Sometimes a gun isn’t just a gun. About 740,000 assault rifles and pistols are stored in Swiss homes or in private possession. Nobody knows the exactly how many firearms are in circulation, but there may be up to 1.3 million firearms in Switzerland. Despite this you are more likely to murdered by knife than by gun. “Police statistics for the year 2006 records 34 killings or attempted killings involving firearms, compared to 69 cases involving bladed weapons and 16 cases of unarmed assault. Cases of assault resulting in bodily harm numbered 89 (firearms) and 526 (bladed weapons)”
Sometimes a nuke isn’t just a nuke. The country with the largest known deposits of uranium, which tested 7 nuclear devices on its soil in the 50s and whose head of government isn’t even going to attend President Obama’s nonproliferation summit won’t keep statesmen up at night. It’s Australia. The first thing its scientists did after devising a way to enrich uranium with lasers (SILEX) was worry about keeping it out of the wrong hands.
The danger posed by weapons is crucially dependent on their human modifiers. Guns in the hands of the Swiss are not the same as guns in the hands of a Sudanese militia. Enriched uranium in Australia is no worry; but uranium in the hands of Kim Jong Il is. It is changes to the political environment that create or diminish the problem even when the hardware remains the same. Professor Paul Bracken describes the advent of the Second Nuclear Age, in which we now live, in terms of a change in the actors not a change in the weapons.
The second nuclear age is defined by the spread of nuclear weapons to countries for reasons other than the Soviet-American Cold War rivalry, which was the defining aspect of the first nuclear age. … [It is] an n-player game—a multiplayer game. Game theory tells us that even three player duels create great complexity. Equilibrium and stability are harder to achieve. …
[In the Second Nuclear Age] nuclear weapons have become an essential part of state-building programs … They symbolize state power. Armies used to serve this role … [it is now] the preferred method poor states use to demonstrate power.” …
In the first nuclear age, no states or institutions could retard the expansion of the Soviet and American nuclear arsenals. Today’s emerging nuclear states struggle to get the established powers and institutions off their backs. States give up their programs under US and international pressure. …
In the first nuclear age, both superpowers were relatively rich. The new nuclear powers are generally poor. They cannot afford the kind of control systems the superpowers had. …
Today’s nuclear weapons states can observe states who went nuclear in the past to find out what works. … A second mover may wait and then suddenly play its hand—for instance by weaponizing its nuclear capacity and generating sudden instability.
The Second Age represents both the triumph and the ultimate failure of the NPT. Bracken writes that “the superpowers cooperated in a very successful nonproliferation regime—the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). Some think that the NPT failed, but the treaty succeeded for twenty-five years. At the time the NPT was framed, the hope was to delay proliferation for five to ten years. Instead it worked for twenty-five—into the nineties..”
What kept nuclear weapons contained was the coercive power of the superpowers themselves. Just as the policeman ultimately relies on firearms to restrict firearms, it was the concentration of power in the bipolar world, as manifested by nuclear weapons, that kept everyone in line. Now the power is diffused. Even the United States, speaking through Barack Obama, has declared it will refrain from using nukes except in defined circumstances.
The key to understanding the difficulty of the nonproliferation problem is to realize that the core of the difficulty is a human one. Above all it is a question of who has nuclear weapons; it is one of legitimacy and rationality rather than technology. Bracken noted that the Second Nuclear Age required a “massive change to intelligence programs” precisely because the problem consisted of monitoring the who. The billions of dollars that the Obama administration is prepared to spend on buying fancy locks and safeguards for Pakistan and other Second Age countries may be more useful in terms of developing intelligence contacts within their nuclear establishments than for buying the safeguards themselves. It’s not what’s in the vaults that is the problem, it is who can get to use them.
As technology is diffused nonproliferation will essentially become a human management problem. The SILEX enrichment process exemplifies how technological advances created regulatory and political problems. SILEX uses lasers “drawing no more electricity than a dozen homes” not centrifuges, to refine fissile material. One of its developers, Dr. Francis Slakey said:
“This next generation technology is so efficient and so small that we would no longer be able to see it with our satellites and we would no longer be able to detect whether there was some power source going into it, because it uses so little power … Historically every enrichment technology – that is every technology that has been used to develop nuclear fuel, every single one of them – has proliferated despite best efforts to keep the secret … Those rogue countries that may pursue a technology don’t do it unless it’s been industrially proven, and so prior to that if it’s just bench science or R and D [research and development], they don’t go that path.”
Under a deal with the US in 1998, development of the technology was transferred to the United States and in 2001 SILEX was classified.
Now General Electric Hitachi wants a licence from US regulators to build the world’s first SILEX plant in North Carolina.
It’s great stuff. The only problem is how long can one control the who? One interesting question posed by Barack Obama’s speech at the Prague nonproliferation summit is whether the world has gone from a short Second Age directly into the beginnings of a Third Nuclear Age, one in which not countries but proxies — and poorly controlled proxies at that — hold the power of life and death over millions. The President’s speech largely addressed Second Age issues and then went further. Obama raised the possibilty that nonstate organizations would get the bomb.
So let me be clear: Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran’s neighbors and our allies. The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles. As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven. If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defense construction in Europe will be removed.
So, finally, we must ensure that terrorists never acquire a nuclear weapon. This is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security. One terrorist with one nuclear weapon could unleash massive destruction. Al Qaeda has said it seeks a bomb and that it would have no problem with using it. And we know that there is unsecured nuclear material across the globe. To protect our people, we must act with a sense of purpose without delay.
So soon? And who is this “we”? During the First Age, “we” clearly referred to the members of the Security Council who, more than any words written on paper, were responsible for the relative longevity of nonproliferation. They gave force to the letter of the treaty, which after all, did not enforce itself. Obama’s nuclear summit is clearly an attempt to create a new “we” with one important difference: it already mirrors the Second Age. With the US President backpedaling on America’s pre-eminence the world is left with a multipolar “we”; an n-player game, one capable of complex outcomes and perhaps no attainable stability. Already the danger is that the nuclear summit will follow the fate of the Kyoto Agreement — a broad statement of platitudes that everyone — except the scrupulous West intends to renege upon. National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough admitted that the summit would produce no binding commitments, no enforcement mechanism.
Garrett: How do you respond to those that point out that the communique is not binding and not enforceable?
McDonough: Well, you know, that’s a, I, I guess I think that’s a fair criticism, Major, but the bottom line is what we’re doing here is bringing people together to affirm what I think everybody recognizes is a principle threat for all of us — namely, loose nuclear materials in the hands of terrorists who will use that material. …
Garrett: As a candidate, Sen. Obama promised to spend $1 billion to augment international efforts to monitor and secure loose nuclear materials. He has asked Congress for hundred of millions this year. Will Congress provide it?
McDonough: Well I think there’s been a series of uh, observations made by Republicans and Democrats in the Congress that we have to invest the kind of resources necessary in this challenge.
Not nearly enough, and not nearly the will that will be necessary to make it stick. If the past is any guide, a Second Age nonproliferation enforcement mechanism will be less effective than that of the First Age. Perhaps the world may achieve a new equilibrium based on the condition of universal armament rather than a World Without Nuclear Weapons; a peace based on terror rather brotherly love. And the reason, if it comes to pass, will be simple. The world tried to achieve via arms control what it feared to attempt via democratization. It tried to control the weapons, and in a fit of politically correct absentmindedness, remembered only too late it was about the men.
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I remember reading that the ancient Romans had no lore, myths, or belief in special or magical swords. They were just tools. Were as in Japan swords were souls, were evil, and could be magic. Today in Japan the law abiding can’t have knife blades over about 2 inches let alone handguns…Unless you are the Police or Yakuza. The Yakuza probably have access to arms that the police can’t get.
But in the current US even amongst supposedly intelligent academics their is the concept of “evil” inanimate objects. SUVs, handguns, assault rifles, and nuclear weapons, to name a few.
Liberal law makers will fight against harsher sentencing for crimes involving guns, but will quite willing try to ban the weapons themselves. In Great Britain the crime rates escalate so now they are trying to institute knife control. Next the tragedy of the assault spoon.
Technology is racing ahead of those who would limit the peoples access to arms. Imagine a thousand people with hand held lasers with enough power for one or two shots, that were radio networked and controlled by a remote computer. the laser would also have a GPS locator, accelerometers, and an optical sight. when the majority of them where aligned on a single target the computer would turn them on for maximum effect.
Above all it is a question of who has nuclear weapons
Ahh, discrimination.
Once a most noble attribute of humanity, now a foul pejorative And a shield for thugs.
ADE
How do you build consensus in a multipolar, nationalistic world? How do you overcome the attractions which have created the Second Nuclear Age? Answer: by invoking the possible horrors of a Third Age. In particular by offering up a nonstate fear object to unite the motely crew. Al-Qaeda is the greatest danger; that non-everything, non-Muslim, non-Arab, non-national menace. Except that who, besides Obama, believes it? Who thinks that if Al Qaeda gets one bomb that it will be Helsinki, Damascus or Teheran rather than the New York City in which it will be exploded?
But suppose it were true? Then another question presents itself. Who besides Obama believes that anyone will retaliate to avenge Helsinki, Damascus or Teheran? If the answer in both cases is ‘no one’ then it will follow that each country will have to make its own private arrangements for vengeance. Hence we can expect that a growing North Korean nuclear arsenal will push Japan to re-arm rather than recoil from nuclear weapons. An Iranian nuke will not provoke a convulsion of disgust across the Sunni world, but rather a stampede to arm.
This goes double for Al-Qaeda. The problem presented by a nonstate attack on a state is that the victim has no peer against which to retaliate. There is no culpable government to nuke, no named person to drag before the International Human Rights Courts. No. There are only the usual suspects, the hated Other, the object of the blood feud. So if anyone else besides America is ever actually nuked by Al Qaeda, don’t count on Barack Obama retaliating on anybody, especially when that anybody is truly something like a religious group, faction or ethnic community. He only does man-made disasters, not terrorism; certainly not Islamic terrorism, let alone Sunni or Shia Islamic terrorism. About all they can hope for is a bouquet of flowers and boxed DVD set of Hollywood hits.
If the summit can’t create a credible source of deterrence and enforcement the real question it will raise is why shouldn’t we arm?
re: no enforcement mechanisms.
What’s become of the Bolton’s PSI?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proliferation_Security_Initiative
I’m an optimist: The genie is only halfway out of the bottle. The list of nations not complying with the NPT has been relatively stable so far: India, Pak, Israel – who armed for deterrance; plus the crazies in NK and Iran.
I’m hoping Israel succeeds in harming the Iranian program, which will likely force the US to take military action and destroy the Iranian nuke sites.
When a real threat is on the table (sane) countries do give up programs – witness Libya.
An Israeli strike will send a message that there are consequences for developing an agressive program. It would be a shock similar to the 2003 invasion of Iraq – being an “outlier” and developing WMD can make you lose your regime.
