It seems like there is some ambiguity around the purpose of the reactor:
"It has the potential to make 25 to 30 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a small town. The plant could also potentially produce about 20 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year"
A bit further down the article says:
"Analysts also found some evidence that could support North Korea’s assertion that the new reactor would be used for power generation. Satellite images appeared to show that power lines and a transmission tower had been erected around the site."
Without weapons inspectors, or some other outside group taking a look, there is no way to know for sure.
To be efficient as a power plant a reactor needs to spend most of its time operating. If you want to make nuclear material for bombs with this kind of reactor it will enter a number of startup-shutdown cycles, which would make it inefficient, and would be very noticeable. Of course they recently extended the coolant outflow quite a bit to mask the thermal signature of operation, but it should still be possible to determine a rough operational schedule.
[1] suggests that it is at least possible to do both simultaneously, and it would be a relatively cheap way to address suspicions to add the power lines even if they aren't being used (would a plutonium-producing reactor also require a connection to the grid?). I agree that without inspection you can't really say how it is being used.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239 : "[C]ommercial nuclear power reactor designs [...] could have machinery added that would permit U-238 slugs to be placed near the core and changed frequently, or it could be shut down frequently, so proliferation is a concern".
>It has the potential to make 25 to 30 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a small town. The plant could also potentially produce about 20 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year, according to the Institute for Science and International Security
I'm not convinced it's for power generation to be honest.
It’s for making plutonium. A 30MW plant is a TINY source of electricity. You don’t build a 30MW plant for power. If you need that amount of power, you build a tiny hydro dam or gas power plant.
There is a reasonable school of thought that banning them would increase the amount of warfare in the world, by drastically reducing the risk and scope of retaliation. As it stands, they make the cost of war too high between major powers.
Do you believe otherwise? Perhaps that it is worth the cost in lives from smaller wars to prevent mass casualties in nuclear ones?
What’s worse, repeated cycles of conventional conflicts between major powers, or peace between major powers with a ~1% chance per year of total annihilation?
(Adjust the percentage as you see fit. I think that’s a reasonable guess but it’s definitely a guess.)
I think the second one is clearly worse. The idea that nuclear weapons are good because they’ve resulted in peace only makes sense if you think the chances of a nuclear world war are negligible. I don’t think that’s true but some people seem to.
I don't have an opinion on how having nukes saves lives, but in either case I think there is a better solution. An international, democratically legitimized world council that has the competence to bind nations governments and override their decisions. Akin to the EU, but globally. That is an alternative, successful way to keep peace. The security council of the UN is not up to the task because of many obvious shortcomings.
But many people still hang on to their nation as if it were a good thing.
That world council has to get buy-in from every nation, either voluntarily or not. Voluntary won't happen. And the "non-voluntary" part means, essentially, going to war to keep the peace.
> But many people still hang on to their nation as if it were a good thing.
Compared to being ruled by something akin to the UN? (Not the security council, the full UN.) Absolutely, my nation is a good thing compared to that.
Compared to being ruled by the EU? Maybe even compared to that. (And you wouldn't get something as good as the EU, for the same reasons that the UN wasn't as good as the EU.)
Now, true, not every nation can say that. And we weren't talking about affairs within the nation, but affairs between nations. Still... I'd say that assuming the nation is a bad thing "assumes facts not in evidence", as they say in court.
Even with the single world government, there will still be factional violence. Ethnic tensions and tribalism won't magically go away. People who believe that their voices haven't been heard still violently riot in even the most democratic of nations.
I agree with that. If you think of geopolitics in terms of game theory, we've reached a relatively stable equilibria between the "big" countries (which of course still fight indirectly via proxy wars, including to this day in Yemen/Syria) due to MAD. On any regular timescale it's just so much more beneficial for every party to individually refrain from using nukes against each other, considering how much to lose there is in a retaliation.
Plus, actually getting rid of all the nukes would make warfare more attractive, which makes acquiring nukes desirable again. And no nation under threat of total war would rather lose everything than use nuclear weapons. So I don't think the equilibrium of nobody having nukes is at all stable: eventually one country begins to think about warfare, decides they need nukes, creating a power imbalance, causing others to get nukes too.
Though of course the flaw of MAD, or even game theory in general, is that it assumes everybody will be a rational actor. People are people, and if someone stupidly violated MAD against their own self-interest or reasoning on some bizarre hundreds/thousands of years timescale, we could all perish. There is a small but nonzero probability on every single day of our lives that we and everything we know will be destroyed by nuclear weapons. So far that day hasn't come yet, and there's no way of knowing how likely it is. But given that banning nukes on an international scale seems unstable anyway, I guess this is the best we can do.
Assume North Korea has on the order of ten or so nuclear weapons and one day Kim Jong-un goes nuts and launches them all towards the USA. Some are stopped by missile defense systems but a few make it through, hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of victims. What now? Do you really turn North Korea into a sheet of glass because you always threatened mutual destruction? The people of North Korea had mostly nothing to do with what just happend, the responsible people may be hiding in nuclear bunkers. There are also no more nukes posing a further thread. Do you really kill millions of innocent people out of revenge?
