warfare more difficult since smaller nuclear arsenals cannot convincingly be used to threaten the United States deniably at the behest of larger powers. Hence it enhances both nonproliferation and deterrence, if you believe in either. But Global Zero argues that the mere existence of nuclear weapons now makes their total abolition necessary because of the related risk of “nuclear terrorism”. Yet missile defense plays an important part in countering a world of rogue powers and terrorist forces.
One factor complicating a nuclear terrorist attack is the need for the aggressor to maintain command and control over their weapon at all times. Letting a nuke out of sight of a terrorist leadership cell is the supreme act of faith in the attacking cell. The nuke can be turned against them in a leadership struggle; diverted for sale or used to extort vast amounts of money. Fanatics can seize them to use against another faction. Much terrorist violence in the world is faction-on-faction. They can even be intercepted and made to blow up in their own faces. Unless used immediately nukes must be secured in a heavily guarded, hard to conceal place. If used immediately they cannot be stockpiled into a decisive amount. Missile delivery systems were ideal solutions to all the problems of command and control problem. That is why North Korea and Iran sought a missile capability immediately. Anti missiles defenses were therefore an immense discouragement against nuclear terrorism in their own right.
The most likely reason for Russia’s objections to US missile defense is not that it degrades their vast and unstoppable arsenal, which remains effective in any case, but it reduces the effectiveness of sock puppet proxies who threaten the US. Russia is not about to threaten the US directly. But wouldn’t it be convenient if others would? And wouldn’t it be even more convenient if the US could not defend against them.
But then, suppose the President believed that nuclear weapons and missile defenses could both be done away with in a “world without nuclear weapons”. Wouldn’t that be an even better solution? After all, if both deterrence and the need for it are at an end then we go back to a world of pure conventional weapons, like the halcyon days of World War 1 and World War 2 before Hiroshima. The only remain problem would be terrorists because a “world without nuclear weapons” would be slightly meaningless if nobody but Osama bin Laden and Kim Jong Il had them. That means it is imperative to eliminate all weapons and it’s hard to see how that can be done if Afghanistan is conceded to al-Qaeda as an unchallenged base. General McChrystal warned that Afghanistan could be lost without more troops and Barack Obama is agonizing over whether to send them.
KABUL (Reuters) – The Afghan war will be lost unless more troops are sent to pursue a radically revised strategy, the top U.S. and NATO commander said in a confidential assessment that lays out stark choices for President Barack Obama. In the assessment, sent to Washington last month and leaked on Monday, Army General Stanley McChrystal said failure to reverse “insurgent momentum” in the near term risked an outcome where “defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”
One of the least emphasized interactions between a forward defense and anti-missile capability is their ability to make actions against a rogue-state nuclear “bootstrap load” credible. Rogue states seek nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them as a way of creating a safe space behind which to arm even further. It is not the first nuke which is so dangerous as much as the succeeding ones that can be built behind them. Like a boostrap loader in a computer, a small, fast-loading piece of code pulls in more libraries behind it until you have vast system staring at you from behind the computer screen. With aspiring rogue states it may be the same. A missile defense preserves the credibility of forward defense because it makes intervention, although unlikely, a feasible operation of war. Without it, any aspiring rogue power can simply acquire one nuke and build away.
If President Obama eventually decides to yield Afghanistan one would think that his strategic choices are stark as well: the alternative to preventing terrorists from obtaining the space to acquire nuclear weapons is to hunker down behind the US deterrent might and missile shield. But it seems exceedingly difficult to square a circle in which missile defenses are eliminated because they undermine deterrence, deterrence is undermined in the name of Global Zero, and anti-proliferation is undermined by ceding space to rogue and terrorist groups. That is the worst of all worlds. What is even more astounding is if all three are pursued in the name of each other. But we live in an age of miracles.
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It gets worse. But wait there’s more. Once we have conceded that we will have no control over rogue states and sponsors of terrorism then they can use the cover provided to develop other systems. Remember the apparent bioweapons accident in Algeria recently? Leftists never will acknowledge the basic facts about strategic nuclear systems. First they are cheap. Second they benefit from redundancy. Third they encourage stability both within a regime, at the subsystem level, and between regimes at the system level.
Such is the tangle of the Leftist mind. They have abandoned reason long ago, and when they try to put their convoluted arguments into practice they get convoluted (and self-defeating) policy. And we all suffer.
An interesting angle on both the Russian and terrorist problem is how both of these groups are incapable of producing wealth (and therefore, true power) but even without the ability to make wealth they can earn cash by selling up things we demand but refuse to produce for ourselves. The insurgency in Afghanistan (and elsewhere in the world) is largely funded by either the illegal drug trade or oil profits from the Middle East. And Russia is funded by energy too.
A heavy investment in energy and narcotics independence by the United States, Europe and East Asia would take most of the wind out of the sails of the anti-civilization forces. They’d be reduced to counterfeiting currency and selling bootleg DVDs to make ends meet, like North Korea. We probably could live in a (more or less) nuclear (weapon) free world then, since our enemies couldn’t afford them.
the strategic sophistication of the current US administration is too meager for them to even think of these things, let alone think them through to a logicasl conclusion.
