North Korea Is Starting Up a Nuclear Reactor
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
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.
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.
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.
"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.