It will be sweetly ironic that the pariah nation, considered by the left to be the “greatest threat to world peace”, is the only real hope of maintaining some degree of stability in a multi-player nuclear world. The canary in the mine indeed…
Wrechard: “Perhaps the world may achieve a new equilibrium based on the condition of universal armament rather than a World Without Nuclear Weapons; a peace based on terror rather brotherly love.”
Shades of ‘The Ungoverned’ … the “state of nature” in international relations (now with nuclear weapons) gives way to the second amendment writ large.
http://www.webscription.net/chapters/1416520724/1416520724___4.htm
The rational reason that states will not arm with nukes is that having nukes tends to attract enemies. If Iran has nukes and then intimidates its neighbors it attracts enemies. If a nuke explodes in the US how many will blame Iran and want to retalliate.
I recall the signs painted on barns roofs in the hostage crisis of 1979 and they said” Nuke Iran until it glows”
Maybe it will be “An armed world is a polite world”
6 el_heffe: thanks for that link. Sitting here in the middle of New Mexico made it awfully, um, close to home.
Gates Says U.S. Has Conventionally Armed ICBMs
http://defensetech.org/2010/04/12/gates-says-u-s-has-conventionally-armed-icbms/
My comments from that thread:
Right. ICBMs, are as Mystick noted, a “dumb” ballistic trajectory with very little chance to guide it to target after apogee. Current tech cannot get them nearly as accurate as a drone or airplane launched bomb or missile. Without the fancy warhead you made a very expensive bullet that likely won’t hit exactly where you want. Now if we had a president with some understanding of deterrence, we would develop very small, very clean, penetrating nuclear warheads. The aim being to deter the LEADERS of nations or groups who attack us with WMD by giving us the ability to kill them almost instantly and even inside hardened underground bunkers in a populated area. Of course we would need good human, drone, and satellite intel to find their steel rat holes, but we can do that. This would be a great deterrant – observe that the head terrorists always send other people as suicide bombers, and leaders of rogue states don’t care when thousands of their of own people die – but they really want to keep themselves alive!
Read more: Gates Says U.S. Has Conventionally Armed ICBMs | Defense Tech
#7
Yes, but you’d be hard put to demonstrate that the Iranian regime is any the worse off for the hostility of the US common folk. Too many of the elites have just rationalized the problem away, to the point that some are, in effect, helping them. The comments of a certain unnamed Carter era official comes to mind.
Very nice piece, very nice
I was especially impressed by your ending: It tried to control the weapons, and in a fit of politically correct absentmindedness, remembered only too late it was about the men
I know there are a number of blue sky folks here at BC who don’t buy into any gloom and doom but that’s not even actually in play. What is in play is what every philosopher begins by explaining and developing a thesis around. What is the nature of man?
It is illustrative that very few weapons developed by mankind and gone into production have not 1. Eventually been use 2. Proliferated . I do not believe there is any hope of containing nuclear weapons because as you but it at the end of your thread, it is about men, not weapons. Men still have all the foibles, jealousies, ambitions, hatreds, and a hundred other hard wired malice’s’ that make it a certitude that the proliferation we are currently seeing will eventually be used across borders and to settle old scores, achieve dominance, and simply just be more than you would be without them.
We can, and I wholly believe we should, preempt those countries with long standing hatreds against others and additionally are politically unstable. I have advocated nuking Afghanistan and would endorse a strike against Iran, for once Afghanistan’s thieves and brigands gain a weapon, even a dirty one, they will use it. They are atavistic and tribal. Iran is a militant theocracy who is more than ready to launch. I do not believe our intelligence community’s public assessments of just how far away they are. They’ve arrived and will open one day with a shot at Israel, and then blackmail their neighbors.
Russia and China are not going to engage us if we preempt ( well they might if obama is in office) because they know why we are doing it, would love to cast us as the nefarious rogue nation and continue developing space based launch capability which I believe the big countries already have.
Bottom line is nuclear war somewhere cannot be avoided.
You people have such an appalling lack of faith in Obama. If only He had been there and could have talked to Herr Hitler. What’s wrong with peace in our time?
The one worlder’s are going to have a hey day with this.
6. El_Heffe
Maybe… But governments are in the business of control and they will always focus their greatest attention on the people they can control and ignore those that refuse.
It’s far easier to take away weapons from law abiding citizens than it is to deal with the criminals, so we get gun control.
Likewise, it’s much easier for Obama to reduce, and perhaps eventually eliminate, our nuclear stockpile and to coerce other friendly nations (cough)Israel(/cough) to do the same than it is to convince the likes of Iran or North Korea to give up their ambitions.
“The problem presented by a nonstate attack on a state is that the victim has no peer against which to retaliate.”
This is concisely why the definition of terms under Bush’s WOT have been so catastrophic for the USA and the wider World. Al Qaeda is really not a “nonstate” actor — it is the sharpest pointiest end of the Islamic Jihad spear — a spear on which ALL Muslim hands have some purchase, even if those Muslims routinely (and preposterously) deny any link between Islam and Islam-inspired violence.
The Bush Doctrine should have been framed thus:
Jihad is one of the fundamental pillars of Islam, and is the driving force behind myriad groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbullah, Jumaat al Islam, etc. The funding and philosophical links behind virtually every Islamic Jihad entity can be demonstrably traced back to specific Islamic nations and communities across the Muslim Ummah. America places special emphasis on the wealthiest and most influential Muslim nations who are known to be funding global Jihad, namely: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Arab Gulf States. Therefore, any attack by any Islamic Jihad outfit on America or its allies will be viewed as an attack by those named Muslim actors against the Alliance, and will be met with harshest severity by those funders of Jihad.
Fully 10 years after 9/11 we have yet to see Muslims effectively rolling back the apparatus of Jihad across the globe — they spend their time instead denying the existence of Islamic Jihad while blaming Jihad’s victims for their Muslim atrocities. They spend their time suing “infidels” in “infidel” courts to silence dissent. They build their mosques across our lands like so many poisonous mushrooms, and lie to our faces about their Jihad. Every Muslim is on some level complicit in the acts of violent Jihadis against co-called “infidels”.
Make Iran and Saudi Arabia collectively responsible for the actions of al Qaeda and all the myriad other Islamic Jihad groups regardless of sect, massive bombings in Riyadh and Tehran after every subway bombing until global Jihad funding dries up. Hold the Ummah accountable for Jihad at every turn — place Muslims on the defensive for every act of Jihad — right now Muslim place us on the defensive across the spectrum for Jihad, and loot our treasuries demanding ever more outrageous payouts supposedly to stop the Jihad. It’s the biggest shakedown operation of all time.
We must force Muslims to turn their bottomless hatreds against each other, which is where it properly belongs. Given their propensity for genocide, it wouldn’t be hard. Right now we take their terrorist body blows, their Jihad lawfare, their bellyaching and their treasonous subversion, and reward such poisonous behavior with trillions to “win their hearts and minds”. We sacrifice our bravest and best in order to rebuild their damaged mosques/indoctrination centers/armories, we build them sewers and schools where there have never been sewers and schools, and we enshrine their satanic Sharia into the very constitutions of our newly minted Jihadi states of Iraq and Afghanistan and Kosovo.
How much more efficient and cost effective would it be to exploit the infinite and deep fissures which form the continent of Islam? But we must begin by defining our terms, and rejecting theirs. Jihad and Islam are inextricably linked. Jihadi violences is the result of Islam. Muslims are responsible for the consequences of Islam. Muslims must gradually be forced to pay for the destruction which Islam unleashes in the world.
Very good piece, but now my head hurts from trying to think.
I think that the current round of meeting to discuss control of nuclear weapons is little more than pomp and BS.
There are four countries currently that concern me, all for different reasons.
1. North Korea because the leadership seams to be mentally unstable and has shown a inclination toward blackmail.
2. Iran because of the stated policy of the destruction of Israel, and it’s willingness to aid Western enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places.
3. Russia, due to the confusion over control of weapons when the USSR dissolved, lax control over weapons and the potential of bribing some one to gain control of one or more weapons.
4. China, and only if they thought that they could attack with little or no consequences or blame someone else of the attack.
If the leader of a country was totally captive to politically active groups who had obtained commitments for future unpayable unfunded liabilities … If the leader of a country was dependent on the support of extremists who were regulating tax-paying industries & jobs right out of his country … If the leader of a country knew that his country was burdened with debts to international competitors that could never be repaid …
Might a slate-cleaning nuclear war (started by someone else) seem like a viable option to that leader? Maybe even an attractive option?
Might that calculation explain the behavior of said leader?
The NPT was a product of a particular systems dynamic. A good overview of the development of the field of international systems theory can be found here.
Many years ago as a student I studied Systems and Process in International Relations with Morton Kaplan at the University of Chicago. There are two things to know about his theoretical construct,
1. it has been superseded in influence by other theories, those of Kenneth Waltz notably, which demand less specificity and offer less predictive power,
2. Kaplan offered an elegant and sophisticated theory in which 5 overall systems could be classified in broad categories with simple rules and the component actors could be themselves viewed as subsidiary systems. A key quality to determine for actors at each level in his theory is whether they are system dominant or subsystem dominant. The overall international system is subsystem dominant. Functioning nation-states are system dominant.
While Kaplan described 5 global systems the only ones that have existed in reality are the Balance of Power and the Loose Bipolar systems. It may be speculated that the end of the Cold War offered the United States a brief opportunity to transform itself, as the sole surviving superpower, into the dominant actor in a Unit Veto system. The subsequent deterioration of the American position may be explained less by the predictable actions of other state actors seeking to constrain her than by a shift to subsystem dominance that allowed internal actors to weaken the ability of the United States as a system-actor to maintain its position. In other words was the United States really reduced in power by the rise of Russia and China or by the actions of internal elites who deliberately weakened her?
Soft Power and arms control process enthusiasts mistake a treaty, like the NPT, for an input that has power in its own right to influence the behavior of states. In doing so they treat the product of a subsystem dominant international process with no overarching legal and coercive authority as being the equivalent to a domestic law. The NPT worked because it served the interests of the two dominant players in a Loose Bipolar system. Without their support it becomes a dead letter. Without the power of the United States to enforce it the NPT, like most of the structures of international law, peace, and trade built over the last 60 years, becomes nothing more than a jobs program for members of the IAEA.
If we are now moving into a Balance of Power system then it will be essential to establish five roughly peer competitors to maintain stability. The failure of actors to clearly see the state of the overall system and their positions within it creates instability. This period of transition, given the presence of WMD and the rise of non-state actors, is especially dangerous. Traditional systems theories such as those of Kaplan and Waltz do not adequately address the issue of non-state actors. Non-state actors like al-Qaeda or media elites can be viewed as potentially system dominant subsytems that cross borders.
“Who thinks that if Al Qaeda gets one bomb that it will be Helsinki, Damascus or Teheran rather than the New York City in which it will be exploded?”