Might as well write it in Linear B.
We are governed by a bunch of adolescents, as was opined in a previous thread. It used to be said that Russians played chess while Americans played poker. But, what if the Americans are playing “Tic-Tac-Toe”?
Though I don’t doubt the Russians want to preserve to themselves the proxy threat visa vie Iran and soon Venezuela, I don’t think they like the idea of a Czech or Polish proxy smack dab in their near abroad with a radar capability able to peer deep into their airspace. But the idea that the two former super powers who managed not to deploy WMD for over 60 years because of a viable MAD strategy should be the first to eliminate theirs is a joke. Basically this whole business is an admission that anti-proliferation has failed. No new nukes club members. China and Russia have decided that they want proliferation for their proxies and the US is going to have to make up for it by either weaponizing space or by arming their own proxies like Australia and Japan in the Pacific and Israel and Poland on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean or both. There simply is no other choice now.
This is, of course, good for all of the nuclear weapons producers of the world and especially good for the fallout shelter trade.
“Imagine a world where nuclear weapons are simultaneously a factor for stability to be invoked when arguing against US missile defense, something to be abolished when arguing against the US arsenal, and something to be feared when describing terrorism”
err, cognitive dissonance?
Arguably, the strongest achievable defenses would be the best way to reduce proliferation risk, by changing the risk-reward calculation for the potential proliferator. If he sees it as unlikely or very difficult to credibly threaten or use nukes, he will be less inclined to spend the considerable effort to develop them. This defense would be not just anti-missiles, but border and internal security, as well. Complemented by a robust antiproliferation regime, this would be the best chance, but even without the latter, would still have considerable value.
But it takes soem thinking to work all this through and when one has had all the answers for 30 years, since one was in his teens, why bother?
al right but the US had this defence watch for 9/11 ? what happenened ? they were hitted !
so no sophisticated system can’t prevent from a more sophisticated evil will to harm it !
the problem is/was in your inner organisation for hitting back
while we could have fighters (planes) available in the hour, it took you hours or days !
so the missile plan could be whatever you want, it will be judged on results, at the very basic ones !
so, you still were taunting us with the big administration of a so called socialist regims, but on security, we can show you everyday what is the crude reality !
Another attempt to square the circle by finding a coherent, unifying thread linking O’s various statements and decisions. There isn’t one; he comes from a world of slogans, of ‘feelings’ about this and that.
Why would you assume, without any evidence, that Obama would not want a nuclear attack on the U.S., be it by terrorists or another nation? To him, it would be a crisis to be put to use. Remember the way Obama’s buddy Ray Nagin used Hurricane Katrina to seize all firearms? That was a dry run for what they have planned when their terrorist allies blow up a major U.S. city, sometime in the next five years.
Clod,
I will answer in part by quoting Marty -
“This defense would be not just anti-missiles, but border and internal security, as well.”
Our elected leaders chose to allow illegal immigrants roam free in our nation to prop up fast food chains and social programs. It is their fault.
Wrichard writes: “But we live in an age of miracles.”
Yesterday, September 21, was the UN International Day of Peace. Obama’s pronouncements re. nuclear weapons, synchronized with the Day of Peace, play to that large audience of peace activists who are part of his base. Having been dragooned into my local Day of Peace event, I know that nuclear disarmament is a major interest of the activists. Who isn’t for peace and avoidance of nuclear holocaust? Only green meanies and conservatives.
Post-modern people and institutions need someone and something to believe in. They need miracles. The UN will provide Obama with an international audience that will be the equivalent of a tent-revival for true-believers and those who want to dupe the revivalists.
When the deficient and evil Bush was in office, liberals needed to speak truth to power. Now that Obama is in office, liberals want to give power to truth. It’s for our own good.
Weakness is strength., n’cest pas?
Finally! A call for American “narcotics independence”!
Obviously, we’ve been addicted to oil but but our addictions to narcotics are something we can satisfy.
#5 Annoy Mouse – someone else sees the obvious path for Poland – their own nuclear weapons! I’ve been arguing this conclusion since the invasion of Georgia (see “Sticking it to Gazprom” on AT)
Sad but true – Obama has opened the floodgates for nuclear weapon proliferation.
Wretchard,
Well, imagine a world where “racism” is simultaneously a factor for stability to be invoked when arguing against enabling the free market for medical services, yet, a slur to be bandied about when arguing for US taxpayers’ reparation payments to poverty stricken African nations at UN “conferences,” electing “America’s First Black President,” and other nonsense.
Imagine a world where public education is simultaneously a factor for stability to be invoked when arguing against vouchers and free market solutions to education deficits in the US, yet, it is a training arena for youths who are expected to rally for ad hoc judicial constructs, like “social justice,” in direct antagonism to America’s constitution.
I could go on…but don’t have to. Today, the threat of nuclear proliferation is being used to shake us down. If we got ‘em, we’re evil. If we don’t, our demos is vulnerable to extortion.
