You take the high road and we'll take the low road
Just One Minute contrasts Jimmy Carter's history of how he stopped North Korea's bomb with a New York Times account of a second nuclear program which Mr. Carter's efforts left wholly unaffected. Former President Carter described how he stopped Kim Jong Il in his tracks in an op-ed in the New York Times:
Carter claims he stops the bomb
Responding to an invitation from President Kim Il-sung of North Korea, and with the approval of President Bill Clinton, I went to Pyongyang and negotiated an agreement under which North Korea would cease its nuclear program at Yongbyon and permit inspectors from the atomic agency to return to the site to assure that the spent fuel was not reprocessed. ... But beginning in 2002, the United States branded North Korea as part of an axis of evil, threatened military action, ended the shipments of fuel oil and the construction of nuclear power plants and refused to consider further bilateral talks. In their discussions with me at this time, North Korean spokesmen seemed convinced that the American positions posed a serious danger to their country and to its political regime. Responding in its ill-advised but predictable way, Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, expelled atomic energy agency inspectors, resumed processing fuel rods and began developing nuclear explosive devices.
North Korea starts a second, uranium program after Carter leaves
But if Carter prevented North Korea's plutonium path to the bomb, after Jimmy Carter's departure, North Korea began exploring a second, uranium-based route to an atomic weapon. The New York Times picks up the tale from where former President Carter's trip ends.
Under an agreement Mr. Clinton struck with North Korea in 1994, the North agreed to "freeze" its production of plutonium at its main nuclear plant at Yongbyon, in return for energy aid. North Korea abided by the freeze. But starting around 1997, the North Koreans took steps to start a second, secret nuclear program, one based on enriching uranium. South Korean and American intelligence agencies did not find conclusive evidence of that program until the summer of 2002, and that fall the Bush administration confronted the North Koreans with its evidence.
The UN attempts to stop the uranium program -- unsuccessfully
When this secret uranium enrichment program came to the attention of the UN's IAEA, they categorically warned North Korea against it. The IAEA's own website documents what happened next:
In a speech in Tokyo 9 December [2002], IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei urged the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to "re-think" its position and cooperate fully with Agency inspectors to verify its nuclear programme. He further called upon all States to conclude safeguards agreements with the Agency that enable credible verification of both declared and undeclared nuclear material and activities. The Director General addressed the International Conference on the Wider Adherence to Strengthened IAEA Safeguards, which opened today in Tokyo. The meeting is hosted by the Government of Japan and concludes 10 December.
"Regrettably, the DPRK has so far decided not to cooperate with the efforts to enable it through dialogue and verification to come into compliance with its non-proliferation obligations," the Director General said. "I sincerely hope that the DPRK will re-think its position and avail itself, through constructive interaction with the Agency, of the many goodwill offers extended to it with the aim of pursuing peace and stability in Northeast Asia." Earlier this month, the DPRK rejected a resolution by the IAEA Board of Governors. The resolution urged the DPRK: (1) to provide all relevant information to the Agency concerning the reported uranium enrichment programme and other relevant nuclear fuel cycle facilities; (2) to accept the proposal for dialogue at a senior level to provide clarification on this matter; and (3) to come into full and prompt compliance with its safeguards agreement.
Both types of bombs?
Despite UN and international efforts, Global Security suggests that the DPRK may have pursued both the plutonium and uranium tracks to the end. Some US intelligence agencies believed that Pyongyang had both plutonium and uranium bombs ready in some form by 2005.
As of February 2005 Defense Intelligence Agency analysts were reported to believe that North Korea may already have produced as many as 12 to 15 nuclear weapons. This would imply that by the end of 2004 North Korea had produced somewhere between four and eight uranium bombs [on top of the seven or eight plutonium bombs already on hand]. The DIA's estimate was at the high end of an intelligence community-wide assessment of North Korea's nuclear arsenal completed in early 2005. The CIA lowballed the estimate at two to three bombs, which would suggest an assessment that the DPRK either had not reprocessed a significant amount of plutonium from the 8,000 spent fuel rods removed from storage in early 2003, or had not fabricated a significant number of weapons from whatever amount of plutonium had been reprocessed. The Department of Energy's analysis put North Korea's stockpile somewhere in between, which would be consistent with the roughly 7 or 8 plutonium bombs that could be produced from all existing plutonium stocks, with no uranium bombs.