With one bomb the obvious target is Moscow. Nuke Moscow and watch the Russian ICBM’s lift off. A few minutes later, America will launch. Maybe. Moscow has the advantage of being a very soft target. The Russians don’t have the technology to examine thousand of trucks on a routine basis.
Jay, genies are binary. They are either in or out. No half pregnant allowed.
What is almost scary is that a nuke will have to be used before the possibility is taken seriously by the powers that be. The Usurper is running a dog and pony show to make it look like he knows what he is doing in foreign policy. It might help his numbers this summer, until the Start treaty gets shot down in the Senate. Since that won’t happen before the mid terms, it won’t matter.
We could start acting like bedu.
If al-Qaeda attacks us, we could simply retaliate against whomever we have a strong reason to think would applaud an attack by al-Qaeda against us.
I think the root cause of terrorism is people who approve of terrorist attacks, be they Palestinians in Gaza and Nablus, watchers of al-Manar in Beirut, Saudis in Riyadh, or Pushtuns in Peshewar. It may be difficult to find the actual perpetrators, but killing those who celebrate attacks against us is reasonably easy.
Nuclear deterrence during the Cold War was essentially nuclear hostage taking. Using cities as nuclear hostages was an extension of area bombing during World War II. As the Cold War kept going, the efficacy of nuclear deterrence got taken for granted and the killing of nuclear hostages became increasingly unthinkable.
Well, considering the nature of the enemy we face, we may need to start thinking about killing hostages again. Who supports al-Qaeda? Who names her son Sirhan? Who has a son named Osama younger than nine years old? Who lectures us after the September 11 attacks?
Al-Qaeda is essentially an extension of Saudi Arabia’s religious police. The Saudi royal family has repeatedly threatened to murder expatriates living there en masse. So, Saudi Arabia has a target rich environment for future hostage killing if the need comes around.
Now, imagine a future where the Peninsula is no longer the “Arabian Peninsula” because the principal language there is no longer Arabic…
Great post. Morton, Alexis: “if only,…woulda,…coulda,…shoulda,” and a lot of other forms of the subjunctive mood, I sympathize. But BHO (pbuh) has deliberately abandoned strategic ambiguity; and it seems that the US is left in a worst of all worlds situation. Play out any of the strategic game situations suggested upthread and as far as nuclear retaliation you are clearly damned if you do and damned if you don’t!
Wretchard writes: “It tried to control the weapons, and in a fit of politically correct absentmindedness, remembered only too late it was about the men.”
Yes, it seems we invited the community of man to a banquet created by free market prosperity, but we’re too squeamish to do anything about those who insist upon stealing the silverware and threatening other guests with the cutlery.
Apropos you invocation of Swiss gun owners and Australian uranium deposits, Mark Steyn often ridicules the ‘global community’ fiction wherein the foreign ministers of gangster states are accorded the same deference as those from nations with serious global responsibilities.
12. Gary Ogletree
You people have such an appalling lack of faith in Obama. If only He had been there and could have talked to Herr Hitler. What’s wrong with peace in our time?
Tongue in cheek ….right?
Sometimes we get people who are serious about obama’s mystical powers.
OK, lets play the end game. You’re advising the President on a preemptive strike or no preemptive strike. You’ve presented your reasons and now it’s a show of hands time. He wants your up or down opinion. ( Forget the target, assume they are an adversary of some stripe.
Whats it gonna be. Yes or no.
Oh but we can’t just do that we need more information, a commission, a study group, a focus group, chicken soup..yeah yeah …
The real question is: will Democracy, in any form, be able to survive the 3rd Nuclear Age? Will any democracy be seen as tough enough to be able to implement and oversee the policies that will be necessary to survive? For example, it is far better to take care of foreign threats by assasinating key players, rather than waiting for them to kill millions. Also any retaliation will have to be harsh and involve the willful slaughter of innocents. I do not see how any open, transparent government could do such things – but in a time of crisis, the public usually demands a government that *will* do such things. This is how dictatorships arise. A few key attacks, especially one targeting D.C., and that could easily happen here.
It will probably take a century or two, and there will be a time of near barbarism, but I do think that the end of this Third Age will come when a world Imperium arises, and it’s key facet will be that it will be able to ruthlessly use overwhelming force to retaliate against any who refuse to acknowledge it’s authority. Alexander was known for utterly destroying any city that stood up to him and refused to acknowledge his overlordship; visualize a 22nd century Alexander in control of spacedocks armed with rail guns which can instantly devastate any city or nation which refuses to comply with the new order. You don’t even need nukes if you can drop 100 ton rocks from orbit and steer them to any point you wish. No possible defense, and the devastation would be even greater than a nuke. It is the ultimate high ground, after all, and I’m assuming defensive systems would be developed which would make such stations untouchable from any earth base. All it would take would be ruthlessness, and sooner or later a ruthless and brilliant man always arises to take advantage of the situation.
Although his name will probably be something more along the lines of Pham Nuwen.
Iran will never launch a direct nuclear attack on the U.S. It will create a secret terrorist cell, train it, give it nuclear weapons, and the terrorists will attack an American trophy city and/or anywhere in Israel except Jerusalem. And claim victory on behalf of World Peace.
The bomb does need to explode. Just be lethal to large numbers of people. And it needs to be portable. Iran already has the smuggling routes it needs to make delivery.
Nuclear nonproliferation is important to the Democrats currently in control of our foreign policy — but other objectives are more important. For instance, their running the nation.
Saddam Hussein, the late dictator of Iraq, violated the nonproliferation agreements and then violated his parole. The Democrats, by and large, had no particular problem with his removal on that basis. The removal constituted an object — or is it abject? — lesson to those who do not live up to “international norms.” The fact that many technical violations were discovered after his overthrow — but no actual weapons — only gave “the lesson” added strength. Hey, we don’t have to wait until you stockpile the actual weapons.
But the Left wing of the Democratic party decided that the acquisition of power, by them, was the “greater good.” Because they did remember that it is about men (and women, too!), only in this case the “men” is them (and don’t forget staff). And the men were also the other guys who opened up Gitmo and did the nasty to human rights — in the name of nonproliferation and keeping WMD out of the hands of terrorists. But that was just a ruse. Thank God we can now keep Gitmo open without the use of ruse.
So the Democrats joined the International Left in destroying the previous non-proliferation treaty (seen as a bulwark of American Power), which could only exist if strong sanctions were directly tied to the use of force. The US was expending much blood and treasure to make the old Treaty work — but stopped maintaining that treaty as the Democrats cut the Knot that tied sanctions to the ultimate use of force. We still continue, to this day, to expend the blood and treasure but no longer know what we hope to purchase. But not to worry: the Obama regime will now come up with something better, even if it kills us (and a lot of other people besides).
You can’t do a pre-emptive nuke strike. (1) That’s not how the assets are disposed, (2) US credibility would be destroyed, forever. I know, it blows. But our enemies work through provocation – Israel managed to win in 1967, but in a nuke strike it’s just pulverization, not victory. We can’t pre-emptively strike second of all because the derelict cargo ship won’t be in Karachi, loaded by Paksitanis with an address, it’ll be in some goddamn place like Bangkok, being loaded by Scotsman, onto a ship that the pilot has no idea what’s on board – perhaps.
As wws points out, a nuke attack on CONUS by some deniables would be a great Reichstag fire to permanently install the Left at the head of a “restructured” USA.
Consider. We’re nuked. Some ten- or hundred-thousands die. Everyone is absolutely freaked out; metropolitan exodus looks like the movie Independence Day. Commerce spontaneously reduces to necessities. Emergency Law installed. Defcon 1. The inner cities commence cannibalizing each other. It becomes instantly and terrifyingly clear that anonymous nuclear detonations are not the same thing at all as suicide 747s.
Reprisal attack against…? Against whom? Even so, how could it be verified that the problem was solved, even then?
And what other mischief would be immediately launched as “self-defense measures” by other powers?
And when could even the most reasonable, least cunning Anglo-Saxon government revert to Defcon 4 relaxation again?
I think we’re underestimating the effect a successful nuclear detonation in an American city would cause. Everything really would “be different.” Something tells me our enemies are much, much further along in having considered this, and having set up dominos in such a way that they fall in a way most likely to benefit them.
I sort of wonder whether these recent events (SK ship, Kyrgystan, Poland, Thai revolt, etc.) are all various types of tests to see whether, in fact, anyone is going to respond – to see how Munich-like the situation really is. But who’s to say?
Morton @15:
I agree with you in principle, but I find your proposed solution to be excessively bloodthirsty. Let’s remember that more than half the population of Riyadh is severely oppressed women, and foreign workers just tying to make a buck. Tehran is full of young students and workers who would like nothing better than to see their corrupt theocratic overlords disappear.
There’s no need to visit widespread slaughter upon innocents. Let’s just seize the oilfields, permanently!
Our military has demonstrated in Iraq that we can provide better, fairer, and more enlightened governance under military control than “civilian” or theocratic governments at the heart of the Islamic world.
Just take the oilfield areas, seal them off from the surrounding area with large fences & warning signs, and even larger mine fields and use to money to enrich the U.S. and provide a high quality education to the locals. We could build real infrastructure there. We would still turn an enormous profit.
If Iraq continues to fall further into anarchy, seize the oil fields there as well, do away with corrupt governance, and let the Iraqi natives learn to live like Jordanians, without oil wealth.
China needs oil, and they have a large and well-funded military, and several million excess males. Let them have Arabia to provide Chinese oil. With Tibet and Tiananmen Square under their belts I don’t think the Chinese will have trouble dealing with Al Qaeda or the Mutaween. Besides, Arabia is an armpit and it’s nearly contiguous with the investments they’re making in Sudan and east Africa.
Mesopotamia has cultural, culinary, historical, and even tourist potential. If they can’t manage to make things work when they have all those resources they obviously aren’t ready to govern themselves anyway we’ll just keep Mesopotamia, and hire the Kurds to provide security and for local labor.
We’ll take Persia, and change the name to make it official. Unlike Arabia with its fanatics, I think we can set up a representative republic with genuine individual liberty there after a half century military occupation. I think the vast majority of Persians have had their fill of oppressive statist government for a while. It’s past time for them to start making real Shiraz wine again.
Pakistan is a mess. Give the fertile valleys closest to India back to the Indians to do with as they please. Implement the Habu plan for the mountainous ungovernable regions near the Afghan border. Pashtunistan was never worth a damned thing, and the world would be better off if it all became a radioactive wasteland for the next couple centuries.
My plan results in much less overall slaughter on our part, and immense profit for us. Your plan just costs lots of money and causes lots of death & destruction. Fun to play with the toys, but it gets old after a while.
#12 Gary Ogletree:
It was Sen. William P. Borah who uttered those words about Hitler in 1939. Borah was an idiot, and a precursor to the fools who make policy now. After the WWI debacle, he was one of those who supported the idea of “outlawing war.”