Signs are, Obama is a party to this shakedown. Poor Poland!
Marie Claude @8,
Il me coute de dire ca, mais vous vous etes diminue d’apres moi. Vos remarques multiples, est qu’il y a de substance real couche dedans? Si oui, ou?
With regrets,
-Steve
One of the many problems of the Disarmament line of reasoning is that it can never end, is never finished. In 1921 the problem clearly was thought to be the number of battleships and the size of their guns. The various signatories to that treaty broke out of it before WWII, but they did not go to war because of the treaty and they would have gone to war even if they had all followed it to the letter. Had they been wise enough they would have built more aircraft carriers instead of battleships anyway.
Well over a decade ago, as peace seemed to be breaking out all over, on NPR I heard an argument that we had to be concerned with weapons like rifles getting to the wrong people. It was said that merely a shipment of rifles to a border region in Africa could cause wars and massacres. So we had to have some kind of International Gun Control.
And what comes after that? Swords, knives, rocks? They can’t ever stop if you are trying to cure the human heart by binding humans’ hands.
But we live in an age of miracles.
No no, it’s the age of Hope and Change, didn’t you get the memo?
steveaz , your are judged on the results !
so far not probent !!!
you can argue whatever you want, I’m laughin MAO, just your have become that big adminsistration you’re repproaching us !
What worries me most is that Barack Obama is ideally positioned to create bipartisan support for defeat across the board. The Left will support it because they want America to be defeated; some on the right will support it because they Obama to be humiliated. In fact, George Will wants out of Afghanistan and thoughtful voices are saying, “if we’re not going to fight all out in Afghanistan, then let’s up and run”. Between the extremes of Leftist triumphalism and conservative despair lies demoralization. For different reasons there’s an incentive to throw in the towel.
It’s important to keep reminding oneself where survival lies. It’s not so easy. Being the victor in the last war has its disadvantages. It makes one forget that defeat is possible. In the period right up to the outbreak of the Second World War there was bipartisan support for minimal armament. Both the British conservatives and the left wanted to leave Hitler alone, but for different reasons. The first because he would discomfit Stalin; the second because he was Stalin’s ally! And they waltzed their way to precipice.
What plagued them both was a kind of decadence; a failure of intellect; a sort of brain fart which made the interwar generation act so stupidly that tomes have been written to explain how they could have been so idiotic. But what is obvious today wasn’t obvious to the clever young things of the peace movement in 1938; why it was even smart to support the Nazi Oswald Mosely then, and let’s not forget that Mosely was an ex-Fabian Socialist who once elected as a Conservative.
There is the belief that if Obama is allowed to commit enough mistakes his supporters will eventually wake up and have a change of heart. The problem with that thinking is that nothing short of a physical disaster will change a fantasy so deep rooted as that which grips the Left. Almost by definition, the only mistake Obama can make which will drive his core supporters out of his tent will be a nearly fatal one. It may even be a fatal one. And there lies the rub: the President may set in train some set of events which no successor can recover from. For that reason it must be a game of inches; of patient organizing and explanation to support the right policy each time. It can’t be left to one last, big throw of the dice. It works in the movies. In real life you can go broke.
Are we really surprised any more by what inane and insane things Obama and Company do? Enough of his biography is out there to know he was raised and educated by wackos. He hates the United States, keeps company and gives aid and comfort to those that also hate the US and its Constitution.
The left wing of the Democrat party pretty much took over the presidential nominating process of the party in the early 1970s. They gradually purged the party of centrists and conservatives. They stopped vetting people as long as they were perceived to be PC. So here comes an individual and group that gamed the system. Probably they are not even looking to 2012. They’ll be happy if they can wreck everything before then. New York gets bombed, an EMP overhead. No problem.
They’ll have a place to go to….they think.
In the early 1990s, the United States stood victorious over Soviet totalitarianism and had effortlessly destroyed what was reputed to be the fourth largest military in the world, the Iraqi army. It’s military and political power was without parallel. As a part of Goerge H. W. Bush’s conception of a “New World Order”, the United States would maintain “strategic dominance” over the world, and I think for largely benevolent reasons. However, many in the world were suspicious of American power, and thought it to be a bigger threat than Communism had been. This line of argument had been the Left’s bread-and-butter for decades.
Bush was voted out, and Clinton voted in with a new foreign policy. The explicit intent of the new foreign policy was to rein in American power within a web of interlocking mutlilateral agreements. The networked nature of these agreements had been intended to promote stability through mutual interdependence and multiple redundancy. American military forces were slashed further, and the business of identifying and countering rising terrorism became an issue of law enforcement and international agencies, not as a primary mission for the US military.
We were lulled into complacency by images of old enemies shaking hands in the Rose Garden, of rising markets and a stable international order. We could trust this order with our security. Wrong. This order of things failed on a bright September morning.
I don’t think that the Left in this country has ever learned that we cannot depend on international agreements and security frameworks to defend the United States against catastrophic attacks. September 11th showed that these international organizations and frameworks were largely useless, and that America had to act on its own to defend its interests, and provide the security which is the most crucial function of any government. This pissed a lot of people off, including those who have the reins of power now.
