The Lesson from Libya: Get Nuclear Weapons
tinyrevolution.com
tinyrevolution.com
That sounds about right...
Makes you wonder if the world would be a more peaceful, but more dictatorial and regimented place if everyone had nukes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Waltz
That said, there are two core ironies in the politics of proliferation that make this suggestion uncomfortable. The first is that at least at present the most vehement opponents of nuclear proliferation are often the most vocal critics of gun control. So few people who talk about the importance (or insignificance) of deterrence really seem to believe it logically.
The second irony is that the Nash equilibrium for rational-actor based models of deterrence is not peace, but random violence. The reason for this is that a certain amount of "demonstrated irrationality" is required to make the prospect of mutual assured destruction convincing to all players. Which means that if the world were truly rational we would expect some use of nuclear devices. And yet we don't see any, or haven't seen any yet.
All of which leads us to the strange observation that nuclear proliferation seems to bring peace, but not because of a rational deterrent effect.
only if the Kargil War(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War), which took place when both countries had nukes is ignored.
I am not contesting your larger point. Just reacting to "brought peace" which is not quite true. Nukes do prevent total, all out war to the death between Pakistan and India at present.
But a declared war in which soldiers die, and Pakistan's ISI sponsoring continuous terrorist attacks in India, and India supporting Anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan is not really "peace" (By contrast, England and France are at peace with each other, say, though they have fought each other many times in the past). What exists between India and Pakistan is just a different form of war. The relations between Pakistan and India are at best described as "no war, no peace"
Do you have a citation for that? I'd be interested to read further about it.
http://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/person_detail.php...
Even if nuclear and chemical weapons were a pretext to attack Saddam Hussein, the reason the US attacked him was, ostensibly, because he was a threat (defined as vaguely as possible).
The reason why Libya was attacked was that Gaddafi is also a threat.
That Gaddafi was rehabilitated at the behest of international business interests doesn't mean that he was any less of a murderous bastard or any less of a social pariah.
In so far as the lesson is "if you're a douchebag (as defined by the UN) the international community may try to pwn your ass", then, sure one might view nuclear and chemical weapons as a deterrent against international attacks.
However it should be carefully noted that in spite of the fact that the Bush administration and a number of world governments asserted and believed that Saddam Hussein had chemical and/or biological weapons, they attacked him anyway.
In other words, even possessing these weapons weren't a deterrent against attack by the US.
Also, please note that giving up nuclear and chemical weapons were never promised as some sort of carte blanche get out of jail free card from the international community. All international agreements are ultimately contingent, the question is how much shit has to change between now and the point where your agreement would fall apart that dictates how strong and resilient your agreement is. Gaddafi's no chump, he knows nobody likes him, or he wouldn't be such a paranoid mofo.
Likewise, Iran and North Korea know how distrusted they are by NATO nations.
North Korea is a particular instructive example, as they did go through a period of disarmament and verification, only to renege on their agreements. They got what they wanted from the international community, and after their incentives changed (presumably things weren't as dire as they were before), they told everyone to go fuck themselves.
> the reason the US attacked him was (Hussein), ostensibly, because he was a threat (defined as vaguely as possible)
> The reason why Libya was attacked was that Gaddafi is also a threat
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So why hasn't Ahmadinejad been attacked ... he is so much of a 'threat' (defined as vaguely as possible) that he makes surrounding Arab states nervous ... (see wikileaks for reference)
> However it should be carefully noted that in spite of the fact that the Bush administration and a number of world governments asserted and believed that Saddam Hussein had chemical and/or biological weapons, they attacked him anyway.
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Yep ... but he didn't have nuclear weapons did he?
>In other words, even possessing these weapons weren't a deterrent against attack by the US.
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I like how you tiptoe around that last bit about nuclear weapons
The central point of the article is pretty solid ... if you have nuclear weapons or even look like you have them, America isn't coming after you.
The part about them getting you to disarm so they can attack you is a bit of a stretch though.
Because we're already involved in two land wars in the middle east and asia?
Because Iran has at least tepid Russian support? Because Iran has a large enough army and national spirit that a war in Iran would be extraordinarily costly and long ranging?