Are you suggesting that nobody in North Korea with the power to stop the launch of a nuclear attack would be severely adversely affected by nuclear retaliation that reduces North Korea to rubble? I don't think that's a reasonable assumption. In fact, I think MAD is one of very few things that could provoke a mutiny against Kim Jong-Un.
Against NK in particular the details of the retaliation are unimportant, considering China would probably not back them up for doing something so crazy, and NATO could easily crush them conventionally. I'm not advocating using nukes against a one-off NK attack at all, nor am I advocating revenge. I guess I was speaking more generally than just the hypothetical NK first strike scenario.
Although I agree with you regarding your scenario, I think it's inaccurate to assume that the decision to retaliate would only be made after the nukes have landed and the "rubble" cleared. The debates and decisions would be made in the minutes after the launch. Considering there would be no way to know whether the attack was perhaps the start of some more-international conflict (e.g. an unlikely NK-Russia or NK-China joint first strike), and considering such an attack would likely coincide with a land invasion of SK, a retaliatory strike might be necessary. Hopefully if this situation ever plays out in real life the US will opt to use low-yield, low-fallout nukes targeting military facilities with minimal civilian casualties.
My point was mainly that mutually assured destruction might not really work the way it is supposed to. I am sure a lot of smart people have spent a lot of time thinking about it but I am not convinced that it really works, at least not in all scenarios. If one side breaks out, screw it, we launch the nukes, the other side might suddenly not have good reasons to retaliate. They might of course still do it just because that is what the plan says or to prove to potential future attackers that they really mean it, but besides that there may actually not be any good reasons to retaliate, at least in some scenarios. But that will admittedly depend heavily on the actual scenario and I just provided one that seems rather unlikely or at least incomplete, only launching the nukes and nothing else.
It’s worth pointing out that the extensive submarine fleet the US has could give it a bit more leeway in choosing their second strike than any other nation. Having said that, Americans went to two wars based on a conventional attack on New York. I’m pretty sure that they’d be baying for nuclear fire if they were actually nuked themselves, and they might not be satisfied with anything less than “parking lot” effects. At the very least, I think Pyongyang would be thoroughly nuked. The intersection of a few dozen Mach stems would do the trick, although the fallout wouldn’t be trivial for anyone downwind, like China or RoK.
Mutually Assured Destruction relies on the assumption of rational actors though, which we arguably do not have in power.
It also relies on perfect information. If one side is convinced they are being attacked, it's all over. There have been a lot of near-misses when it comes to nuclear launches due to bad information.
Right, I mentioned the rational actor bit, although fortunately people have been rational enough so far and in aggregate. I think some leaders with nukes aren't very stable/bright too but I don't think even they are irrational enough to start a nuclear war. If you're alluding to Trump/Un, Trump knows that a first strike against NK would result in a huge and terrible war with China, and Un knows that a first strike would result in his and his country's destruction.
Really I think MAD is the best option for us, given that nuclear technology exists and can't be unlearned from the world. How does one enforce a denuclearized world without military might? The only solution I can think of is something like a mutual carte-blanche to investigate other countries' facilities for evidence of nuclear proliferation. Given that this represents a considerable risk for things like military bases or facilities producing new military technology, I have a hard time believing countries like China, Russia, and the US would be ok with this.
Presumably the idea is that the US lets go of it's nukes, destroys them, feeds them into nuclear reactors, whatever (assuming that's possible, it'd be "positive"). What happens then ? Well, nothing happens, of course. The main thing that happens is that the US can no longer threaten nuclear strikes, either in retaliation, offensive or to defend itself.
This does not affect Russia's nukes. Doesn't affect France's nukes. Doesn't affect NK, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, Israel, ... nukes. But it gives all of these countries a powerful card to play against the US.
In fact the pressure behing not using nukes is partially that the US will retaliate if an attack happens on it's allies (a promise that largely benefits European states against Russia, but not exclusively).
The inevitable result will be that all these countries will increase the pressure they use against everyone else with nukes. Which of course, only works if they back it with nukes. If at any point someone feels sufficiently pressured to prove their nuke capability ... And remember: the governments of these countries, the people that control the nukes are just as unstable, evil, ... as the US government is. In fact, the consensus is that most are worse.
So what is the real alternative to Mutually Assured Destruction ? What would be the consequence of ending it ?
Simple: the alternative is oppression, more of it, and a good increase in the chance of war, maybe nuclear war.
You can't end MAD by simply demanding it ends, you can only make it worse. You can only end it by proposing something better that is actually backed, something that works economically, something that works militarily, something that works in game theory and negotiation theories.
My argument against nuclear power for emerging countries is that, they will repeat the mistakes US (and maybe EU) did before. And old nuclear powers already started dismantling their arsenal (officially at least). It's not a fairness issue.
That's vanishingly unlikely to happen. Nice thought though.
I think there is little argument that North Korea is worse by many metrics than the US.
Not that the US doesn't have it's own share of sins, it does, but at least it doesn't have dynastic dictatorships and provides some measure of freedom for their citizens.
Then again, I live in the US. While there are some things I'd like to see changed in my country, NK having improved military power is definitely not in my interest. Nor is it in the interest of most of the world IMOP.