China needs oil, and they have a large and well-funded military, and several million excess males. Let them have Arabia to provide Chinese oil.
They’re going to have it eventually anyway, whether we like it or not. And those “several million excess males” is actually 32 million more males than females under the age of 20. Boys will be boys.
A little cognitive dissonance here Doodslag –
“Make Iran and Saudi Arabia collectively responsible for the actions of al Qaeda and all the myriad other Islamic Jihad groups regardless of sect, massive bombings in Riyadh and Tehran after every subway bombing until global Jihad funding dries up.”
…
“We must force Muslims to turn their bottomless hatreds against each other, which is where it properly belongs.”
Unfortunately, throwing both of these opposed former nations together defeats the purpose of the later. Maybe we should help Saudi Arabia proliferate. The Russians already threw down the gauntlet on Iran.
Wretchard, thank you for starting the discussion I asked for earlier.
I can only look at your #3 as prophecy. We will be hit. In the first, and possibly the second, iteration; Buraq Hussein will not retaliate, except perhaps against those Americans who oppose not retaliating. After that … “Only the Great Blue Sky Tengi Nor knows the outcome”.
On an earlier thread, I roughly described the dynamics of Poland and the Czech Republic hurriedly acquiring a minimal nuclear deterrent as a necessity for survival as nations and free peoples. It is a process that would hold for small states throughout the Western world who now realize that the bi-polar world is gone and that the United States not only does not intend to protect them from aggression anymore, but also actively desires to betray them to any aggressor in the name of appeasement.
There is a rationale there, that we as observers can at least understand. It is neither stable, nor in the long term survivable, but it is in terms we can understand.
“It tried to control the weapons, and in a fit of politically correct absentmindedness, remembered only too late it was about the men.”
Spot on, but we have so far ignored another basic part of that formulation. “it was about the men”.
Deterrence requires that there be an underlying agreement and understanding of certain basic values to work. If they are not there, there is no deterrence, only a very dangerous illusion of such that WILL break down catastrophically.
Going back to the basic bi-polar world, we reached a sufficient understanding with the Soviets [not a total one, which made things still dangerous] over some basic things. 1) that it was not possible for a nuclear attack to be launched from either party without the responsible party being absolutely known to the other [the joy of a bi-polar world]. 2) both sides valued the lives of its civilians and its infra-structure sufficiently to make the risk of their loss a sufficient hostage to deter not only launching nuclear strikes, but also a wide range of actions that might conceivably lead to the other side being forced into a corner where it felt it had to launch.
This value was not equivalent. This is in part due to the influence of Marxism-Leninism that was/is a larger faith that superceded the survival of any one people, in theory. As the dominant “faith” of the Soviet Union, it influenced events, but did not overwhelm Great Russian nationalism, which valued survival of the Russian people. An example of the difference is the concept of nuclear warfighting. Soviet military doctrine considered nuclear warfare as part of a continuous spectrum of warfighting and not necessarily a special case. There are plenty of texts on this available from the Soviet higher military academies. What you train to do, your military will do in time of war. Weapons systems designs freeze doctrine in steel and concrete for all to see.
Soviet doctrine, with the approval of the organs of the State and Party; made the assumption that they would in fact get the first strike off. It went something along the line of how the valiant Intelligence Organs of the State would discover the dastardly Capitalist plot to launch a nuclear attack on the innocent and peace loving Soviet people. Forewarned, they would beat the Running Dogs to the punch and launch first, counterforce. They would then reload and launch again before the surviving Western warheads arrived. Those silos that survived, would reload again and be used to attack or threaten the remaining Western countervalue targets.
A short digression on missile silo design. [nota bene: I have been in both the missile silo control capsule training "emulators" (precise replicas that you cannot tell that you are not in a real one once the door is closed) and in active duty missile silo control capsules a number of times, back in the ancient days when editors would send me checks for my then sideline of writing articles for military journals. I have crawled around and through the training missile silos. I have performed the launch procedure used by the control capsule combat crew in a training emulator, and I can tell you, turning that key even in a drill gets your undivided attention. And I have recieved a number of interesting briefings in conjunction with all that.]
There are two ways of getting a missile out of a silo. You can start the engine, and let it just fly out. This totally fries all the fancy wiring and plumbing that you need to make the silo/missile combination work. It can be reloaded …. in months to years after it is rebuilt. It is far cheaper and easier to build the system that way, if you only plan to use the silo once. Our doctrine was, if we had to launch it was TEOTWAWKI. No reloads, no do-overs.
On board ships, firing the missile in the silo/tube, at least missiles the size of an ICBM, is not considered a good thing. Fire and ships do not get along at all well, especially when you are underwater when you do it. The method is to blast the missile to the surface with compressed gases, and the engine ignites as soon as the nozzle breaks out of the water into the air. As a byproduct of launching without sinking the ship and killing the crew, you can reload the missile tube almost immediately if the reloads and handling equipment are there and it is safe to surface.
After the first generation or so of Soviet missile silos, they used the gas-boost system on their land based silos. They could be reloaded and fired again, in theory, in less than the time an American retaliatory strike took to get there. [We do not launch on warning, but only after we are sure we are under attack, proved by warhead detonation. This means the Soviets had the flight time of their launch, the time it took us to launch after the debris settled in the missile fields, and the flight time of our missiles, to reload.] We watched them do the launch and reloading drills from satellites. We could see they had reload missiles stockpiled nearby. They went to enormous extra time, effort, and expense to build weapons systems designed for warfighting and not for deterrence. We considered having to launch to mean that it was all over. That difference in basic understanding drove a significant part of the strategic instability of the bi-polar era.
We did not think totally alike, having different cultures and values. That is inherent in people being different people. Fortunately, we had just enough in common to achieve a literal modus vivendi.
Now we are facing a multi-polar nuclear world. And it is not a world where the European cultural worldview is universally held. Cultures value different things. Can one rationally think the Islamic culture values the survival of cities, populations, and infrastructure over theology? To the same degree that a European based culture does? If a culture believes in reincarnation as a religious tenet; will it consider the same things to be “hostages” worth protecting by moderating their conduct as we would? If a culture believes that the will of a god-king/dictator/Party Chairman is the functional equivalent of divine, will it respond to the same external stimuli, threat or otherwise, as a Parliamentary democracy? And let us not forget my own ethnic background, which has as an underpinning the basic concept that “If y’all ain’t Han Chinese, y’all ain’t s**t.”. [Family comes from South China]
We do not think the same. Unlike American Democrat/Leftist proponents of “Cultural Diversity” I do not believe that we are “all different, but really all the same inside [unless you are white, in which case you are irredeemably evil]“. I believe that people’s culture and world views can differ around the world, and those differences mean that they put different value weights on different things. I emphasize again, that deterrence only works if there is a sufficient meeting of minds between the parties that something that they value highly enough is at risk if they act dangerously. And each side has to understand the other’s value system so as not to accidentally put them into a corner where they believe that they have no choice but to attack. I do not see a prospect of a sufficient degree of mutual comprehension and understanding between all actors in a multi-polar nuclear world. It only takes one “oops” moment.
In the past, time and distance attenuated the friction between cultures. Today when people are linked instantaneously, and the consequences of misunderstanding involve hard gamma radiation; a multi-polar nuclear world is doomed to break down exothermically.
I invite comments and arguments to increase the understanding of all, including myself.
Subotai Bahadur
sol vason,
Iran already has the smuggling routes
Hezbollah is all over Northern Mexico and America’s Southern border is an open sore.
Rosinante,
the obvious target is Moscow
Maybe but the Russians have created this monster. If the target was Tel Aviv then the Israelis should listen to Alexis and then target Moscow. In fact the logical thing for them to have done already would be to bury a nuke deep in the sewers beneath the Kremlin. If I was Netanyahu I would want one hidden in each city on this list.
Some people think that we are helpless to prevent an attack by a non-state actor because there is no one to retaliate against. That is not true for two reasons;
1. the state involved is a matter of definition,
2. non-state actors cannot marshal resources without the aid of a state.
The Ummah considers itself a state. They just question the legitimacy of everyone else. A decision not to attack members of the Ummah because they are labeled as citizens of some state is a projection of our values and identities onto them. To do so is a profoundly imperialist construct. We should treat the members of the Ummah with more respect and take their construct of the division of the world into the dar al-Islam and the dar al-Harb seriously. The Ummah can be targeted.
Nuclear weapons are not manufactured in a garage by a mad scientist from Central Casting and his hunchback sidekick. The components are not safely stored in High School lockers. The funds needed are not gathered, stored and transferred by men with cleft sticks. The weapons are not transported across oceans and continents by students with book-bags. All of these tasks use a legal and commercial infrastructure that demands a system of state power to support it. Governments and the communities that they embed in can be targeted.
This is the strongest argument against the libertarian ideal that I have encountered. In the real world it turns out that it is impossible to do complicated tasks without the support of a government. Governments may be of greater or lesser effectiveness and they may be penetrated and subverted to serve private interests but even bad guys depend on some functions of government.
For the record I prefer the less apocalyptic vision of Armageddon Rex to the potential extermination of the Ummah. Costly reeducation plans would have to be included.
To be blogged under the title “Targeting.”
Dan @28:
Yes, the scenarios for widespread panic, large city desertion, and the end of nearly all international trade in goods and commodities are likely possibilities in the event of a nuclear detonation in a major U.S. city, or London, Saint Petersburg, Copenhagen or any huge city with a container port or international airport.
Nationwide U.S. panic can probably be averted if only one device is detonated and real border, port, and airport security is implemented instead of the lackadaisical farces we have now.
The real end would follow a second nuclear detonation in a U.S. city after the public had been assured that “everything is secure”.
When you say: “…we’re underestimating the effect a successful nuclear detonation in an American city would cause. Everything really would “be different.” Something tells me our enemies are much, much further along in having considered this…” I must protest.
There are thousands of folks in various city, county, state and federal directorates, agencies, bureaus, and departments who are familiar with the Rand study about a nuclear detonation at the Port of Long Beach, as well as classified and For Official Use Only (FOUO) reports of similar and related natures. Many military, security, emergency service and law enforcement folks are aware of what may happen. The general public and politicians are the willfully ignorant ones who continue to bury their heads in the sand. The primary reason for this is lack of ability to pursue effective solutions, and the enormity of the task.
Real border, port, and airport security would require a huge investment in money, manpower and new infrastructure. It’s a very expensive proposition that would include the end of large-scale container shipping of inexpensive manufactured goods from China, Malaysia, Viet Nam, Thailand, etc. into the U.S. It would also include transfer of crude oil and other commodities to U.S. ships at offshore port facilities before transport into U.S. ports. It would include shutting down international airports that are within or near populated areas, and rebuilding them dozens of miles from population centers. It would include tightly restricted flight corridors for international flights that didn’t over-fly vulnerable areas, with effective SAM coverage to enforce strict compliance. It would include a new willingness among our citizens and politicians to shoot first and ask questions later and accept that people are going to die accidentally in the name of protecting the society at large.