When will they see that this approach is only going to lead to more dead Americans at home, and more soldiers’ blood shed abroad to fix a problem that could have been avoided with some prior vision, understanding, and intestinal fortitude on the part of our leasership? Are they so blind and impressed by their own intelligence in failing to see both the intentions, and the costs, of dealing with a Vladimir Putin?
It’s all about the next turn in the game, a quick fix for short-term political profit. In most instances, it would be simply infuriating. When the cost will be paid in American lives, I would have to argue that such ignorance, willful or otherwise, is nothing short of criminal.
I take issue with the plausibility of several statements in this post.
1) Even if the U.S. and all current declared owners of nuclear weapon arsenals disposed of all of their nuclear weapons this wouldn’t make the knowledge of how to build them vanish. A few new uranium enrichment processes have been developed since the U.S. first perfected the centrifuge technique. These new processes utilize technology with a lot of application in other industries. They are entirely and legitimately dual use! Thus, they are much less easily detected than “traditional” methods of bomb grade material production. There is no practical way to keep this knowledge and equipment away from enemy nations or well-funded terrorists.
2) There is the trust but verify conundrum. Would we trust the Russians or Chinese, or French to really give up all their nukes? Would they trust the U.S. or U.K? I doubt it. Nuclear warheads can be quite compact. Properly shielded they are difficult to detect from any great distance. There is no way to verify total nuclear disarmament in any sizable country.
3) A ballistic Missile is a risky and unnecessarily expensive way for a rogue nation or terrorist organization to conduct a nuclear attack. Ballistic missiles can be detected upon launch, can be tracked along their flight path, and will quickly give away the launch site. This is probably a concern for rogue nations who do not wish to stage terrorist attacks and don’t posses a submarine fleet, not so much for a terrorist group that launches from a remote area without the knowledge of that areas government. Nor would it be a problem in parts of Pakistan, Lebanon, etc. where terrorists are the only effective government. Still ballistic missiles are dangerous and unstable. Terrorists utilizing liquid fueled versions are best advised to seek martyrdom in a more cost effective manner. Liquid fueled rockets, even in expert hands, have an extremely high CATASTROPHIC failure rate. For gifted amateurs and terrorists, the risk is even higher. Solid propellant rockets are far safer, but also much more difficult to manufacture properly and to control once they ignite. Most of the nuclear capable, semi-reliable rockets currently in the hands of our potential enemies are liquid fueled. But why bother with the hassle of rocket delivery when we move thousands of tons of un-inspected cargo into the United States every day of the year? Our border security is still a joke, and without choking international trade to death, that’s not going to change. No, the U.S. will wait until that particular horse has left the stable before closing the gate.
4) A small arsenal of nuclear weapons that cannot effectively be used for a nuclear counter-strike is useless to deter a potential foe that can perform a devastating first strike. Consider Israel vs. U.S.S.R. circa 1980 to get a clear picture. Yes Israel had nukes. Yes they had effective delivery systems capable of striking the U.S.S.R. Was the Israeli nuclear arsenal an effective deterrent against a Soviet attack? No! If the Soviets wished to wage nuclear war against Israel they could have killed virtually the entire population of Israel in the first minutes of an overwhelming first nuclear strike. There would have been nothing left to retaliate with, and likely no one left to order a counter-strike or to perform one. The bootstrap load idea has no credibility in real warfare. In non-warfare scenarios it’s unnecessary. Look at Iran and North Korea. The NKs developed and tested nukes while we sat on our hands, spluttered and babbled. The Iranians are following in NK’s footsteps, and the U.S. government has all but publicly ruled out doing anything to stop them.
Have any of you seen this?
From the Guardian (UK):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/20/barack-obama-us-nuclear-weapons
Excerpt:
Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country’s arsenal, the Guardian can reveal.
Obama has rejected the Pentagon’s first draft of the “nuclear posture review” as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials….
The review is due to be completed by the end of this year, and European officials say the outcome is not yet clear. But one official said: “Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president’s weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role.”
HIS weapons?
A ballistic Missile is a risky and unnecessarily expensive way for a rogue nation or terrorist organization to conduct a nuclear attack.
The utility of a ballistic missile capability against a nation with no defense against it is that it can work, not in its use. The moment it is used, the annihilation of the launching nation ensues. Up to that point, however, the defenseless superpower cannot discount the possibility that it will be. Consider North Korea. All of North Korea is worth less than a single district of Tokyo. If North Korea has the power to destroy Greater Tokyo that fact alone is extremely valuable to Pyongyang. They don’t have to actually use it. The utility of deterrence is when the deterrent force doesn’t have to be used. The utility of a threat force is when it doesn’t have to be used. Missile defense works a different way. By acquiring missile defense, Japan removes the plausibility of the threat from North Korea.
Now imagine you were the Japanese Prime Minister. Are you better or worse off with defense missiles. Imagine you are a peacenik. Is the region safer or less safe with defensive missiles. Now go over to Europe and ask yourself, why is it different with Iran?