AQ Khan and Pyongyang's possibly uranium bomb
The question of why North Korea would agree to give up its efforts to produce a plutonium bomb during Carter's visit is explained by one name. AQ Khan. Around the time of the Carter visit, Khan was touting his nuclear weapons design services to interested dictators. That fact prompted President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan today to deny that his country helped North Korea with its bomb by insisting it was a plutonium bomb despite a confession that one of its most prominent scientists had in fact assisted Pyongyang and despite the fact that UN knew North Korea was embarked on a uranium enrichment program. Reuters reports:
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf defended his country on Wednesday against suspicions that illegal nuclear proliferation by a disgraced atomic scientist had enabled North Korea to carry out a nuclear test. "This bomb (North Korea's test) is a plutonium bomb. We don't have a plutonium bomb. We are following a uranium route. That should answer your question," Musharraf told journalists at a news conference, following a dinner with the media to break fast. Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted selling nuclear parts and secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea in early 2004, and has been under house arrest in Islamabad since.
The available facts suggest that AQ Khan may have made the plutonium route which Carter "succeeded" in stopping superfluous and provided an alternative and tested uranium path to bomb during the second Clinton term. Wikipedia traces Dr. Khan's career as the Johnny Appleseed of WMDs in the 1990s.
Virtually all of Khan's overseas travels, to Iran, Libya, North Korea, Niger, Mali, and the Middle East, were on official Pakistan government aircraft which he commandeered at will, given the status he enjoyed in Pakistan. Typically, these were Pakistan Air Force (PAF) aircraft, including VIP transport aircraft such as the Boeing 707 (of which the PAF has 3), and C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft. (Within Pakistan, Khan typically used the PAF's shorter-range CN-235 aircraft.) The high-capacity C-130 Hercules aircraft made numerous round trips to Pyongyang in the 1990s, both with and without Khan, presumably to deliver centrifuges and other nuclear parts. In each case the planes flew through Chinese airspace over Xinjiang and Chinese-controlled airspace in Tibet and Qinghai. Given the 2,000 mile range of the C-130, refuelling would have been required, almost certainly at PLAAF bases en-route.
Carter gained nothing
If North Korea's test involved a uranium device then Jimmy Carter's efforts, however well intentioned, were wholly irrelevant to Pyongyang's nuclear arms program because they only stopped, if they ever did, the Nokor plutonium weapon research. Then the North Koreans would have conceded nothing in fact to Carter in exchange for the billions of dollars he provided by agreeing to stop proceeding down a plutonium road that they had already abandoned. However, if President Musharraf is correct in claiming (how does he know?) that North Korea's bomb was in fact a plutonium weapon, then President Carter's diplomacy didn't stop the program he claims credit for derailing at all. Whether uranium or plutonium, Carter's trip seems to have made no difference.
posted by wretchardthecat at 10/11/2006 07:22:00 PM
53 Comments:
The most surprising aspect of this thread is that it qoutes so heavily from the NYT, with another citation to Wikipedia. The NY Times is not known for it's veracity or lack of philosophical position. More that 95% of the staff are registered Democrats with an agenda. Wikipedia has recently come under fire for it's lack of oversight to their concept of a all-comers-give-us-your-take on any topic. They have attempted to plug the many holes in their dike but particularly on political matters they are suspect. Their reliance on caveats to disassociate themselves from criticism is pallative but not curative for fact finding.
While the topic appears to cast Mr. Carter in a not so favorable light, I would like to know the other two sides to the story, given that stories always have three sides. Your side,my side, and the truth.
Habu, you want the truth?
Okay: "Carter's dictator trips are never about doing what they seem to be about doing, they're always about creating claims for stateside partisan political power."
And of course, in place-holding for any real effort, a feel-good fantasy is created, in lieu of a real foreign policy achievement.
And of course, this repeated sequence in diverse trouble spots, has the effect of a deliberate attack on the USA, while appearing to be patriotic service.
Got two Nobel Winners there:
Jimmah and Mohamed.
carter is the inspector clouseau of geopolitics - and we are all chief inspector dreyfus
Buddy,
Had it not been for Watergate, Jimma Cater would have returned to Plains,Ga. and been a peanut farmer.
That he became the alter ego of Ramsey Clark and Yasser Arafat is the reason I questioned the thread so modestly.
Carter's place in the pantheon of pasr Presidents is well established. Quite near the kitchen door.
raul - you articulate a basic rule of evidence: statements against interest are inherently reliable while others are not.