None of this is going to happen until after hundreds of thousands of Americans have been incinerated!
Move away from the big cities…
Be prepared!
Subotai, no argument here re: relative position on the 3D grid. Policy prescription: I’d suggest heavily monitored borders, ports and greater investment in, and deployment of defense technology and humint. Likelihood of present admin and Congress doing so: > 5%.
LOTM
glad that Paris doesn’t figure the the list of the cities that Israel would hit
May-be cuz we have the 2nd largest jewish community abroad !
uh Also why would Israel hit Moscow when Russia buy Israeli drones and arms ?
How much we yearn at every turn
For good old days of yore
When all that’s good was all that stood
Before the locked nuke door
Today we see the NPT
In tattered disarray
It served us well but what the hell
The thing has seen its day
Now everyone under the sun
Has nukes or plans in place
To build or try to steal or buy
A bomb to join the race
And soon the wise al Qaeda guys
Will get their hands on one
And New York town will be one down
Though not be one and done
For soon the sky will see them fly
As missiles targets seek
And the world’s heirs as if one cares
The roaches and the meek
Increasingly, it is the tendency of our culture to sugar-coat facts, to color unpleasant realities, to demand a happy ending. Fifty years ago people were seriously worried about World War III. They anticipated the destruction of civilization in a nuclear holocaust. Somehow our adult concern was transformed into a childish program for world peace and universal disarmament.
Middle-aged children imagine that nuclear weapons are the problem. In reality, nuclear weapons are an unavoidable consequence of human nature. Can we eliminate crime, bad manners or lying? Can we establish permanent peace? The child sees no obstacle because the child does not know himself, and does not know human nature. A mature mind, however, knows that peace is precarious and temporary. It is not a question of eliminating nuclear weapons. Peace is only possible if we can mitigate the wickedness of human beings (e.g., like you and I).
The men who rule Russia and China are bad. The men who rule the United States, Great Britain and France are also bad. The difference between the two types of men have nothing to do with inherent goodness in one or badness in the other. The difference is found in traditions that either concentrate power in the hands of a few individuals, or distribute power under a system of checks and balances. The latter mitigates human evil; the former intensifies human evil. The one system presents the political criminal with an opportunity; the other system limits the harm that he can do.
(above is a snip, read more please, from Nuclear Disarmament: A Modern Fairy Tale by JR Nyquist, September 25, 2009)
What the heck, here’s a little more of the essay, italics mine:
In terms of nuclear weapons, it is childish to suppose that leaders of systems based on the concentration of power will agree to an honest reduction of their nuclear forces. Without any system of checks and balances to regulate them, they will follow their nature – which is to accumulate and concentrate more power in their own hands. Internationally this means that they will cheat on any arms control agreement involving nuclear weapons; or they will rely on lethal biological weapons which have been outlawed in those countries where power is checked and balanced.
It is childish for Americans and the U.S. president to strive for universal nuclear disarmament. Once the Americans tie their hands with a treaty, the United States will be disarmed. On the other side, where laws do not constrain the ruling elite, a treaty is merely a piece of paper. As the Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin once said: “Treaties are like pie crusts, meant to be broken.” Because of the speed with which rockets travel, and the destructive force of a nuclear warhead, countries without such weapons can be stripped of sovereignty and plundered.
Children will deny the danger is real. They believe in the power of positive, utopian ideals. They denounce common sense as reactionary, as an obstacle to world peace. “If we do nothing, then nuclear war is inevitable,” they cry. But in reality, nuclear war is inevitable because fools are inevitable; and we are very great fools indeed.
Childish people who cannot look at the world through adult eyes, who righteously see themselves as the saviors of mankind, are actually our destroyers. Their program promises peace, but delivers the exact opposite. Their speeches drip with the honey of good intentions, but their actions unleash the world’s dictators from the chains of Mutual Assured Destruction. In a world where the global economy is shrinking, the outcome won’t be pretty.
No Nukes is a slogan. It is not, nor can it ever, be a reality. Nuclear weapons are a fact of war and strategy, now and forever more.
The reason nuclear weapons did not exist before 1945 was that the fundamental physics did not exist until the 1920s. The physics now exists, it cannot be unlearned. Uranium is ubiquitous.
The good news is that it is not easy to build nuclear weapons. If it were, Iran would have tested one already.
Even if every nation in the world entered into a solemn treaty to disassemble all of its nuclear weapons, and adhered to the treaty, nuclear weapons would merely be sleeping until someone aggressive enough, or in enough defensive trouble, decided to cheat on the treaty. Strategic planners, therefor, would be required to assume that nuclear weapons still existed, even if there were actually none then existing.
food for thought?
in past comments I have asked about impeachment/recall of BHO – I am a child of holocaust family – my moms family was totally wiped out. What I am seeing now is the pre1939 mindset and feeling of despair.
If we are not willing to name the enemy of mankind – ISLAM – how are we going to survive – as a free people ?
The Day After
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After
Armageddon Rex — I like your idea of seizing the assets of any Jihad-funding Muslim state — but I think the point of my approach is to find a way to first undermine and then destroy the supremacist Islamic creed the same way we destroyed the Nazi and Japanese variants. Simply walling off the Muslims from their unearned sources of wealth may not be enough at this point. They are already on our soil and entrenched in our camp in their millions — and plenty of Jihad funding flows from the West now, not just from those epicenters of terror in Riyadh and Tehran.
Because we have so far failed to grasp the true scope and danger of Islamic Jihad, we have failed to consider effective means to stop its ascendancy. I’d argue that the Jihad impulse is completely intact in the Muslim world, and perhaps stronger today than it was on 9/10/2001.
Muslims show little sign of taking on the supposedly more radical among their peers and fighting the violent terrorist themes which animate them. Again — they spend most of their time concocting pretexts to blame us for their violence, or denying and lying about the tenets of violence in their beliefs.
Western analysis must focus more on the task of subverting and destroying their creed. I believe that “winning their hearts and minds” is a fools errand — attested to in recent years by the vicious hatred which the Indonesians show us today, despite over $2 billion in tsunami aid, or the vituperation manner in which Karzai comports himself after billions $ in aid and loss of over a thousand lives bringing him to power and protecting his vile corrupt Islamic regime.
We have done very little to vanquish the Islamic enemy. This viper remains fully fanged, venomous, and willing to strike as time and circumstance place him at advantage. This isn’t about having “fun” with our “toys” — nor is this about accommodations with the Islamic world — those approaches just kick the can down the street at best, and do much to encourage our Muslim enemies. This is about annihilating a cancerous ideology which endangers the world. I firmly believe that Islam will annihilate us eventually if we do not alter our course and orientation towards it. Between Iraq and Afghanistan we’ve spent over 5,000 lives, and something in the area of $1 trillion to bring them the treasures of our freedoms and rights. They have repaid us with little more than treachery, disrespect, and Muslim venom. They are comfortable tossing us under the bus at every turn, and continue to agitate for our genocidal destruction and conquest in their mosques. Muslims still send their overflowing refuse populations to our shores where more beach heads are established for Islamic conquest. This must stop and be reversed.
It would damage Jihad
Subotai @ 33: “Today when people are linked instantaneously, and the consequences of misunderstanding involve hard gamma radiation; a multi-polar nuclear world is doomed to break down exothermically.”
Thanks for sharing some of your knowledge, Subotai.
Let me offer a (highly non-original) observation — any modern widespread war would start dramatically with lots of high-tech goodies getting fired off rapidly, although with highly variable effectiveness. (What is the +/- in microseconds for the effective detonation of a 25 year-old IBCM incoming at say 9,000 miles per hour?) Since the rebuild time for high tech weapons is measured in years, combat would then descend into the old-fashioned clash of armies and the occupation of territory through bullets, swords, and rape. To be continued until someone cries uncle, and maybe even beyond.
Life has already survived in many locations, from Chile to Louisiana, after natural disasters have unleashed energies equal to multiple nuclear explosions. Tragically unpleasant, for sure — but life goes on.
A nuclear explosion is just a big explosion — not the end of the world. It is almost certainly true that nuclear weapons will eventually be used in a multi-polar nuclear world. But that will only be the opening paragraph in the next chapter of the saga of human beings on Planet Earth.
Rex – no, you’re right about those preparations, but I doubt this event can be protected against. it is going to come, sooner than later. either nuke or chemical/bio. perhaps that was the purpose of the nuke treaty: for example, syria has chem weapons but not nukes, and it can be destroyed in ten seconds given the assets already in theater. what if Whoever It Is is setting up failed states as launch pads, to draw fire after getting off their ordinance? what if the purpose of this notion of a generalized Islamic crisis is not just to create the expectation that these cave-dwelling sons of Araby could actually nuke Manhattan, but that a crappy little state like Syria or Iran would actually do something stupid and suicidal like, O i don’t know, nuke Manhattan, because they were “crazy”? And then BLAM we retaliate – but we only have so many forces, so what if Iran attacks or some other country attacks, but we have nothing but some air power to respond, wouldn’t we have to nuke? or drop chem/bio? but according to public info we don’t have chem/bio capability except as it pertains to research. And even if we did, our forces aren’t infinite and neither is our political capital, even where attacked.
Consider that a world power seriously organizing its global assets for a gotterdammerung but preoccupied by minimizing damage to itself but able to seduce all these venal little barbarians sh_thouses like Libya for example might easily dupe them via their own vanity and other proclivities into believing they were a shahid for allah (and gas can for China), expecting maybe to get out just before the Mahdi really was supposed to show his mettle.
anyway, barring something this clever/idiotic and final, the question, i think, is where the geopolitical tectonic plates will begin to move following the CONUS attack.
Marie Claude @37,
If you were not looking to stick a knife in people by promoting the idea of (presumably Jewish) racist views to the compilation of a wiki list of all things, especially ridiculous given that NYC, LA and London are on that list, you would have noticed that Paris proper at only 2.2 million does not make the cut. Sorry but you are just not that important. Yes, I know that Paris Metro is over 11 million in population. However I grant that if I was making up a real list for Netanyahu I would be sure to include Paris, Lyon and Marseilles. Targeting the inner cities with the Enarchs is easy, the hard part would be targeting the Ummah in suburbs.
We are dealing with very serious and difficult issues here. It is not my wish to be gratuitously offensive or threatening to anyone. When you see an opportunity to twist something, under the cover of a joke, into a charge of racism you bring to mind echoes of racist charges of divided loyalties. Remember Dreyfus? So the joke was not funny. My formulation can be attacked on many grounds, as immoral or impractical or even with a straight statement that Israel cannot attack the countries on that or any likely list because of what it would do to the Jewish people but not by saying that the almost random list I pulled off the wiki is missing one place because that place has Jews. Some idiot someplace is going to pull your comment up on the Internet and go “Aha, more proof of the International Global Jewish Banking Conspiracy.”