The recent pullback from Poland and the Czeck Republic is not eliminating missile defense; It it is moving it.
Missile defense is moving away from Russia and toward Iran. The new radars and missiles are said to work much better and be available sooner than the big systems that were slated for Eastern Europe.
An ICBM from Iran headed to the US would naturally fly over the North Pole by way of Eastern Europe, to be intercepted en route. But Iran’s ICBM is behind schedule and their MRBM is going strong. The MRBMs can reach the entire Middle East and much of Europe. So a quicker installation against the MRBMs is needed, and that’s what Secretary Gates says they are doing.
The new systems are better protection for Israel.
Would the canceled systems have protected Eastern Europe against Russian aggression or encouraged it?
Read about the announcement here.
Fred2,
It is also delaying it, and increasing the cost (considering the cost of the ships that would be required.)
W: “Missile defense works a different way. By acquiring missile defense, Japan removes the plausibility of the threat from North Korea.”
It seems so clear as a foil to rogue nations, that how could any reasonable person argue against developing missile defense? Plus, missile defense needs a lot more development before any country could be confident in its ability. If I were Japan, I wouldn’t trust any missile defense system out there yet. Shooting down an ICBM is much more difficult than having a PAC3 shoot down a scud missile, and squashing missile defense now lessens the possibility that it would work when we really need it to work in the future when/if Iran decides to use their missiles.
Fred2…
The great circle path to the American East Coast traverses Poland and the Czech Republic.
The polar track would be used by Russia and China.
Nork tracks traverse Alaska and the West Coast.
Hawaii would be a head-shot crossing over Japan.
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IMHO Azerbaijan would be the best location for boost phase interception of Iranian assets.
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Medvedev’s shrill concern about overt military action against the mullahs is a tell: Iran is way too important to him.
The number one reason that the military option keeps being delayed is the rotten internal state of the mullah’s ‘theocracy.’
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Likewise, the lousy state of the Russian economy and demographics causes Obama & Co to take heart — getting too optimistic IMHO.
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A $15 bbl tariff on non-North American crude should be enough to unhinge the Iranian economy. For a time our imports would crater as floating inventories were run down. Iran would be the producer most effected by the swing: her stuff is heavy and sour.
This tariff ought to be matched by an increase in the Federal excise tax on motor fuels and a hefty cut in income taxes. All forms of economic output not needing imported crude would be favored. $15 per bbl would assure alternate domestic sources of supply without hammering the economy.
To get us out of the Greatest Depression income taxes on the middle class need to be effectively repealed. Such taxes were imposed to finance WWII. Well, it and WWIII are over. WWIV ( Global War on Muslim Fanatics ) does not need such an over arching tax base.
A tremendous number of public ills will fade away when income tax is restricted to the ultra wealthy — which is what the Sixteenth Amendment was all about.
Next privatize the Fed: take it back to the old First National City Bank/ J.P. Morgan formula of a century ago.
right after he creates a nuclear free world, maybe Obama can work on getting us back to the Garden of Eden,undo the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.There are 2 possibilities here-1 Obama is from the shallow end of the gene pool and he’s in way over his head,2 He has an agenda diametrically opposed to the principles of the US and the free world that the US has influenced over the last 2 centuries.
“When nukes are outlawed, only outlaws will have nukes.”
It’s as simple as that. The One™ is a naive bozo.
Wretchard, I agree that people have forgotten defeat is possible. That defeat in Afghanistan guarantees a mass casualty attack on the US, likely with Pakistani nuclear weapons used by factions in the ISI to arm AQ. That Obama is creating bipartisan defeat coalitions.
However, I disagree that this is “just happening.” Obama has a deliberate goal, though no conspiratorial plan, along with the elites, in the US and Europe, to create a massive attack on the US to force surrender to Islam, which will allow him to rule as Chavez and “eliminate Whiteness” as Harold Myerson of the Washington Post put it, and create a dictatorship aimed at transferring as much money from “evil White people” to those in the US and outside who are non-White. All the while suppressing nationalism, patriotism, the military, and creating a cowed, Vichy France type of nation that worships Obama as a living God.
If Obama had never been born, some other figure, a Hillary, or a Richardson, or an Edwards, would be pursuing the same goals because the elites hate and fear the people, and want them ruled like Castro rules his people. This has been the case since HG Wells at least. Obama, like Rahm Emmanuel, Alinsky, and Wells wants a catastrophic attack on the US to rule by emergency decree against his real enemy: “Whiteness” and of course the White Majority which he believes is innately evil and the source of all problems, in agreement with the “SWPL” elites who found this compelling.
Moreover nuclear weapons WILL be used because of internal dynamics in Pakistan and Iran. The former is riddled with ISI people who are sympathetic to AQ and want to use them for their own ends — attacking the US and killing millions will allow ONE OF THEM to be head of Pakistan. Think of the power, money, women, and glory! AQ of course needs this to create a bigger exile army to take over Saudi Arabia and Egypt. For Iran, factions within Iran can “win” against rivals by nuking the US. It is not as if they fear the US response — which would be nothing as long as Obama runs things.