I was not in support of almost any military adventures (or CIA adventures) of the last 20+ years my country has undertaken, very ashamed, wish it had not happened, voted against, protested against, did not support, it happened anyway. But I would support action against the North Korean regime if it came to it. They truly are dangerous to a world order that somewhat works for millions of people.
Different rules for us and for our enemies of the moment
I don't want to be reductive, but isn't this obvious?
While I'd rather there were no nuclear weapons, there are some regimes that I trust more than others to have some technologies. Is it unreasonable to think that?
I think everyone thinks that. We just cannot all agree on who to trust and since we cannot agree it turns into an argument over who gets to make the decision of who can or cannot have them. Which will never end.
You have to change your point of view, from the North Korean point of view it is obviously better if they have the nukes because they don't trust the USA. If you think it would be okay for the USA to blow up a North Korean reactor to prevent them from producing more Plutonium then it would be equally legitimate for North Korea to blow up US nuclear facilities. It is not impossible to justify applying different rules to different countries but you have to be careful to not simply assume you are right or better or stronger.
Like it or not the US has at least the capacity to handle nukes with responsibility and to produce “safe” nukes.
It’s also has a well defined and stable chain of command and government.
The reason the world shakes when India and Pakistan are squabbling is because thier nukes are not up to standards they likely have less failsafe than what the US had during WW2, they lack the required central command structure and launch capability lies within the hands of field commanders it’s quite different than what the established nuclear powers have.
Furthermore, there's an inherent instability to a less developed nuclear state, specifically one that lacks a credible second strike capability.
In such a state, if nuclear delivery vehicles could conceivably be taken out in a first strike by an opponent, it is essential that everything be done to prevent that from being possible.
Notably, this means compressing the detection-to-launch schedule as much as possible. Which in turn usually means allowing battlefield commanders to launch under certain conditions.
It also pushes them to strike first since that would be their only opportunity.
If your nukes are labeled use it or lose it you will use them and hope for the best.
This isn’t true - the fissile material is kept well separated from the launch vehicles in Pakistan. Tactical assemblies are still on the drawing board.
It's partially true the US pays them to keep the warheads separated and hopes that it pays the Generals more than the Taliban does and with what has been happening to the Pakistani army in the past 10 years there isn't much difference between many of them and the Taliban anymore.
But those warheads are not what we in the west would define as warheads they are much closer to the cartoon version of a nuke you would imagine.
All their missiles are based on N. Korean or Chinese designs with the Shaheen 1 being the only one who's actually in somewhat operational ready condition.
The Shaheen has a range of only about 900KM and with a nuclear warhead that range is estimated to be closer to 700-750KM which means to use their Nukes the pakistanis would have to drive them to the border pretty much.
Beyond that they have the Shaheen 2 has about 2000 KM and is a 2 stage missile It's basically 2 Shaheen 1's Chinese M9's but it's not clear what it's operational status is or how much trust Pakistan has in the system.
Again, I don't see where this information comes from. Who knows so much about their warheads, how they are stored, U.S. programs to finance that (which sound secret, but I don't know that), etc.?
Again from your point of view. They probably trust the chain of command in the USA as little as you trust theirs. Wo don't trust them and they don't trust us. If we were really only worried that they build sub-standard nukes, we could always just sell or gift them better technology.
Again this has nothing to do with a subjective point of view this is something that can be objectively quantified with metrics.
Most things in life can be objectively quantified and evaluated despite the spirit of relativism which is way to prevelant today.
North Korea is an objectively horrid regime and I would not wish it on my worse enemies to live under such conditions.
We aren’t arguing about who’s better Belgium or Norway places like North Korea is about as black and white as it can get.
And it’s also a huge fallacy that from their point of view it’s XYZ anyone in Norh Korea that is capable of having a point of view knows exactly where they stand and why they do the things they and what the situation is.
First note that I said the it is not impossible to treat different countries differently. I will also grant you that North Korea is objectively a worse place than the USA for the people living there. But we are debating whether North Korea should be allowed to have nuclear weapons, not how they run their country or treat their people. If the USA can justify their nuclear weapons with foreign threads, then North Korea can certainly do the same.
If we still conclude they should not or must not have nuclear weapons, and I tend to agree with that, then we have essentially three options. We can nicely ask them to stop and optionally offer some kind of reward or compensation if they do what we want. If that does not work, we can impose sanctions on them and we can do so without any additional justification [1], if we don't want to trade with them because they have nuclear weapons, that is our decision alone, it does not really matter what our reasons are. Obviously some objective justification would make us look much better.
If that still doesn't work we can either either give up and let them have nuclear weapons or we can use force against them, whether sabotaging centrifuges or bombing reactors. But now we need a solid justification for our actions unless we are willing to accept that the same actions against us would be equally justified. Also note that we are just eroding the sovereignty of countries.
We could treat the world as a kind of democracy, if most countries [2] agree that a specific thing is not okay, then we are legitimized to enforce this with all means necessary. We may or may not be able to objectively argue that nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea are an exceptional danger but that doesn't really matter because our legitimization comes from the majority vote and not from any good reasons. It would of course again make us look much better if we could come up with some reasonable objective justifications for why some countries may and others may not have nuclear weapons.