As is my custom I decline to enter into an extended colloquy with you on such a topic.
Perhaps we can now hear of the criticality of Paris, Texas.
Wretchard:
The situation is much, much worse than you and the other commentators here realize. In order for the US to effectively excercise nuclear deterrance at all the following conditions must be met: The US must have a useable nuclear deterrent that cannot be destroyed by a pre-emptive strike and the American leadership must be willing to actually use this deterrent. Obama’s recent actions threaten both of these conditions. Consider: The USA has not actually tested a nuclear weapon in over 20 years. The reliability of the US stockpile is questionable at best, and Obama is unwilling to either test or deploy new warhead designs.
Obama’s statements that the US will not use nuclear weapons, even if attacked by chemical or biological weapons, shows he is fundamentally unwilling to use the deterrent. He is therefore either relying on the good will of other countries, his own unique ability to charm others, or a simple bluff.
Further, actions taken by Obama and previous administrations undermine the overall theory that the US would be willing to actually use nuclear weapons. After all, the US was attacked by Muslim terrorists and lost more civilian life in one attack than in all of WWII (note I said civilians, not soldiers). And in reply, the US tries to keep Muslim civilian casualties to an absolute minimum, adopting ROE where enemy soldiers can effectively hide behind human shields with impunity. It is hard to imagine such a country using nukes on cities full of women and children, and I doubt any potential enemy really believes the US would do so.
Morton @42:
Before the discovery of oil in the Arabian Peninsula, its total population was less than half that of London or New York City in 1900. It was rightfully understood to be a harsh, revolting, barren, throwback of a place inhabited by uncouth barbaric nomads little improved since the Bronze Age.
Without vast oil wealth it wouldn’t have changed. The Wahhabi sect of Islam would have continued to be viewed as the retrograde, ignorant cult of a group of nomadic, uncouth barbarians by nearly everyone including more decadent Muslims in Egypt, Turkey, India, Persia, Morocco, Albania, Syria, Indonesia, etc. Much the same as how most American Christians today view fundamentalist Pentecostal snake handlers with scorn and derision as hicks and ignorant fools.
The “revival” of fundamentalist Islam is being driven entirely by funding from rich oil pumping Middle Eastern countries. If that money goes away, the impetus goes away.
Islam was dying from contact with western culture before the boom in Middle Eastern oil wealth. Satellite TV is still today slowly killing it off. In the west, we like to obsess about Middle Eastern immigration and college student visas providing a security vulnerability. What we fail to remember is that when young people in particular are exposed to both traditional Islamic culture and modern western culture, 99.9999% chose to live in the secular west with its luxurious lifestyle if possible instead of the barbaric and harsh Islamic civilizations of their ancestors.
No one threw Leviticus out of the Torah or Old Testament, but you don’t see any witches stoned to death today in Israel, France, the U.K. or even Spain. Modern Jews and Christians have decided to ignore those passages in our holy books. We’ve decided that individual liberty and rule of secular law trump religious belief. It is a cornerstone of post enlightenment western civilization.
There is a sizeable, increasingly western university educated, Muslim middleclass in Saudi and elsewhere who would gladly go to Mosque every Friday and say their dawn, morning, mid-day, evening, and bed time prayers daily, hold down good jobs, obey the laws of the nation they live in, raise their children to be responsible, taxpaying citizens, and ignore the bloodthirsty, xenophobic, terribly un-politically correct portions of the Koran and Hadith just as Christians and Jews ignore Leviticus and many other exhortations to violence and intolerance found in the Bible and Torah.
Destroy the horribly corrupt, exploitative Middle Eastern governments. Replace them with responsible governance that seeks to improve individual liberty, build real infrastructure to promote the greater good, and deal with all citizens equitably and in strict accordance with non-Sharia law, and watch as Islam becomes just as tame as most popular Christian and Jewish sects.
There is a common thread behind my concern over the rise of dominant subsystems that paralyze the capacity of state actors to respond effectively according to the rules of systems theory and my speculation over how Israel, or by extension any state actor, may respond to threats from hostile elements residing within theoretically non-belligerent states. If nation states are no longer truly subsystem dominant but merely components, merely different in function from NGOs, of a larger dominant international order then why should their territorial integrity be granted any special respect?
It is of course preferable to maintain a system of law and dispute resolution in which each nations territorial integrity is respected. As I have already discussed competent government systems are needed to ensure the freedom of commerce and security of people in a complex world. My concern is that by treating all entities as equal, when clearly many would have been subject to extraterritoriality or turned into dependents or protectorates or otherwise treated as non compos mentes under legal and diplomatic systems that existed before WW-II we have brought the dysfunction of local communities into international law. This has been compounded buy the subsequent denigration of the sovereignty of the powers themselves who created and maintained the system of law and free trade. Increasingly both internationally and domestically the forces, both physical and intellectual, of law are being rendered ineffectual and are being brought down to the lowest standard of dysfunctional 3rd World communities.
If you are being attacked by thugs from the town down the road and the police in that jurisdiction shrug their shoulders while the overarching authority of the Global Order is much more concerned with whether your grandfather built his house on a wetland without obtaining all the permits, then what do you do? Eventually as law and order break down people start to protect themselves or turn to market solutions.
If the the trillion dollar naval forces of the world are unable to stop Somali pirates at what point will the insurance companies or tax payers get tired and decide to hire some deniable guys to start blowing up docks, bars, boats, cars, warehouses and homes in Somalia until the piracy magically stops? When will steps be taken off the books and out of sight to convince Swiss bankers and Italian cutouts that the business is not worth the risk?
The point of the Israeli operations portrayed in the film Munich was that at some point a state that is truly sovereign must act where it knows that the international system cannot. International law is not a suicide pact. If the Israelis decide that the survival of their state and civilization are more important than the good will of guests on Charlie Rose then they should act. Once it is established that there will be a reaction to violence emanating from what were considered sanctuaries then the temptation to use those places goes down. That means that an established willingness to target a threat from within a community can actually reduce the risk of future targeting of that community. A state must be willing to protect its citizens and should not allow a hostile element to embed within it and draw it into conflict with others.
The Russians know this, they will pursue a target to the ends of the earth and strike within the heart of London. Unfortunately they do so for the narrow reasons and in the interests of a corrupt and destructive regime. All the strong state actors that Marie Claude admires know this. Only the dedicated soft power enthusiasts of America and Britain pretend that there really is a global system of law and order that does not depend on state actors willing to ruthlessly defend their interests and citizens. Most of the internationalists even know this and are really just fronting fronting for their sponsors while advocating standards of sovereign immunity and restraint that are only meant to work against the interests of the United States and Israel.
To be blogged under the title “The Munich Model.”
Lifeofthemind @48:
The solutions to many of the problems you listed can be summed up in one catchy slogan:
US out of the UN…UN out of the US!
LotM, be sure and catch the closing comment on ”ends and means” –from Will48. He’s echoing much of what you say.
Re Munich ’72, in hindsight, the nazi pageantry rally city and Chamberlain humiliation venue was a terrible place for Israeli Olympians to have been, in the first place, at least sans an iron ring of a thousand bodyguards.
But hindsight is infallible. However, the gap between what the Israelis wandered into there in 1972 and what we know now of the use of signs and portents among the dismal occultist tide now moving on the world, is the measure of how far ahead in their planning they likely still are, compared to our appreciation of same.
A small and alas temporary bright spot is that the murdered athletes were revenged, as much as it is ever possible to do so in the shrinking world which denies collective guilt, in part by the direct action of the man now Israeli minister of defense, Ehud Barak. Check his wiki –see a man with no illusions, and no fear.
Iran would nuke Mecca and Moscow first. Once they initiate the fray, they then can nuke Tel Aviv at their leasure when no one is watching.
That is, if Iran’s nuke capacity is not pounded to dust/glassified first.
Mecca – They want Qom to become the new Mecca
Moscow – Assumption is that Russians then launch to nuke US and US would launch a retaliation, China will join the festivities and well… Mahdi will come on a pale horse.
LOTM #
I decline to enter into an extended colloquy with you on such a topic.
Sorry I cannot let you saying such inepties.
Your proposition that Israel should bomb any of the quoted cities is properly a wish from a mental disordered person, my response had nothing alike antisemit like you want to label it, it was just in your vein, as much ridicule, and let me tell you, crying for wolf where theren’t any reason misread the real antisemitism.
Oh, and thank you so much for adding Paris into your wish. I was so sorry that it wasn’t noticed.
twoby/51, re mahdi on a pale horse, maybe he already rode ?
I do too much hand wringing.
In the movie Dr. Strangelove, or How I stopped worrying and learn to Love the Bomb there was much hand wringing too, but the Doomsday Machine solved it all so hey love the Bomb right?
Then there’s this part of the whole angst thingy that is easily solved thanks to Bill Bonner. Economics.
When will the de-leveraging bust resume?
When I stop worrying about it.
This afternoon, I realized that deep down, my feelings had changed: I had stopped worrying about a resumption of the bear market.
Not that I’ve stopped thinking about it. I think about it every day. And I’m sure it’s coming. But I have stopped worrying. No matter what I think, I feel that somehow this will work out okay…I’ll be all right. I’ll stumble along…
Thinking and worrying are two very different things.
Thinking is purely superficial. It’s the worrying that counts. When you’re worried about a financial crisis, you sell out your risky positions and hunker down with cash. When you’re not worried, you’re happy to float along… You’ll change course when the danger becomes more imminent, you tell yourself.
But don’t forget:
This is a Great Correction. It began almost exactly three years ago, when New Century Financial – the second largest subprime mortgage company in the US – filed for bankruptcy. It will continue until debt levels in the private sector have worked themselves down to more reasonable levels.
How long will that take? Maybe 5 years. Maybe 20.
Meanwhile, I can’t expect much from this economy. Businesses are not going to add jobs. Consumers are not going to shop.
Is that all there is to it? No, there’s a lot more. That’s why it’s a Great Correction and not just an ordinary run-of-the-mill correction.
…there’s the correction of the huge the expansion of credit
…there’s also the correction of the stock market
…and the correction of the real estate bubble
…and the correction of the world economy and its dollar-based monetary system
Here’s what to expect:
…US stocks will begin falling again
…foreclosures, already running at twice their normal level, will increase
…bankruptcies, now at record levels, will go up too
…bonds will eventually collapse (but may turn out to be decent investments for a while longer…as the de-leveraging continues)
…the dollar too could go up when the crisis feeling returns; over the longer run it will be dangerous to hold it
…China will go through a financial crisis (potentially ‘Dubai times 1,000.’ As Jim Chanos puts it)
…states, cities, and entire countries will declare bankruptcy…
Those things don’t seem like threats to you? Well, they don’t feel like threats to me either. But that’s what makes them so dangerous…
…I’ve stopped worrying about them.
So , don’t worry , be happy!
Marie Claude Paris??
I don’t think Paris is a Muslim nuke target, it is to soft a target and can be had by other means.