Obama has communicated to the world at large clearly that he would not respond to the nuking of the US. The elites of the US have also made this clear. Thus, there is no reason not to nuke the US, since forces inside the Iranian and Pakistani regimes gain much and risk nothing by such actions.
My view however is that Obama and the elites do not understand their country, being alien from it and having a vast social distance. Several dead American cities and millions dead, will create a massive revolt, overthrowing the elites by an angry and above all fearful people, who have their own power, and will react by simply killing most Muslims worldwide. This is a modified view of your three conjectures.
Leaders are rarely successful in being dictator by offering their people bitter defeat, millions dead, ruined cities, and more of the same.
I agree with much that whiskey says above, and I try not to be exercised at what may simply be the inexorable wheel of history, grinding finely. I remain confident the good guys will win, but I suppose I do expect many battles, not least against ourselves.
Josh: Ditto. I just finished reading Raplh Peters’ new novel “The War After Armageddon” and wonder what those many battles will entail in the aftermath of the consequences of current patterns of decision-making by our current leaders. None of it will be good if this stupidity cannot be reversed, now.
wretchard@18:
Without casting aspersions on Medvedev, can the Russians truly want a world without nuclear weapons? Without nukes Russia would become a vulnerable, third rate power. To abjure them would be national suicide for Russia. It would stop being a great power immediately. I know it is often argued that the Russians only want nukes to defend themselves against “American aggression”; that the Chinese want nukes to defend themselves against “American aggression”; that the only reason anyone wants nukes is to defend themselves against “American aggression” — or so it is said. But who really believes this? After all nukes would have been invented in a world in which America had never existed. They confer power and will be desired for that reason. Power is desired for its own sake. Countervailing powers actually reduce the absolute effect of power by making it relative. The idea that Eden can be restored by the diplomats is not a very convincing argument. The only way objects of power will be foregone is if they are compelled by a stronger power or balanced by an alliance of checking powers. Thus, criminals yield to the police; bandits yield to the constabulary; pirates yield to the navy.
To argue that we will get to zero guns if everyone, including the police promises to give up their weapons raises two issues: who will cheat? And more importantly, who will take the cheater to task if only the cheater has guns left? And if this is true for guns, why isn’t it true for nukes?
The Russians are claiming the Arctic to exploit the huge reserves of oil and gas there. The USA will now have to claim these same areas so we can stop them from producing this oil and gas, and defend mother earth against this plunder. It will be history’s first really good war and the slogan will be “blood for no oil!”
Cannoneer @33, I wouldn’t deign to answer seriously on Afghanistan, above my pay grade and all that, but I will offer the suggestion that we go all Khe Sanh on them and use B-52 (and now B-1) heavy bombers as CAS. It works every time, just not guaranteed to win hearts and minds.
Reading SecDef Gates’ thing in the NYT yesterday on our cancellation of our Ballistic Missile Defense strategy, I’m less than impressed at his slight of hand. (And oh, the bit about “new intelligence” that Iran will only have puny missiles – you can’t beat that! What if that ship from NorKor to Iran got through last month?) Move on, nothing to see here.
You can have this lovely, slim SM-3, you never wanted that big, fat, dowdy ICBM midcourse-defense missile anyway. We’d rather have our chaps on the Navy boats shoot them down as they go over the Atlantic towards the Eastern Seaboard. Yes, exactly, that’s much more sensible.
It sadly reminded me of his story about replacing that “out-moded” “Cold War era” F-22 with the “newer” F-35. Yes, Secretary, you can put a long barrel on a 9mm and call it a “rifle” but it will never be a .308.
But just for kicks, let’s pretend regular people don’t know the difference. Yeah, that’s the ticket! And publish this whitewash in the Sunday New York Times. Oh yeah, baby!
Obama has found his own solution to your three conjectures. It can be summed up in one word, submission.
When someone’s actions/words seem to be insane you can be sure that there is an underlying motive or agenda that you do not know. In a truly insane person that motive is internal and consistent only in the world of the mind that creates it. Until you know that world all the actions will look random.
Without nukes Russia would become a vulnerable, third rate power.
wretchard, in a world without nukes, vulnerable to whom?
I can’t really envision a world without nukes, it would unfortunately be unstable and susceptible to whoever cheated. OTOH, it may be the US and Russia could cut back our nukes by 80% or more, still outpoint China significantly, and have enough to wipe out Iran ten times over.
I’m mildly more concerned with conventional forces. What-if China launched a major non-nuclear effort to take Taiwan? OK, politically and economically I think this is a far-out fantasy, but just gaming it, would Taiwan with whatever help we offered, be able to hold it off? That is, would we have to go nuke, to win, and what are the odds of that?
Let’s not us make the mistake that I think Iran and Norks do, of holding onto nukes as an icon, independent of what they are actually good for, and to the detriment of keeping up the rest of a force infrastructure.
