Know Nukes
NYT article on a couple of new learned tomes about the history and current problems of nuclear proliferation. Apparently much more difficult that Oppenheimer envisioned it would be. Heavily reliant on the spilling of secrets. France and China are singled out. A.Q. Khan is said to have been overrated. Iran … barely gets a mention and then with a somewhat absurd quote:
China’s … aid to Pakistan helped A.Q. Khan, a rogue Pakistani metallurgist who sold nuclear gear on the global black market. The authors compare Dr. Khan to “a used-car dealer” happy to sell his complex machinery to suckers who had no idea how hard it was to make fuel for a bomb.
…
Mr. Reed and Mr. Stillman see politics — not spies or military ambitions — as the primary force in the development and spread of nuclear arms. States repeatedly stole and leaked secrets because they saw such action as in their geopolitical interest.
Beijing continues to be a major threat, they argue. While urging global responses like better intelligence, better inspections and better safeguarding of nuclear materials, they also see generational change in China as a great hope in plugging the atomic leaks.
“We must continue to support human rights within Chinese society, not just as an American export, but because it is the dream of the Tiananmen Square generation,” they write. “In time those youngsters could well prevail, and the world will be a less contentious place.”
“In time …” is a big enough strait to sail a nuclear-armed Chinese fleet through. That was Thomas C. Reed, a veteran of the Livermore weapons laboratory in California and a former secretary of the Air Force, and Danny B. Stillman, former director of intelligence at Los Alamos, have teamed up in “The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation.”
Meanwhile, here’s Stephen M. Younger, the former head of nuclear arms at Los Alamos and former director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency at the Pentagon, author of “The Bomb: A New History.”
And he, too, emphasizes the importance of political sticks and carrots to halting and perhaps reversing the spread of nuclear arms. Iran, he says, is not fated to go nuclear.
“Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina and Brazil all flirted with nuclear programs, and all decided to abandon them,” he notes. “Nuclear proliferation is not unidirectional — given the right conditions and incentives, it is possible for a nation to give up its nuclear aspirations.”
I don’t know what the full context of that remark is, and it may not be Younger’s fault, but as presented it is patently ridiculous.
Sweden, Switzerland and Brazil are not Iran. Argentina, it’s had border issues with Chile and 20-odd years ago there was that Falklands thing. Pretty bad, the product of a military junat seeking to change the subject. Still, Argentina as Iran? Or more to the poiint, Iran as Argentina?
Iran, one more time, is an extremist Islamic theocracy and a state sponsor of terrorism. It meddles heavily and murderously in the affairs of its neighbors, including involvement in the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Lebanon. It seeks to become the regional power, dominating the world’s richest oil-producing region. It sees the United States as its chief rival, currently flanking it and thwarting its wishes. It’s president also has expressed a desire to wipe Israel off the map. Iran insists, despite evidence to the contrary, that it is seeking only peaceful nuclear technology. Iran has resisted or rejected all efforts to curtail its program.
In fairness, it is possible for Iran, with the right combination of carrots and sticks to be pursuaded to give up its nuclear aspirations. But the incentives cannot simply be political. Or financial. They have to include the very credible threat of military action. Even then, the threat may not be enough.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:22 pm Comments (0) on Tuesday, December 9, 2008
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