There are of course also implications here, for example if the majority of the countries decided to ban nuclear weapons altogether [3], then any state including the USA would have to give up their nuclear weapons.
[1] There are of course complications, we may, for example, very well punish innocent citizens for the actions of a few at the top of the state.
[2] Maybe weighted by population or something along that line.
And no there shouldn't be a debate if N. Korea should be allowed to attain nuclear weapons this isn't an issue for debate, my stance on that would be similar even if it was Iceland but if we were talking about them I would at least humor the possibility.
North Korea is and I can't believe I'm using Trump's rhetoric to put it mildly a shit hole run by a an absolute turd and that is if we are lucky and he actually has a grip on the situation.
It's also a fallacy that some world wide consensus or justification is either needed, warranted or even wanted. The majority of the world's population doesn't care about N. Korea, nor should they.
The only consensus that matters in this regards is the one between NATO, Russia, China, S. Korea and Japan with a warm FYSA to India and Pakistan.
It's late here and maybe I am just too tired, but I am unable to figure out where you think the legitimization to blow up a North Korean reactor - correct me if you would not actually support this, you never said this, I just assume this based on what you wrote - would come from. I am not even sure whether we are really disagreeing. You said that you have no trust in their chain of command and technology and that may be valid reasons to not want them to have nuclear weapons, at least if we manage to make that judgment objective and I will grant you that we could do so. But were does the legitimization to enforce this desire with force against a sovereign country come from? It can't just be that NATO, Russia, and China want it, that would just be law of the strongest and would therefore be exactly the reason why North Korea would want their own nuclear weapons.
USA wants nuclear weapons because because it’s the USA, it wants them as a tool to poke the world with to get whatever it wants and it wants them to be able to perpetuate their unhanded regime.
Your statement can be made to fit any country that has a nuclear arsenal or wants one.
USA and it's NATO lackies are bullies, pure and simple. USA wants to move it's embassy to Jerusalem, most countries don't agree and USA tries to bully them in the UN. Just because you're the biggest kid in school doesn't give you a justification for bullying smaller ones.
But conversely, I'd lay money on North Korea wanting nuclear weapons just to piss off the USA, and see what the USA will respond with. It's pretty standard tactics for enemies to annoy each other and Trump and Kim are the worst kind of idiots in charge of a country because neither one is willing to back down. All this boils down to is a dick measuring contest between the USA and NK, nothing more.
Do you actually have an argument about nuclear proliferation or are you simply taking a jab at the Americans? I'm not an American the Embassy issue isn't relevant to this topic at all nor does it invalidates the stance that we should prevent further nuclear proliferation.
Claiming that this is some dick waving contest between the US and NK is ridiculous, and comparing Trump to Kim is simply vile.
N. Korea is objectively about as evil as a regime can get it killed millions of it's own people and will continue to do so for no benefit other than the perpetuation of a single family line.
The problem with this argument is that you don't follow it to it's logical conclusion :
That NK should be destroyed.
For the good of the people living there. That would massively improve the lives of the people living there. Instead you're using this argument to both strengthen the NK government's position AND weaken opposition to it. This does not just make the lives of the NK people worse, but everyone's lives worse.
So truly sorry, but morally, the US and Europe both have the right to bully the NK government AND in fact it is actually a good thing that it does so. That is, if you see the goal as improving people's lives.
If your goal is to enforce some absolutist standard of behavior and damn the consequences, then ... well frankly, I'm sure a USA Taliban party probably exists. Why don't you go to their info evening ?
I would blow it up today if it wasn’t hot, and there was a way to do it without Seoul getting pummeled and starting a confrontation with China.
Do you see that this is exactly why North Korea would want to have nuclear weapons? Because you would be willing to use force against them to bend them to your will? How would they be sure that you would not consider the same for other issues than the nuclear weapons themselves?
What exactly is the value of consulting Gambia or Bhutan?
The value is not in what any random country has to say about this specific case, the value is in the fact that it provides a legitimization for the actions taken. If you simply blow up a North Korean reactor because you think it is the right thing to do, then that also gives North Korea wide latitude to do things they think are the right thing to do.
If on the other hand most of the world agrees that North Korea should not have nuclear weapons, then we could justify taking actions against North Korea while not at the same time being forced to accept North Korean actions as equally legitimate because they lack this consensus by the world.
Do you see that this is exactly why North Korea would want to have nuclear weapons? Because you would be willing to use force against them to bend them to your will? How would they be sure that you would not consider the same for other issues than the nuclear weapons themselves?
North Korea wants nukes to be able to continue to act like North Korea, if North Korea acted like NZ no one would give 2 fucks and I find it appalling that you apply relativism to this issue.
North Korea is an objective blight of a country that forces it's own people to undergo unimaginable suffering and giving them any more power isn't something we should be even considering.
Not every story has 2 sides.
The value is not in what any random country has to say about this specific case, the value is in the fact that it provides a legitimization for the actions taken. If you simply blow up a North Korean reactor because you think it is the right thing to do, then that also gives North Korea wide latitude to do things they think are the right thing to do.