Raoul Ortega,
Well, that bit of sophistry isn't even sophomoric. Baseline drivel.
I think the main thesis rests on the assertion that there were plutonium and uranium programs in North Korea. Now it isn't just the Times and Wikipedia that assert that. The UN asserted that. Global Security asserted that.
Foreign Affairs also asserts the uranium program, as does the Washington Post quoting DOE sources. And there are many others. I guess the gist of the argument is that there were two programs. Carter only claims to have stopped one.
One could probably hold that the Bush administration could have, when it became aware of the subsequent uranium program in 2002, made the same offer that Carter did in 1994. But then if the North Koreans were already cheating from 1997 before the Bush administration came into power, then the problem is more fundamental. North Korea may have been negotiating in bad faith.
ex-democrat,
in what parallel universe does that even come close to comfirming a"basic rule of evidence?"
So, the Clinton Administration--and Mr. Carter, had no inkling that there may have been the other program? And didn't think to inquire, either? Good God.
DPRK Nuclear Test9 October 2006
In a statement, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said he deeply regrets, and expresses serious concern, about the reported carrying-out of a nuclear test by the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Read more »
IAEA Leader's Phone Tapped (washingtonpost.com)
The Bush administration has dozens of intercepts of Mohamed ElBaradei's calls to Iran...
---
And now a message from the Twilight Zone:
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei deeply regrets, and expresses serious concern, about the reported carrying-out of a nuclear test earlier today by the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
This reported nuclear test threatens the nuclear non-proliferation regime and creates serious security challenges not only for the East Asian region but also for the international community.
The breaking of a de-facto global moratorium on nuclear explosive testing that has been in place for nearly a decade and the addition of a new State with nuclear weapon capacity is a clear setback to international commitments to move towards nuclear disarmament, said the Director General.
Dr. ElBaradei further reiterates the urgent need - more than any time before - for establishing a legally binding universal ban on nuclear testing through the early entry-into-force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty.
Dr. ElBaradei continues to believe in the importance of finding a negotiated solution to the current situation regarding the DPRK nuclear issue. The Director General believes that resumption of dialogue between all concerned parties is indispensable and urgent.
It's the "hostile witness" thing in trials, habu. If he can be made to state something against his own interests, it is likely the truth.
"...Dr. A.Q. Khan's open promotion of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities became something of an embarrassment to Pakistan's government. The United States government became increasingly convinced that Pakistan was trading nuclear weapons technology to North Korea in exchange for ballistic missile technology. In the face of strong U.S. criticism, the Pakistani government announced in March 2001 that Dr. A.Q. Khan was to be dismissed from his post...."
link wiki
Remember, almost the first thing the incoming admin did was force AQ Khan into the open. Had Gore won, would we have ever even heard the name?
wretchard,
Now would that be the Janet Cooke Washington Post?
And would the Fireign Affairs article be written by the former editor of the New Republic,Selig S. Harrison. The same New Republic who's current Editor-at-Large Peter Beinart has a regular spot on Al Franken's failing leftist's Air America radio program? Or would it be the same New Republic whose Senior Editor previously wrote for the ultra leftist Mother Jones, Michelle Cottle along with another Senior Editor from MOther Jones John B Judis?
I could go on but the patina of quoting from your sources is definitely leftist.
A lot of questions and not as many answers. But common sense would suggest that North Korea's continuing cash flow, in the absence of any bona fide economic activity, depends exclusively on being an ongoing threat. Therefore when Kim had run through Clinton's $2 billion he needed a replacement threat to keep the shakedown going. If he hadn't already thought of the uranium program when Carter had left it would have occured to him shortly thereafter. It would be utterly contrary to North Korea's interests to permanently disarm because its income depends solely on remaining a menace. Out with the plutonium, in with the uranium.
Therefore Jimmy Carter's "engagement" theory only works if Clinton's largesse was simply the downpayment on a continuous stream of "engagement" payments, where North Korea periodically rattles the saber and the international community periodicially bribes him back from the edge. Principle aside, some will argue this is a cost-effective way of dealing with Pyongyang; cheaper at least than invading it. Because if we have learned nothing from Iraq it would be that by the time allied forces reached the North Korean capitol the main WMD assets -- its scientists, managers, hard drives, engineering prototypes -- would all decamped for the highest bidder. And maybe the bombs too. But the problem with the "engagement" strategy is that the absolute threat which North Korea represents will also grow over time, fed ironically by these payments. It's like feeding a beast as the alternative to shooting him, the beast getting all the while larger while we feed him. Until maybe one day we won't have the bullets big enough to kill the monster we ourselves have bred.
ex democrat...you missed a few steps in the objective test of statement against interest. sorry old chap.