So who’s going to take the nukes away from Lil’ Kim or from Pakistan?
#24 Fred2
So a quicker installation against the MRBMs is needed, and that’s what Secretary Gates says they are doing.
The new systems are better protection for Israel.
Would the canceled systems have protected Eastern Europe against Russian aggression or encouraged it?
Read about the announcement here.
Announcements by politicians are worth somewhat less than the paper they are printed on. What counts are actions. For this system to come into play, it will require funding to buy the various components. To make an AEGIS vessel SM-3/BMD capable; it requires a year in the shipyard AND new radar, computers, software, and a revamp of the missile handling equipment and areas on the cruisers. He has not announced any request for such funding, nor is there any mention of such in any budget documents, nor is it likely as he has stated that he intends to “review” the entire concept of SDI [with the implied view towards eliminating it]. To maintain one ship on station permanently requires at least 3; one on station, one en-route two or from, and one undergoing maintenance and replenishment.
The AEGIS/SM-3 system requires the missiles to be on an AEGIS cruiser [CG-47 TICONDEROGA class, which is no longer in production] and for tracking data to be transmitted from one or more specially modified DDG-51 ARLEIGH BURKE class destroyers. Right now we have 3 of the modified cruisers. We may have [I don't have time to check] 15 of the destroyers capable of tracking ballistic missiles. There are only 4 more of that class destroyers under contract to be built. Every destroyer taken out of general service for BMD duty, by the way, means that our other ships go without escorts.
To keep a minimum of two BMD modified CG-47 class cruisers constantly on station in the Med. will require at least 6, plus 12 or so BMD modified DDG-51′s. They do not exist now.
All of our BMD variants, I believe are Pacific Fleet; because of the repeated threat to the United States and its allies from the repeated North Korean missile launches. Transferring them to the Mediterranean leaves Japan, South Korea, Guam, Hawaii, and our west coast vulnerable. We do have help from the Japanese, who have bought the SM-3 system, in the Pacific.
Until we see several billion dollars being proposed by the administration, put in the budget, passed by the Democrats in Congress, and then signed by Obama; his announcement is worth the same as anything else he says. Which on a good day, with a downhill run, and a blazing tailwind is somewhat less than zero.
Subotai Bahadur
The world wil never extract the last barrel of petroleum. The cost to produce it will be too high, no matter how great the demand. A world without nukes? The last nuclear weapon will be far more valuable than the last barrel of petroleum.
A rational actor- whether Vlad Putin or Barack Obama- would realize that if rogue nations or groups get nukes, they are as likely to be used against Moscow or Beijing as against New York City. Similarly, if a group of physicists at a university in, say, Ankara, given access to enough funds, can build a bomb and develop a delivery system, then so could a group of physicists in Tel Aviv or Buenos Aires or Bangalore.
Do our leaders know this and ignore it, or do they think it won’t happen to them?
I see a bad moon rising.
#38 Josh
What-if China launched a major non-nuclear effort to take Taiwan? OK, politically and economically I think this is a far-out fantasy, but just gaming it, would Taiwan with whatever help we offered, be able to hold it off? That is, would we have to go nuke, to win, and what are the odds of that?
What indications are there that we will offer anything? Or “go nuke”? Or have any intent to win? Taiwan has been on its own for some time, and all parties know it. The one promising thing I see are the indications that Taiwan may have a small nuclear deterrent of its own, making it possibly unprofitable for China to move. Definitely, after the last week, any status as an ally of the United States does not offer any guarantee of security.
Subotai Bahadur
SB/40; things that just kill me are plentiful these days, but your post alludes the the top of the hit parade. Sums of money that are daily falling uncounted and unremarked through the floorboards of the vast government patronage payoff could be easily building the military assets that we ALL know that once it’s too late for them to’ve deterred, we WILL wish to God we’d built.
The forgone jobs –many union –and the fact that capital weapons are dollar for dollar additions to GDP, combined with “jobs” having been the purported object of teh recent trillion dollar stimulus bill, make the current military build-down –concentrated in the forward edge of the peacekeeping American advantage in high tech –worse than treasonous. Suicidally treasonous. Not just evil but stupid too.
We should reduce this to a slogan and start screaming it –how come we pay 300K to create a 100K UAW job and yet slash the 100K military jobs that build the save-the-world weapons?
Let me start by stating I am not a fan of Obama.
In fact, I think it’s clear now that he is a typically corrupt politician in the Chicago style, and that means quid pro quo deals, backed up by thuggery.
And on top of that, I have no doubt he is a bald- faced liar, of the 99th percentile of perfection.
So, stepping back and trying to look objectively, if he were to commit to complete nuclear disarmament, why would the Russians or ant one else even believe him?
Luddy B observes: current military build-down –concentrated in the forward edge of the peacekeeping American advantage
Exactly, SecDef Gates explains it as an either/or, whereas before he took his latest office in January, we have vastly weakened our most advanced, fielded weapons (F-22, BMD) as well as those about to reach operational testing, (ABL, Kinetic-energy Interceptor), (and lest we forget, re-opening closed investigations of CIA operators).