The proclivity for removing repressive regimes does not guarantee that the international community will attack, just as the renunciation of nuclear weapons isn't a guarantee that a repressive regime will not be attacked. That's why i'm so skeptical of all of these moral hazard arguments on the international stage. International politics are really complicated, and there are a lot of factors involved in decision making.
> I like how you tiptoe around that last bit about nuclear weapons
Well caught, but i still think i disagree. It's true that the US hasn't ever attacked or declared war on a nuclear state (well, i'm not sure what the engagement between N and S Korea last year should be called), so we're in hypothetical territory on that subject. But one could equally ask why we haven't attacked Myanmar in spite of their horrendous human rights record, and the answer is simply that China is their sponsor. It's not because of their lack of nuclear arms.
Nobody really thinks that anyone in the Bush administration actually believed this, right?
Aid was cut off briefly over 30 years ago when their nuclear program became public, but started right back up again so they could back the Taliban against the Soviets for us.
Pakistan's government publicly condemns these attacks but has secretly shared intelligence with Americans[8] and also allegedly allowed the drones to operate from Shamsi airfield in Pakistan.[9]
There are a lot of people out there who want to stick it to the U.S. just for playing a power game regardless of grounds for said power game. These people will always find a way to make the power game look bad, since by its very nature power is susceptible to such criticism. At this point, I am just starting to ignore these people because I have learned that the number one reason people criticize someone exercising power is because they want the power exclusively for themselves.
Power is neither good nor bad; power is power. What should be criticized is brutality.
Though occasionally, you do get bushwhacked - the thought process goes like this: "WTF? My country is bombing Libya? google... google... Huh, my country is bombing Libya."
Analysis - I think the article makes some good points, but the conclusion is overly simplistic.
In terms of securing their current government, a regime hostile to the USA needs to look at a few factors, such as:
1. Are they on the US leadership's radar already?
2. Does US leadership believe the USA has enough resources to to make war on them without excessively compromising the economy or military capability elsewhere?
3. Could further arming provide a casus belli for an administration that already wants to make war?
4. What's the US leadership's current geopolitical strategy for the area?
North Korea is interesting because they have the fourth largest military in the world, and they've got ballistic missiles pointed at two of America's closest allies in Asia - Japan and South Korea. A coalition could absolutely defeat North Korea, but at huge potential costs, nuclear weapons aside. So in their case, yes, arming with nuclear weapons probably helps their security, especially while America is already in two deep military conflicts.
(Note: I'm being descriptive here, not proscriptive. Obviously I think North Korea having nuclear weapons is a bad thing)
On the flipside a lot of petty regimes like Cuba and Venezuela are mildly hostile to the USA but not on American leadership's radar as a threat and the American people would be against a war with them. In their case, arming with nuclear weapons would be a very dangerous gamble - they're basically safe from any U.S. offensive action at this point, but you'd be provoking a still very fierce tiger if you tried to get nuclear arms. Especially Cuba - I think American discovery of nuclear armament in Cuba would result in a near instant invasion.
The regimes and governments with the most interesting questions to ask themselves are the ones that are loosely aligned with the USA right now, but stand a very good chance of having hostile relations later. My gut reaction is that places like Saudi Arabian and Pakistan become more domestically secure against American action with nuclear weapons, but arming is risky - if American intelligence, leadership, or media happened to discover some blatant financing or backing of terrorism or insurgency around the same time the nuclear program was discovered, they might find themselves occupied. They're already next door to regions we're at war, so it doesn't even open another front and the key supply chains are already in place... U.S. leadership might decide they'd prefer to install more explicitly friendly leadership in those places if they tried to arm up.
In regards to Iran, I think it's point #4 - "What's the US leadership's current geopolitical strategy for the area?" My take is that the American leadership really wants the Iranian leadership out, but they think it's going to happen organically pretty soon and don't want to give the regime an external enemy to fight for unity's sake. Though, I think some of the more public war-dogging Iran was doing during Bush's administration was crazy - that administration seemed to really want to attack Iran, especially if operations had gone more smoothly in Iraq and Afghanistan.