PossumDieter...I love it..very creative. H/T rotflmao
James A. Kelly, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in 2004, well within the Bush Administration, gave this testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which substantially confirms the existence of a new uranium program after the Carter mission. It is presumably the official position of the Bush Administration and not just the viewpoint of the NYT and its ilk.
The Agreed Framework left resolution of pre-1993 discrepancies, especially quantities of plutonium that the D.P.R.K. might have recovered, for the distant future, linked to construction progress on the light water reactors provided under the Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework did not, as we learned later, end the North Korean nuclear arms programs. By the fall of 2002, our intelligence community assessed that North Korea was pursuing a covert program to produce enriched uranium – in violation of the Agreed Framework, the North-South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the D.P.R.K.’s Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. In fact, we determined that North Korea had been pursuing the program for a number of years, even as it was negotiating with senior American officials to improve relations.
America's third president, Jefferson Thomas, when confronted with Muslim pirates, famously said, "Millions for Tribute, But Not One Cent for Defense!" These ringing words were later to guide the 42nd President (and semi-namesake).
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Wonder if Congress will provide US with the plunger its offering for Iraq
Once we change our mind about where the finish line is, turned out we got there early, faster than any time in history. itll be studied for generations and thats whats most obvious
The 38th can just be where the RK books stop.
selectively permeable
only lets in money and lets out the ChiComs
Peanut'd be more than happy to help us with that
There used to be an extablishment in East Texas known as "Brother-in-law & Son's Washateria".
Taking the cue, the next extablishment of note to go on the books was "Jimmah & Bubba's Centrifugia".
Blog, Possum, Blog!
You owe everything to a Blog.
centrifugue
The Chinese stance drew frustration from Japan which, more than anyone else, wants tougher sanctions.
"We do recognize, acknowledge that they have made some effort but in our view, we would have to ask them to make further efforts," Japan's UN Ambassador Kenzo Oshima said.
Resolution
It would be interesting to consider the strategy of a country able to make only a few nuclear weapons and with only a limited means of technological delivery. They would be unlikely to adopt the strategies of the former Soviet Union, with a strategic triad and a central command and control. They could not afford it. They would simply not have the warhead numbers to adopt the Soviet strategy.
So how would a country with a dozen warheads and a primitive airforce and navy project its force? Because unless it had a viable means of force projection its weapons are useless. The answer it seems to me lies in being able to manufacture nuclear weapons which can be deployed in the same manner in which they have an established institutional capacity; that is by agents or proxies.It seems most implausible that they could attempt to create an airforce to deliver weapons when they have a secret service with established experience in smuggling and setting off bombs overseas.
Therefore weapons like North Korea's are usable only within the strategic framework of terrorism. Not as naval or air weapons. They will be designed as terror weapons. They cannot be effectively used any other way. Hence, I am not persuaded by analysis which claims North Korea is trying to make bombs "like ours" in the multikiloton or multimegaton range, at least not in the near future. It would suit their book better to have smaller, crude but fairly deniable weapons. If I had to choose my design desiderata for a Nokor weapon it would be: componentizable, dual-key and untraceable. Size would be secondary. It can be delivered by ship or assembled in place for so long as it is componentizable and requires a dual key to set off.
Cross polination is a feature, not a bug. It shows engagement and "connectivity" and each of those will smooth it all out. Just be patient, already. What's to rush? its a delicate process.
Its like putin a death row inmate down.
Check out Sen. harry Reid's 1.1 million dollar land deal on MSNBC....broke a lot of Senate Rules and perhaps the law..this will be big
Pakistan is a nominal American ally. Mushareff will do what he has to do to survive. Whether it be making deals with the Taliban or America.
Mushareff rounds up enough Al Qaeda to keep America off his back and gets cash and prestige. America gets limited access to sniff around in Pakistan so long as we don't conduct military operations inside the country.
If things go bad in Pakistan, we get mullahs with nukes. So we hold our nose and go with the devil we know while hoping things don't go bad.
So many lose-lose situations for the US in the post-Cold War world.