There is very little stopping Muslims from owning Paris through the number of Muslims surrounding Paris now, The police can’t control the riots now. Paris is just a stopping point on the next Muslim invasion of Europe. They don’t hate France they just want the real estate,
I love France, Paris and the French people but if the French don’t act soon it will be no more.
Jay @9:
Look up public source information on Pershing II warhead terminal guidance.
Please remember improvements have been made to our sub-launched ballistic missiles and warheads since the invention of Tomahawk.
Look up the DSMAC section of the following article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tercom
“ICBMs, are as Mystick noted, a “dumb” ballistic trajectory with very little chance to guide it to target after apogee. Current tech cannot get them nearly as accurate as a drone or airplane launched bomb or missile…”
Mystick doesn’t know what he/she doesn’t know.
Without putting F-22s at risk, a hypervelocity attack with conventionally armed MARVs is the only way to counter S-300 SAM systems unless you want to send in SOF to take them out.
“All the strong state actors that Marie Claude admires know this. Only the dedicated soft power enthusiasts of America and Britain pretend that there really is a global system of law and order that does not depend on state actors willing to ruthlessly defend their interests and citizens. Most of the internationalists even know this and are really just fronting fronting for their sponsors while advocating standards of sovereign immunity and restraint that are only meant to work against the interests of the United States and Israel.”
I like that “soft powers” where we are excluded, yeah of course only Anglo-Saxons and Israel are the chosen (or elected, choose the right word) ones ! and you dare to accuse me of racism !
Yes, this has been Obama’s plan all along — to create as much as possible the conditions for a nuked American city so that he may seize power, suspend the Constitution, and rule forever by decree as America’s Petain. Or Chavez, or Castro.
Obama is not sending email to Osama. But he is deliberately weakening every aspect: human intelligence, interrogation, profiling, and deterrence, to create an attack. Obama would probably dance in the White House along with Pelosi, Reid, and his Wife, if NYC were nuked out of existence.
The military WOULD obey. Obama could rule for ten to fifteen years. Eventually, though, he’d be overthrown, because he would be incapable of producing the sort of patronage that Saddam, or Castro did, within the military.
A post-Obama military government would look different, as a post Sukarno government headed by Suharto in Indonesia was. Obama is Sukarno, up to a point.
Of course, nations threatened by nukes can always surrender. That is the likely outcome of say, Copenhagen getting nuked. Europe surrenders to Sharia. Which is precisely why it will happen. Unless of course, unicorns and rainbows and the “international community” all come together for a big round of kumbayah.
48. Lifeofthemind
Very nice. I am going to read it at least another time. Erudite elucidation of the zeitgeist.
I know I said I wouldn’t but I can’t help chuckling ruefully as MC complains about me not calling the French elites the kind of fools I call the elites in the US and UK. My writing is dense and hard to follow. It is my fault for using such a poor writing style but if someone just does not get it why not say so and ask for the hard parts to be gone over? There is no shame in that. Often I have to go over it again and catch where I seem to have lost a thread.
whiskey,
The Danes may surprise you. Spines can come in small packages.
Habu,
Thank you.
FWIW I recommend that serious students of International Relations get two books of Morton Kaplan’s
1. Political Foundations of International Law
http://www.amazon.com/Political-Foundations-International-Law/dp/0471457051/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271194464&sr=1-8
2. Systems and Process in International Relations
http://www.amazon.com/System-Process-International-Politics-Morton/dp/B0000CJVIR/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271194464&sr=1-4
The caption here is
Medvedyev: “hey, does eating snails make you shrink?”
Sarkozy: “bullsh*t, I’m taller than YOU, shorty!”
58. whiskey
Sadly I must part with one of your thoughts.
The military WOULD obey. Obama could rule for ten to fifteen years.
If obama tried to do so all those guns and all that ammo purchased just since he was elected would be put into use immediately by millions of us. Our military is obligated to follow only legit orders so they wouldn’t go along with obama , and those that did would be killed.
No dictator in this country …ever.
The real hallmark of a world which can control nuclear and other weapons (as a opposed to a world without nuclear weapons) is one which shows a willingness to either back a sheriff to stop the malefactors or form a posse to do it themselves. That kind of society survives. Societies which can’t bad together at need to face a common threat either require a guardian or fall of their own indecision.
The measure of the ability to survive as a society is not simply what laws a society can write on the books (in the form of treaties or other things) but its willingness to enforce them. Politics is the fundamental challenge of arms control. The question is whether the world, as a global society, has this willingness.
The Arms Control Summit has such limited goals precisely because the consensus to act is so wanting. Any bad guy will see it for what it is, an open display of weakness rather than a show of strength. In reality the smaller nations are waiting for the emergence of a strong, but reasonable horse whose play they can back. You have to assure the smaller nations of the earth that it’s ok to join the posse when necessary.
The problem with President Obama’s talk down of America’s role is that it sends a signal of weakness precisely when it should convey a feeling of assurance. Consider that if America is only willing to retaliate for an attack on itself in certain circumstances, whether any member of the posse will feel confident in joining such a sheriff. America’s legitimacy as a world leader comes from both is acceptability and its strength. They are complimentary, not exclusive. A “good country” without teeth would not be appropriate for the task of leading such a posse. Canada is “good” but it can’t lead a suppression of WMD terrorism because it has no teeth. A country with teeth that isn’t “good” might describe China or Russia. Neither are these appropriate. For all its imperfections the US has filled the strong, good guy role because it had enough of both qualities. Now we have a political leadership whose favorite cliche is “avoiding false choices” perhaps making the same false choice.
Habu @ 62 and Whiskey @ 58:
Since we are playing ‘What ifs ..’
What if — following a clearly unconstitutional order from Obama — the popular elected Governor of a State with many military installations (like Texas) ordered Federal military units in Texas to become part of the Texas National Guard and disregard orders from an unpopular President?
Some of West Point’s finest declined to accept Lincoln’s orders at the start of the War Between the States. And Obama is no Lincoln.
buddy larsen,
You beat me to it. The inclusion of Switzerland’s name plate is icing on the cake.
“Let me explain children how WW-III started. Once upon a time an empty suit invited two short men to a peace summit and ….” Saakashvili talking about North Ossetian HEU smugglers must have been as welcome as a skunk at a garden party. Wonder if his plane has been inspected for unintended fog?
wretchard,
we have a political leadership whose favorite cliche is “avoiding false choices”
Lincoln demolished the 1st great age of windy oratory in America with the Gettysburg Address. The 2nd age will sink with Obama, can it ever recover? We may face generations of “plain speaking” in expiation.
seems like the difficulty of ever enforcing a nuclear control regime is the pre-existing malice of one of the ideological sides and the system of alliances which precludes effective punishment. what would the appropriate punishment really be? say pakistan detonates a nuke. then we impose “sanctions.” pakistani leadership, a feudal class that stands on the stage foreground while the army tends to its captive country, could give a crap. and we satisfy ourselves that we’ve made our gesture and anyway nothing can really be done about it. 12 years later every time the GRU-sponsored goatherders of Swat start prosthelytizing about the benefits of their mystical heroin gang too close to Islamabad everyone starts to hyperventilate and send $US billions and tactical fighter air craft to beg it to do something about them.
this is retarded. it cannot and will not last, although we have to reckon in strategic time. obama’s presidency is the opportunity. if it doesn’t happen within the next couple years i’m giving up this amateur prognostication entirely, because it will have proven as empty as economics.
While I’m sure that the Emperor must believe that he’d remain in charge after a nuclear strike it is far, far more likely that events would sweep him off his feet.
Instead, he’d find that, like the Kaiser, he would lose all relevance after the initiation of hostilities.
Events would move so fast that no focus-group could be convened. The WH press corps would be running for their lives in as much as their organizations will be decapitated and the public may do ‘the ACORN’ at their personal residence.
When you’re the mistress of the WH you’re going to be treated as family, his family.
In WWII it became very clear that FDR was penetrated by Reds. The military solution was to redact ever more detail from his eyes.
In the case of the Emperor information overload will do the trick. He’s never made rapid fire decisions in his life. Remember his stumped performance on the stump?
BTW Nuclear Activation Analysis provides markers for all radiation weapons — from dirty bombs to hydrogen bombs — such that if a deniable attack were to be launched ITS ORIGIN STILL WOULD BE KNOWN.
Hence, there is no such thing as a deniable ‘terrorist’ attack.
When Imperial Japan attacked the West she assumed that a robust defense would lead to a WWI style negotiated end — only this time Britain would abandon her colonies. Vietnam and Manchuko were already considered in the bag.
However, within six-months she was strategically crippled. Within 42 months her very existence as a culture was at risk.
——
If nuclear warfare tags America one must expect rapid, global war. Instead of SCO cohesion one should expect a rapid falling out. Without a cold-war against America these players have nothing to bring them together.
Eastasia will then be always at war with Westasia.
“I know I said I wouldn’t but I can’t help chuckling ruefully as MC complains about me not calling the French elites the kind of fools I call the elites in the US and UK. My writing is dense and hard to follow.”
yeah, you can’t confuse me with Habu (chuckles)
I can read you through the lines, no need to wrap up your thoughts with a convolutive rethoric.
I’m not precisely a whinner, (you would rather fit the label) I was just pointing on your “incoherences”
6. El_Heffe
Great link and reading for an ol’ SF fan.
Here is the start point. I hope he finishes the rest and they post them.
“FREEDOM’
Love the Internet.
CRY FREEDOM!!!
Papa Ray
B/67; re your BTW Nuclear Activation Analysis provides markers for all radiation weapons — from dirty bombs to hydrogen bombs — such that if a deniable attack were to be launched ITS ORIGIN STILL WOULD BE KNOWN.
Hence, there is no such thing as a deniable ‘terrorist’ attack.
i wish it were so, but the story is already out there of the ‘missing russian suitcase bombs’ that went missing during the dissolution of USSR. Especially pointed –the several that ‘are known to’ve gotten into Jihadi hands via a Chechen over run of a Russian military base’.
yes, they’d be requiring maintenance, but if it’s a clandestine KGB operation, that will be no problem. When the signature comes in, it will be one of those missing bombs –ten-square-block bombs, as they are called. it will be our fault in a way, for pushing the poor old USSR into breakup –had we been less nefarious, the bombs would’ve never been lost, see.
This notion –is it plausible? i dunno –is around –search it –there’s an old Nyquist on it, too, somewhere in here.
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/main.html
Evil men gained National power during the twentieth century, and that power led those evil men to develop battleships, bombers, tanks, artillery, etc. necessary to offensively wage World War II. The conventional weapons buildup in the twentieth century led to the violent deaths of about 60,000,000 people. Pre-emptive war by the Allied Powers in the mid 1930′s would have saved many cities and millions of lives.