If on the other hand most of the world agrees that North Korea should not have nuclear weapons, then we could justify taking actions against North Korea while not at the same time being forced to accept North Korean actions as equally legitimate because they lack this consensus by the world.
There is no value in a meaningless consensus.
There is a reason why we have the UN security council and that is because the UNGA and UN bodies that are based on geographic groups are essentially a meet up for tyrants.
UN votes are constantly bought and it's not only 3rd world countries that are up for grabs, China has recently bought a Greek vote with it's investments.
There isn't anything "inherently" wrong with that as that is how things work on the world stage but somethings should not be played with.
But lets say you can't buy their vote would it their vote even matter? A county like say Gambia has no capabilities to weight in on a situation like this, they can't verify the situation independently, they don't even have the resources to perform a proper cost benefit analysis from a military, political and economic point of view.
You don't consult you entire social circle about a medical treatment you consult with medical professionals and maybe a few close individuals with high stakes in both the outcome and the process.
There is a big difference between a unilateral strike and consulting with regional and world powers, however consulting the 190 odd UN members isn't going to achieve any results.
Lets see, the Cuban Missile Crisis is a nice place to start.
Set in motion in part because USA had placed missiles in Turkey and USSR attempted to do the same in Cuba.
Never mind having launch codes set to all zeros for a number of years.
And more than a few soiled pants moments where live nukes have been mismanaged (like having a B-52 fly across the nation with a live one in the bay, because someone got it and a training bomb confused).
Sorry to say but USA all too often come across as teenagers seen by foreign eyes.
There was never any time where any one could launch the missiles alone with or without the final authorization codes coming through the chain of command.
And in some sense you are making my point for me, even if we take the US as a bunch of drunk teenagers N. Korea would be worse, not only that they have complete disregard of human life anyone is too fucking scared to say anything that isn't "yes supreme leader the missile you've designed works perfectly".
This is the problem with such regimes that they essentially are biased against any shred of competence. That Sacha Baron Cohen movie was somewhat dead on the money in this regard when 'Aladeen' executes the guy incharge of the missile system because it wasn't pointy enough.
Both Saddam and Gaddafi acted similarly with their own weapon programs especially in the latter years which is one of the reasons they got no where.
The interference from Israeli, US and probably 20 other intelligence agencies didn't really help the situation.
However North Korea is an intelligence gathering nightmare it's a closed up ethnostate where local population has essentially been brainwashed there is little to no outside communication there are almost no embassies or diplomatic missions so running any humint assets in country is pretty much impossible.
Which is somewhat scary since there is little to no warning when N. Korea does something essentially all the intelligence is coming from either SIGINT intercepts or VISINT gathered from orbit which limits the insight one can gather this is quite different than what was going on in the cold war.
Ironically spying is on the top of the list of reasons to have a diplomatic relationship with another country because running any intelligence operation becomes much harder to near impossible without an embassy.
The US operated reactors to produce weapons plutonium at the Hanford site in Washington state and the Savannah River site in South Carolina. The last Hanford reactor making weapons plutonium shut down in 1987 and the last of the Savannah River plutonium reactors shut down in 1988.
Commercial power reactors like those used for electricity in the US produce plutonium that has an isotopic composition unfavorable for weapons. It has more plutonium 240 than weapons grade material. The high spontaneous fission rate of Pu-240 makes it difficult to produce reliable weapons that reach full yield without pre-detonation.
It's fair to criticize the US for holding on to its old stockpiles of weapons plutonium. It's not sensible to criticize it for continuing to make weapons plutonium, because it hasn't done that in 30 years.
Don't these media clowns always point out the fact that picture taken during the night of asia shows North Korea as the darkest country? And now that they want to do something about it, it's a problem too?
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] thread"It has the potential to make 25 to 30 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a small town. The plant could also potentially produce about 20 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year"
A bit further down the article says:
"Analysts also found some evidence that could support North Korea’s assertion that the new reactor would be used for power generation. Satellite images appeared to show that power lines and a transmission tower had been erected around the site."
Without weapons inspectors, or some other outside group taking a look, there is no way to know for sure.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239 : "[C]ommercial nuclear power reactor designs [...] could have machinery added that would permit U-238 slugs to be placed near the core and changed frequently, or it could be shut down frequently, so proliferation is a concern".
>But the new reactor can also make plutonium
and
>It has the potential to make 25 to 30 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a small town. The plant could also potentially produce about 20 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year, according to the Institute for Science and International Security
I'm not convinced it's for power generation to be honest.
Different rules for us and for our enemies of the moment.... Geopolitics is so much fun.
Do you believe otherwise? Perhaps that it is worth the cost in lives from smaller wars to prevent mass casualties in nuclear ones?
(Adjust the percentage as you see fit. I think that’s a reasonable guess but it’s definitely a guess.)
I think the second one is clearly worse. The idea that nuclear weapons are good because they’ve resulted in peace only makes sense if you think the chances of a nuclear world war are negligible. I don’t think that’s true but some people seem to.