Wretchard, I believe the Kim-Il needs both small and large, the small for the reasons you summarize and a few large for two reasons, one to be a show if he sees black shadows and the other reason for SOKOR, even with a rickety old DC3 or Black Market well used Lockheed-Martin transport he could fly it to Seoul and inflict the massive death that would settle the debt Kim-Il believes is due, Think about it, would a US prez Nuke NOKOR even after Kim-Il did Seoul? I have a lot of doubt. I really have trouble believing a US prez (of today’s bred) would Nuke any small country with or without their own nukes aimed at us, the internal and global political fall out would be a night mare for them to comprehend and thus not do it.
Old wood head Carter is simple trying to compensate to his personal religion of the Democrat way for what his administration cost them since he left office in disgrace.
summignumi,
The problem you mention is a real one. The problem for an allying relying on the American "nuclear umbrella" is that it only made sense in a World War 3 scenario. Sure the US would nuke North Korea if it obliterated Tokyo. But what about in retaliation for a subkiloton, but still nuclear strike against a Japanese army base in Hokkaido? Or how about a strike against Manila, or Bangkok? Is that worth World War 4? Now if American allies had their own nukes then it would be their call to respond as they wished. But to rely on Washington for security against a subkiloton weapon? A multimegaton warhead creates guarantees its own retaliation. Smaller devices fall in the cracks between a carbomb and a big nuclear weapon. One could argue that the hit on the WTC on 9/11 was pretty close to the damage that a .2 kt weapon would have had, or thereabouts, allowing for the fuel loads of the aircraft. And yet what was the US response to that?
"One could argue that the hit on the WTC on 9/11 was pretty close to the damage that a .2 kt weapon would have had, or thereabouts, allowing for the fuel loads of the aircraft. And yet what was the US response to that?"
Ummm, we liberated Afghanistan and dropped a lot of fuel air bombs on those that opposed us. Not to mention the Specter gunships and all the rest of the "toys" in our toy chest.
----
Buddy, get your history straight and don't slander Mr. Jefferson. He was nothing like '42.
"By 1800 a new slogan was beginning to appear across the new country, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
Finally in 1801, with Jefferson as the new President, the country had enough. Three months after Jefferson's inauguation, after refusing to pay Tripoli's demand for immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000, the Bashaw of Tripoli cut down the flagstaff at the U.S. consulate and declared war. Jefferson ordered the frigates President, Essex, and Philadelphia and the sloop Enterprise, under Commodore Richard Dale, to patrol the North African coast and to bombard Tripoli."
Uh, okay, C4, let's don't credit the admin for anything.
Exposing AQ Khan, turning Libya, subduing the Taliban, eliminating Saddam, keeping the war largely concentrated in Iraq, all while booming the economy in USA & the world (while overcoming recession, a trillion-dollar financial bubble, exposing corporate rot grown up thru the Clinton years, 911, Katrina, and bringing down by force of arms two dictatorships of terror, and liberalizing by threat or example a dozen others), are all things that Gore would have done as well.
Wretchard, I think you are dead on, re the NoKo plan (small crude deniable agent-delivered nukes to exploit the sub-retaliatory cracks in western defenses). It has the ring of truth.
Tarnsman, so I got a few of the Barbary Wars details a bit wrong, big deal.
;-)
Catherine, do you mean to say that bending a few nails from time to time, nailing a couple of boards together for the cameras, helping build a house or two for a family or two, doesn't exonerate his massive damage to the prospects of the future of the human race?
From Wilkipedia again:
"He (Jimmy Carter) attended Georgia Southwestern College and Georgia Institute of Technology and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946. Carter was a gifted student and finished 59th out of his Academy class of 820. Carter did some post-graduate work, studying nuclear physics and reactor technology for several months at Union College until his father's death after which he resigned his commission."
Based on that piece of biography, Mr Carter would be the first to appreciate the difference between plutonium or enriched uranium based bomb development processes. Even if he was not aware of the AQ Khan meanderings while he was negotiating in North Korea, it would be clear to him now that he and the Clinton administration were duped. So anything he writes today that does not recognise this actuality, even in hindsight, is but political revisionism. He was played and he would know that better than anyone.
Being "played" means you're a chump.
When the appearance of "being played" is acceptable, because it masks something else (such as, acting-out a tranzi ambition), then you aren't a chump at all, but something much else.
Please excuse my paranoia, but, the man IS a nuclear engineer.