Evil men will always be with us. Today they have gained National power in neo-Communist, neo-Fascist and Islamo-Fascist nations, and that power will lead those evil men (if they don’t already have them) to develop biologic, chemical and nuclear weapons necessary to offensively wage World War IV (The Cold War was World War III). Terror groups will simply form alliances with Nations friendly to their goals. The current WMD buildup will likely lead to the violent deaths of an order of magnitude higher than that of the twentieth century.
Solution for the United States and all remaining freedom-loving nations: If they won’t voluntarily give up nuclear weapons, wage targeted pre-emptive war against the nuclear facilities of North Korea and Iran – and any other terror-sponsoring nation or group which is developing nuclear weapons. Hundreds of millions (not tens of millions) will be saved – especially our own. There would be a high price to pay – but the price will be far higher if we don’t. World leaders lacked the courage to take care of business before it was too late during the twentieth century – have we learned anything at all from World War II?
We had Patton wanting to sort out the commies in 1945, we fired him and then one o them ‘accidents’ got him. Then we had MacArthur wanting to sort of the commies a few years later, his plan got him fired too. Both those were in the era where the issue would not have been in doubt. “There is a tide in the affairs of men…”
Buddy,
may-be your suite case is among those:
http://www.centerforinvestigativereporting.org/tags/enricheduranium
42. Morton Doodslag
Good synopsis. But it would have been simpler to just say that we must destroy Islam.
And to make sure that the world knows that Islam is not just a religion, but an evil cult.
Yea, I know it is not PC. But it is the truth. Islam can not/will not ever be changed from within or without.
That leaves just one solution.
Papa Ray
45. Lifeofthemind
Paris, Texas?
Well if the wind was blowing from the South West, then things wouldn’t be too bad. But it the winds were from the North West about five million plus people would be affected.
Not counting of course the 3 or 4 million illegals that weren’t counted last time around and have moved there in the last two years.
But then somebody would have to deal with Texas and I can tell you we would have murder in our hearts and minds and somebody somewhere would pay.
And pay with terrible effect…like in the Bible.
Papa Ray
As technology advances there will eventually be so many dangerous ‘whats’ that nonproliferation will become more and more a question of ‘who’. Nuclear weapons are dangerous, but in a few years other weapons like biologicals will be more dangerous than say, the original Hiroshima bomb. What 9/11 showed was that the modern post-industrial world contains so many dangerous devices, like wide-body airplanes, that the means for mass mayhem are to hand. Dirty bombs, container ships, LNG tankers, etc create opportunities for semi-WMD attacks. The Mumbai attacks used only infantry weapons.
In this intermediate range, we can’t control the weapons. Look at how much it has cost to secure air travel and it isn’t secure. Ultimately a lot of the focus must shift to finding bad guys: the ‘who’, because the ‘what’ is going to be everywhere.
Arms control is a political problem. And unless the world establishes a single government to secure it all, then ultimately the best program is to encourage the spread of responsible government, to dismantle or prevent the emergence of totalitarian or failed states. Ultimately the only way to prevent WMD attacks is to have a world with a minimum standard of say, Malaysia or Turkey.
MC/73; thanks –& yes there is controversy for sure.
64. Kinuachdrach
No what if’s. It IS the responsibility of military personnel to follow only legal orders. No if ,ands, or buts. Should an officer ,particularly a general officer follows an illegal order that is treason. They know that. If the order was of sufficient magnitude them his/her life would be in great peril.
What is the worry with nukes from China? It seems that China and the US are economically codependent – also, China could cause much more damage/destruction and exert influence and power through the economic leverage they have than through Nuclear warfare with the US. In my mind the real and present danger comes from unstable ideologues (i.e. Iran, North Korea, rogue muslim terrorists). Russia seems like a country of pragmatic crooks and paranoid organized crime.
Looks like the “Third Age” is already upon us. Reports by ABC News and WSJ that Syria has provided Hezbollah with “medium and long range” Scud missiles. A quote by Israeli reporter Ron Ben-Yishai states “The Scud shipment has not changed the military balance as Hezbollah already possesses long and medium range missiles and rockets which would go as far as Beersheba (in southern Israel). However, the transfer bears a symbolic significance.” http://fluentnews.com/s/24012379
With respect to Mr. Ben-Yishai, what should cause concern is the PAYLOAD/range capacity of the Scud, particularly if fired from somewhere in, say, the Bekaa Valley. Obviously, a significant pipeline has to be in place to provide training, logistics, and support for this equipment. How long before Hezbollah’s own network or “certain state actors” begin delivering various types of WMD payloads for these missiles? All perfectly “deniable”, of course….
This thread has had some really great comments, particularly from W, Buddy, Habu and LotM.
Wretchard’s original Three Conjectures dealt with an Islamic terrorist or terrorist state nuclear attack. Increasingly however, it looks like that a nuclear or WMD Islamic terrorist or terrorist state attack may have behind the scenes at least, Russia or China or both, along with client states such as North Korea and Venezuela, as responsible parties.
The “nuke Iran, KSA, et al” approach as such may then no longer be totally appropriate and sufficient as a response.
First, nuking the usual Islamic suspects does not deal with Russia, China or North Korea. Nuclear War with Russia or China likely will destroy us as well as them.
Second, this war with the Islamic Jihadis has seemingly morphed into something larger. It is no longer just a military or religious war, it is also an economic war. Russia, China and Iran all aim for some kind of economic supremacy. That is the one of the primary motives for their actions. Those responsible for the ’08 crash most likely included players from Russia, China and the Islamic states.
In response to any nuclear or WMD attack on our homeland, Arm Rex’s approach @ 29 of grabbing the oil fields of Iran and KSA , coupled with selective at a minimum nuclear and non-nuclear destruction of North Korea’s, Iran’s and Pakistan’s nuclear and defense capabilities, would not only retaliate for our loss, but we could then leverage our new found oil wealth and punish bad actors such Russia and China as well. It would be also a more moral choice.
If we are to survive in the future, we will surely need to take a “no more Mr. Nice Guy” approach to our enemies as well as our pseudo friends and pseudo allies. No more can we project peacenik fantasies and motives to these states or grant them the benefit of equal standing or reasonable doubt to their actions. With control of a large part of the oil trade, America would again have the power to take a hard line approach if we so choose. We would not only be able to reorder our economic situation, but we would be able to dictate the terms of world trade and political relations more towards the ideals of political and economic liberty than we do now. We would also have the power to punish those who condone or assist the terrorists, without groveling for help from pseudo allies.
Despite the fact that Obama is trying to inflict as much damage as he can on our defense forces and our economy during his stay in office, the most probable outcome is that we still likely will emerge from his disastrous presidency as the most powerful economic and military power on earth. America will still likely have options. We just have to exercise the will to use them wisely.
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 4/14/2010, at The Unreligious Right
81. Unsk
“In response to any nuclear or WMD attack on our homeland, Arm Rex’s approach @ 29 of grabbing the oil fields of Iran and KSA , coupled with selective at a minimum nuclear and non-nuclear destruction of North Korea’s, Iran’s and Pakistan’s nuclear and defense capabilities, would not only retaliate for our loss, but we could then leverage our new found oil wealth and punish bad actors such Russia and China as well. It would be also a more moral choice. “
You left a very important part out.
We should also destroy Russia’s pipelines and oil ports to the EU. This will cause as an extra added result, no oil for [e]urope, and no money for Russia.
And don’t worry about Russia doing anything about it. They won’t. They know they can fix and repair the damages, where as they can’t fix or repair a full scale war with us. They know that would not only destroy us but them as well.
Let the almost Islamic EU suffer for their stupidity and slide into slavery from not only Russia but because of their total embracing of Islam.
Not PC…? Well, tough.
Wake them up and punish them, the EU is not our friend and has not been for decades.
Like my Mama said, “I will teach you a lesson the hard way since you won’t learn the easy way.”
Maybe the Bank of England and Soros – might even learn a lesson.
Papa Ray
Papa Ray,
At the risk of writing a really long post, I left out a lot of things we should do. Basically, I was saying that once we were the dominant oil producer, we literally could cut off trade to both Russia and China and any other terrorist supporter if we chose. Plus I left out military action against Hiz’b’ allah, Hamas, Syria etc. It would open many opportunities we do not realistically have at present.
68. Marie Claude
MC said “you can’t confuse me with Habu ”
I say thank you Lord.
Habu
Habu tiens, tu viens de te réveiller, escuse-me you need some more coffee to translate the hidden message !
It seems to me all have missed the point. If Obama is doing everything he can to see that we are hit, and we are hit especially around September or October. Why can’t he use the rules enacted by former President Bush to take control of the government. I believe that the Patriot Act gives him almost dictatorial powers if (he defines) an event has occurred. He could ‘postpone’ the November elections for example. Could that be why the Democrats don’t seem more worried than they are?
87. DWB
We can only hope you’re wrong, but there is no denying the Democrats are certainly playing it like they won’t have to face the electorate anytime soon. It’s an open question.
Then there is also the question, whether he invoked martial law, would the Supreme Court allow him to postpone elections? If he tried that gambit and failed, the Democrats would be dead meat for a generation.
33. Subotai Bahadur
How very interesting to read your take on the Russian reload capability.
Peacekeeper launches with a liquid gas generator that pops it out of the silo before the solid fires. I have no idea if reload capability was pursued beyond that point. But I was reminiscing just this morning about that launch method.
(Former Peacekeeper Transportation and Handling designer.)
# 89 vgregory
I don’t think that we ever pursued reload capability for Peacekeepers. In fact, I’m pretty sure that we did not because our basic strategic doctrine did not conceive of such. Further, the production run barely happened at all. Once again, Democrats were being themselves and the political debate was Soviet SS-18 missiles good, US missile of any kind bad. I can imagine what kind of Moonbat fit they would have thrown if they had any conception of us thinking about anything beyond a nuclear spasm. Long ago, when the world was new, I got into writing due to the then MX.
It started when former Senator Gary Hart [he of the "SS Risky Business"] was in his first term. During that term he was pretending to be pro-military, and got on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I had contacted his office on something Naval, and so my name was in their files. At the time I was living in a 1880′s cabin a couple of thousand feet above the small mountain town of Buena Vista, and when I came into town to get my mail I was given a large box with 18 (?) volumes of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on MX Basing Modes, from Hart’s office; and a request to send comments in two weeks to an Undersecretary of the Air Force. Fortunately I read fast, speak military, and am not afraid of writing. I got it done. And at the end of it I knew a whole bunch more about the MX basing modes than I ever thought I could. And I already was following the program. All of which was helpful years later for the first article I wrote for a military journal, for which I got the 5 words that writers love most. “Pay to the order of”.
A few years after that first article, I found myself visiting the 90th Strategic Missile Wing several times for some briefings.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai, based on your non-classified knowledge, for my thriller i’m writing, theoretically speaking, how badly, say from 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst, would you say a circuit break at the football –say a president in the air over the ocean who has some sort of incident befall the chain of command –hurt a launch-response to a Russian pre-emptive first-strike?