But many people still hang on to their nation as if it were a good thing.
> But many people still hang on to their nation as if it were a good thing.
Compared to being ruled by something akin to the UN? (Not the security council, the full UN.) Absolutely, my nation is a good thing compared to that.
Compared to being ruled by the EU? Maybe even compared to that. (And you wouldn't get something as good as the EU, for the same reasons that the UN wasn't as good as the EU.)
Now, true, not every nation can say that. And we weren't talking about affairs within the nation, but affairs between nations. Still... I'd say that assuming the nation is a bad thing "assumes facts not in evidence", as they say in court.
I agree it would be the best way to prevent war, but a slide into autocracy there could hamstring humanity for centuries.
Even without autocracy, global views are already anti-LGBT, and otherwise do not reflect the progressive values of western democracies.
Plus, actually getting rid of all the nukes would make warfare more attractive, which makes acquiring nukes desirable again. And no nation under threat of total war would rather lose everything than use nuclear weapons. So I don't think the equilibrium of nobody having nukes is at all stable: eventually one country begins to think about warfare, decides they need nukes, creating a power imbalance, causing others to get nukes too.
Though of course the flaw of MAD, or even game theory in general, is that it assumes everybody will be a rational actor. People are people, and if someone stupidly violated MAD against their own self-interest or reasoning on some bizarre hundreds/thousands of years timescale, we could all perish. There is a small but nonzero probability on every single day of our lives that we and everything we know will be destroyed by nuclear weapons. So far that day hasn't come yet, and there's no way of knowing how likely it is. But given that banning nukes on an international scale seems unstable anyway, I guess this is the best we can do.
Although I agree with you regarding your scenario, I think it's inaccurate to assume that the decision to retaliate would only be made after the nukes have landed and the "rubble" cleared. The debates and decisions would be made in the minutes after the launch. Considering there would be no way to know whether the attack was perhaps the start of some more-international conflict (e.g. an unlikely NK-Russia or NK-China joint first strike), and considering such an attack would likely coincide with a land invasion of SK, a retaliatory strike might be necessary. Hopefully if this situation ever plays out in real life the US will opt to use low-yield, low-fallout nukes targeting military facilities with minimal civilian casualties.
It also relies on perfect information. If one side is convinced they are being attacked, it's all over. There have been a lot of near-misses when it comes to nuclear launches due to bad information.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
What does that quote have to do with MAD, the doctrine specifically designed to prevent tit for tat behavior from escalating into a full blown war?
The perfect information point is important too. However, historically we've still been extremely lucky. When false alarms or faulty data have indicated that another country had used nukes against the other, the defender has never fought back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Aerospace_Defen... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
Really I think MAD is the best option for us, given that nuclear technology exists and can't be unlearned from the world. How does one enforce a denuclearized world without military might? The only solution I can think of is something like a mutual carte-blanche to investigate other countries' facilities for evidence of nuclear proliferation. Given that this represents a considerable risk for things like military bases or facilities producing new military technology, I have a hard time believing countries like China, Russia, and the US would be ok with this.
As you said, historically we've been extremely lucky. What happens if next time there's a false alarm, someone actually retaliates?
Presumably the idea is that the US lets go of it's nukes, destroys them, feeds them into nuclear reactors, whatever (assuming that's possible, it'd be "positive"). What happens then ? Well, nothing happens, of course. The main thing that happens is that the US can no longer threaten nuclear strikes, either in retaliation, offensive or to defend itself.
This does not affect Russia's nukes. Doesn't affect France's nukes. Doesn't affect NK, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, Israel, ... nukes. But it gives all of these countries a powerful card to play against the US.
In fact the pressure behing not using nukes is partially that the US will retaliate if an attack happens on it's allies (a promise that largely benefits European states against Russia, but not exclusively).
The inevitable result will be that all these countries will increase the pressure they use against everyone else with nukes. Which of course, only works if they back it with nukes. If at any point someone feels sufficiently pressured to prove their nuke capability ... And remember: the governments of these countries, the people that control the nukes are just as unstable, evil, ... as the US government is. In fact, the consensus is that most are worse.
So what is the real alternative to Mutually Assured Destruction ? What would be the consequence of ending it ?
Simple: the alternative is oppression, more of it, and a good increase in the chance of war, maybe nuclear war.
You can't end MAD by simply demanding it ends, you can only make it worse. You can only end it by proposing something better that is actually backed, something that works economically, something that works militarily, something that works in game theory and negotiation theories.
I think there is little argument that North Korea is worse by many metrics than the US.
Not that the US doesn't have it's own share of sins, it does, but at least it doesn't have dynastic dictatorships and provides some measure of freedom for their citizens.
Then again, I live in the US. While there are some things I'd like to see changed in my country, NK having improved military power is definitely not in my interest. Nor is it in the interest of most of the world IMOP.
I was not in support of almost any military adventures (or CIA adventures) of the last 20+ years my country has undertaken, very ashamed, wish it had not happened, voted against, protested against, did not support, it happened anyway. But I would support action against the North Korean regime if it came to it. They truly are dangerous to a world order that somewhat works for millions of people.