When our fatally suicidal enemies are openly arming themselves with WMD’s, now is not the time to stand down and “save money” on peace-ensuring technical solutions. Especially when we already have developed it, we have production lines up and running cranking out the machines, and Patriot, THAAD, SM-3 and BMD are already deployed and active. C’mon. Let’s roll.
It’s not either/or, SecDef, it’s Both and More. The Good of the World demands it.
right, Tony –what about ‘sunk’ costs –many of these systems –like F-22 –are in the ‘pay-off’ phase. It’s like we built a mansion and then burned it down to save paying the insurance premium.
wretchard, in a world without nukes, vulnerable to whom?
China for one. Its Islamic minorities for another. China can probably live without nuclear weapons and remain a great power on the strength of its industry, population and other “soft power” sources. Europe can do the same. Ditto Japan. But without nukes, what is Russia?
Russia unfortunately, is suffering from a collapsing demography and is only held up by energy prices. The Russian Federation’s GDP is smaller than Australia’s — and Australia has 19 million people. It is half of Mexico’s. It is one third of Italy’s. Without nukes Putin would stand behind Kevin Rudd in a diplomatic line. I don’t think he’d want that.
I don’t rejoice in the hard times the great Russian people have fallen under. But really, what have they got but the largest land mass in the world surrounded by the nastiest neighbors, defended by a shrinking population and economy that Mexico would laugh at? For these and other reasons, I think Russia would cling to its nukes practically to the last.
There’s an old saying: “When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns”
No one loves “gun control” as do criminals; except perhaps pols (the political ‘elites’) who are guarded by armed security details that include automatic weapons and shotguns.
B.O. brings us right back to the position we were in when both parties (and the “security” council) by majority, mandated that the weapons “inspections” process favoured the likes of a Saddam Hussein, and it was best to be on the safe side and end the Hussein regime’s ability to make weapons of any kind, once and fer all. Period.
that is where this will lead and it is better to take the common sense action sooner than later where rouge “axis of evil” nations are concerned.
Too late. The bad little boys will get to play with their toys. Thanks B.O.
That would be “..bitterly clinging..” to their nukes, and the tactical and strategic systems to deliver them.
Now, if only they were Christians, too, the Transnational Left might really get mad at them.
“Tigerhawk is perplexed at an AP analysis piece which call characterized the just-cancelled missile defense system in Eastern Europe “a grave threat to Russian national security”. Since missile defense doesn’t kill anything except things which are aimed killing millions, why is it a threat?”
That just goes to show you that, for politicians in Europe and academics & political pundits everywhere, it’s not whether a military system is a shield or a sword. It matters who wields it. That’s how they judge whether a system is just or not. You never, for example, see any effort on those groups part to work against IED’s in Iraq or suicide bombs in Israel for example. The explaination for why that is has just been made even more obvious.
“a grave threat to Russian national security”
The threat was the US forces that would be stationed to man the missile defense operation. They would be an impediment to the Russian National Security plans to, once again, have Eastern Europe as their forward shield against the “aggression” of the West.
RWE @ 15
fwiw, Carriers were also limited in the Washington Treaty, 135,000 tons total for US and UK, 81,000 for Japan, same 5:5:3 tratio as for battleships, and each limited to about 25,000 T except for conversions of battleships and battlecruisers partly completed and foregone under the battleship limits (Lexington and Saratoga for US, Akagi and Amagi (replaced by Kaga after teh Tokyo earthquake of 1923) for Japan. US and Japan built right up to the limit before Japan left the treaty.
wretchard @ 34
Medvedev wants a world where nukes are outlawed because he knows we will honor that and he won’t. The sticking point all through the 1960s-70s-80s was verification, and would continue to be. Unlike some on this thread, I don’t really think Obama wants the US to suffer a nuclear attack, but he and his constituency would give up way too much on verification in order to get an agreement.
I agree that there can no longer be “a world without nukes” because the knowledge exists and the technology is available. The questions come down to who has how many and how sophisticated are they (including ones that don’t exist but could be assembled or fabricated in short order and in secret); how can they be delivered; motivation or intention to use, threaten, or furnish to proxies; and capability and will for protection and retaliation.
Unfortunately, all this requires very hard thinking such as Kahn and others did in the 1950s and 1960s, and our current leadership seems to have taken it at face value when their mommies told them “violence never solved anything” when they were 6.
If Obama really pushes the nuclear reductions, one should sell short any uranium mining stocks. The “Megatons to Megawatts” program will continue to have ample feedstocks of highly enriched uranium and plutonium to feed our power reactors.
Many mines increased production capacity recently with the the run-up in yellowcake prices on the very thin spot market.
here’s a couple of charts –at a glance, the difference between ‘deployed’ and ‘reserve’ is clearly (unless the charts are bogus) the potential hiding place for enemies foreign & domestic.
Wretchard said:
And yet many leftists on the Internet will dishonestly claim they don’t know anyone who subscribes to the concepts of “blank slate” and the “noble savage”, despite evidence to the contrary.