I don't want to be reductive, but isn't this obvious?
While I'd rather there were no nuclear weapons, there are some regimes that I trust more than others to have some technologies. Is it unreasonable to think that?
The reason the world shakes when India and Pakistan are squabbling is because thier nukes are not up to standards they likely have less failsafe than what the US had during WW2, they lack the required central command structure and launch capability lies within the hands of field commanders it’s quite different than what the established nuclear powers have.
This whole moral relativism has to stop.
In such a state, if nuclear delivery vehicles could conceivably be taken out in a first strike by an opponent, it is essential that everything be done to prevent that from being possible.
Notably, this means compressing the detection-to-launch schedule as much as possible. Which in turn usually means allowing battlefield commanders to launch under certain conditions.
Where does this information come from? I doubt Pakistan is allowing anyone to inspect their weapons.
But those warheads are not what we in the west would define as warheads they are much closer to the cartoon version of a nuke you would imagine.
All their missiles are based on N. Korean or Chinese designs with the Shaheen 1 being the only one who's actually in somewhat operational ready condition.
The Shaheen has a range of only about 900KM and with a nuclear warhead that range is estimated to be closer to 700-750KM which means to use their Nukes the pakistanis would have to drive them to the border pretty much.
Beyond that they have the Shaheen 2 has about 2000 KM and is a 2 stage missile It's basically 2 Shaheen 1's Chinese M9's but it's not clear what it's operational status is or how much trust Pakistan has in the system.
Most things in life can be objectively quantified and evaluated despite the spirit of relativism which is way to prevelant today.
North Korea is an objectively horrid regime and I would not wish it on my worse enemies to live under such conditions.
We aren’t arguing about who’s better Belgium or Norway places like North Korea is about as black and white as it can get.
And it’s also a huge fallacy that from their point of view it’s XYZ anyone in Norh Korea that is capable of having a point of view knows exactly where they stand and why they do the things they and what the situation is.
If we still conclude they should not or must not have nuclear weapons, and I tend to agree with that, then we have essentially three options. We can nicely ask them to stop and optionally offer some kind of reward or compensation if they do what we want. If that does not work, we can impose sanctions on them and we can do so without any additional justification [1], if we don't want to trade with them because they have nuclear weapons, that is our decision alone, it does not really matter what our reasons are. Obviously some objective justification would make us look much better.
If that still doesn't work we can either either give up and let them have nuclear weapons or we can use force against them, whether sabotaging centrifuges or bombing reactors. But now we need a solid justification for our actions unless we are willing to accept that the same actions against us would be equally justified. Also note that we are just eroding the sovereignty of countries.
We could treat the world as a kind of democracy, if most countries [2] agree that a specific thing is not okay, then we are legitimized to enforce this with all means necessary. We may or may not be able to objectively argue that nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea are an exceptional danger but that doesn't really matter because our legitimization comes from the majority vote and not from any good reasons. It would of course again make us look much better if we could come up with some reasonable objective justifications for why some countries may and others may not have nuclear weapons.
There are of course also implications here, for example if the majority of the countries decided to ban nuclear weapons altogether [3], then any state including the USA would have to give up their nuclear weapons.
[1] There are of course complications, we may, for example, very well punish innocent citizens for the actions of a few at the top of the state.
[2] Maybe weighted by population or something along that line.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_N...
And no there shouldn't be a debate if N. Korea should be allowed to attain nuclear weapons this isn't an issue for debate, my stance on that would be similar even if it was Iceland but if we were talking about them I would at least humor the possibility.
North Korea is and I can't believe I'm using Trump's rhetoric to put it mildly a shit hole run by a an absolute turd and that is if we are lucky and he actually has a grip on the situation.
It's also a fallacy that some world wide consensus or justification is either needed, warranted or even wanted. The majority of the world's population doesn't care about N. Korea, nor should they. The only consensus that matters in this regards is the one between NATO, Russia, China, S. Korea and Japan with a warm FYSA to India and Pakistan.
Your statement can be made to fit any country that has a nuclear arsenal or wants one. USA and it's NATO lackies are bullies, pure and simple. USA wants to move it's embassy to Jerusalem, most countries don't agree and USA tries to bully them in the UN. Just because you're the biggest kid in school doesn't give you a justification for bullying smaller ones. But conversely, I'd lay money on North Korea wanting nuclear weapons just to piss off the USA, and see what the USA will respond with. It's pretty standard tactics for enemies to annoy each other and Trump and Kim are the worst kind of idiots in charge of a country because neither one is willing to back down. All this boils down to is a dick measuring contest between the USA and NK, nothing more.
Claiming that this is some dick waving contest between the US and NK is ridiculous, and comparing Trump to Kim is simply vile. N. Korea is objectively about as evil as a regime can get it killed millions of it's own people and will continue to do so for no benefit other than the perpetuation of a single family line.
That NK should be destroyed.
For the good of the people living there. That would massively improve the lives of the people living there. Instead you're using this argument to both strengthen the NK government's position AND weaken opposition to it. This does not just make the lives of the NK people worse, but everyone's lives worse.
So truly sorry, but morally, the US and Europe both have the right to bully the NK government AND in fact it is actually a good thing that it does so. That is, if you see the goal as improving people's lives.
If your goal is to enforce some absolutist standard of behavior and damn the consequences, then ... well frankly, I'm sure a USA Taliban party probably exists. Why don't you go to their info evening ?
Do you see that this is exactly why North Korea would want to have nuclear weapons? Because you would be willing to use force against them to bend them to your will? How would they be sure that you would not consider the same for other issues than the nuclear weapons themselves?
What exactly is the value of consulting Gambia or Bhutan?
The value is not in what any random country has to say about this specific case, the value is in the fact that it provides a legitimization for the actions taken. If you simply blow up a North Korean reactor because you think it is the right thing to do, then that also gives North Korea wide latitude to do things they think are the right thing to do.
If on the other hand most of the world agrees that North Korea should not have nuclear weapons, then we could justify taking actions against North Korea while not at the same time being forced to accept North Korean actions as equally legitimate because they lack this consensus by the world.
North Korea wants nukes to be able to continue to act like North Korea, if North Korea acted like NZ no one would give 2 fucks and I find it appalling that you apply relativism to this issue. North Korea is an objective blight of a country that forces it's own people to undergo unimaginable suffering and giving them any more power isn't something we should be even considering. Not every story has 2 sides.
The value is not in what any random country has to say about this specific case, the value is in the fact that it provides a legitimization for the actions taken. If you simply blow up a North Korean reactor because you think it is the right thing to do, then that also gives North Korea wide latitude to do things they think are the right thing to do.
If on the other hand most of the world agrees that North Korea should not have nuclear weapons, then we could justify taking actions against North Korea while not at the same time being forced to accept North Korean actions as equally legitimate because they lack this consensus by the world.
There is no value in a meaningless consensus. There is a reason why we have the UN security council and that is because the UNGA and UN bodies that are based on geographic groups are essentially a meet up for tyrants.
UN votes are constantly bought and it's not only 3rd world countries that are up for grabs, China has recently bought a Greek vote with it's investments.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/18/greece-eu-crit...
There isn't anything "inherently" wrong with that as that is how things work on the world stage but somethings should not be played with.
But lets say you can't buy their vote would it their vote even matter? A county like say Gambia has no capabilities to weight in on a situation like this, they can't verify the situation independently, they don't even have the resources to perform a proper cost benefit analysis from a military, political and economic point of view.
You don't consult you entire social circle about a medical treatment you consult with medical professionals and maybe a few close individuals with high stakes in both the outcome and the process.
There is a big difference between a unilateral strike and consulting with regional and world powers, however consulting the 190 odd UN members isn't going to achieve any results.
Set in motion in part because USA had placed missiles in Turkey and USSR attempted to do the same in Cuba.
Never mind having launch codes set to all zeros for a number of years.
And more than a few soiled pants moments where live nukes have been mismanaged (like having a B-52 fly across the nation with a live one in the bay, because someone got it and a training bomb confused).
Sorry to say but USA all too often come across as teenagers seen by foreign eyes.
The launch code anecdote isn't actually true http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/21/air-force-swears-our-nuk...
There was never any time where any one could launch the missiles alone with or without the final authorization codes coming through the chain of command.
And in some sense you are making my point for me, even if we take the US as a bunch of drunk teenagers N. Korea would be worse, not only that they have complete disregard of human life anyone is too fucking scared to say anything that isn't "yes supreme leader the missile you've designed works perfectly".
This is the problem with such regimes that they essentially are biased against any shred of competence. That Sacha Baron Cohen movie was somewhat dead on the money in this regard when 'Aladeen' executes the guy incharge of the missile system because it wasn't pointy enough.
Both Saddam and Gaddafi acted similarly with their own weapon programs especially in the latter years which is one of the reasons they got no where.
The interference from Israeli, US and probably 20 other intelligence agencies didn't really help the situation.
However North Korea is an intelligence gathering nightmare it's a closed up ethnostate where local population has essentially been brainwashed there is little to no outside communication there are almost no embassies or diplomatic missions so running any humint assets in country is pretty much impossible.
Which is somewhat scary since there is little to no warning when N. Korea does something essentially all the intelligence is coming from either SIGINT intercepts or VISINT gathered from orbit which limits the insight one can gather this is quite different than what was going on in the cold war. Ironically spying is on the top of the list of reasons to have a diplomatic relationship with another country because running any intelligence operation becomes much harder to near impossible without an embassy.
Counterpoint: nuclear weapons have forced countries to find alternatives to war. And have likely saved more lives as a result.
Commercial power reactors like those used for electricity in the US produce plutonium that has an isotopic composition unfavorable for weapons. It has more plutonium 240 than weapons grade material. The high spontaneous fission rate of Pu-240 makes it difficult to produce reliable weapons that reach full yield without pre-detonation.
It's fair to criticize the US for holding on to its old stockpiles of weapons plutonium. It's not sensible to criticize it for continuing to make weapons plutonium, because it hasn't done that in 30 years.
Cities destroyed by the US : Hiroshima, Nagasaki...
I wonder whose weapons and nuclear reactors we should be worried about.