I don't think NoKo can afford to use a nuke even through a proxy. With the nuclear material fingerprinting they can do, it would be traced back to them and they would be toast. We wouldn't need nukes, but we might use small ones to try and take out as much of their artillery pointed at Seoul as possible. Don’t forget that SoKo has a large well trained army too. They would crush NoKo with U.S. help. I’m sure there are plenty of cruise missiles and JDAM’s already coded with the proper targets.
If NoKo sets off a nuke in another country either overtly or through a proxy, don’t expect China to come across the Yalu River like last time. Kim would have forfeited his right to rule even in their eyes.
I have to make the same argument about Iran. Any proxy nukes would be traced back to them and they would be toast. If they launch nuclear tipped missiles at Israel, they will be incinerated. Jihadist leaders are always talking about apocalyptic times, but never volunteer to lead the way to heaven.
Nukes for countries like North Korea and Iran are only good for regime preservation which is what they mostly care about. They want to prevent another Iraq. If they get frisky and start invading other countries, they will get slapped down even with nukes.
On the other hand, I believe Bush when he says he will not tolerate NoKo and Iran going nuclear. I doubt however that diplomacy will have run its course before he leaves office. So it will be up to his successor.
betacygni--I think what scares people is the lack of institutional control over these weapons.
Iran has its story, as does North Korea, and these "cases" should be seen in the light of the principle of dictatorship in general.
Let them pass, because we have achieved a special body of knowledge on them in particular, and thus feel safe enough, and then what do we do when, say, Hugo has a few of the things, and is fighting to kill the Ven constitution?
Remember, these guys often end up with their own people as their urgent threat.
Any one-man red-button-pusher is likely to end up in a sort of bunker, hating the people who let him down, who weren't up to his grand vision, who can only be redeemed in Gotterdamerung.
USA has come to resemble a giant shareholder's meeting, where half the shareholders think they're there to plan ahead for the enterprise, and the other half thinks they're there to have a shareholder's meeting.
Both are right, within the limits of their vision.
Carter is a wretch.
Good point, eggplant. I concur with your assessment of Kerry and Carter.
Jimmy Carter is an intelligent and decent man. Mistaken, mind you, but he means well.
Unfortunately, that's not enough and can be quite counter-productive.
eggplant's right--Abe Lincoln thought that a president needs to be able to "rise above his principles".
Kerry has none, and believes in having none.
Carter's are biblically inviolable; the leftist Jesus in his mind (and the "touch" he has "received", which lets him "see") has released him from the messy practicalities involving earthbound lesser beings.
Panama Canal, Cat, don't forget the Panama Canal.
C-4 makes some interesting points but the practical result is academic. The US can and should make some basic policy statement and some private pronouncements.
In public the US should state as a matter of policy that it will never use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear power. That would be some incentive for those contemplating joining the nuclear club.
The US should remain silent as to what it would do with a nuclear state.
Privately, the US should introduce the concept to particular states that they will not be given the presumption of innocence by any nuclear attack on the US. (Korea and Iran) This could be ameliorated by the degree of inspection provided to US inspectors. (Pakistan)
A rogue nuclear attack by pilfered weapons from China or Russia would go un-answered. That has been true for a long time.
While I tend to support Cedarford's "Pre-emptive Nuking" approach, we have to remember that the key factor in any response (pre-emptive or post-facto) is WILL. Do modern western liberal societies have the will to respond?
The current whining about Iraq suggests that an opponent might reasonably gamble that the US will not have the will to respond to future provocations. Clearly, Europe would not respond to any atrocity on its soil. Even the Israelis seem to have lost the will to do what must be done for their own survival, if recent events in Lebanon are any indicator. And look at the farce of Iraq's never-ending trial of Saddam Hussein -- evidence that liberal paralysis is now a global phenomenon.
Indeed, a smart opponent (say, China) might calculate that the inability of EUnuchs or Americans to respond to a terrorist nuke might do much more harm to the fabric of their society than the nuclear explosion itself, as pro-response & turn-the-other-cheek apologists duke it out. Said smart opponent might take steps to nudge their troubled dependencies (e.g., North Korea, Pakistan) into helping test the theory that a terrorist nuke could trigger societal breakdown or even civil war among the "barbarians".
You may have a point. Pearl Harbor made the American left mad until VJ day. 911 made 'em mad until the weekend.
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Carter is a wicked and dull man. The proof is in the NKs eating him up and s*itting him out with the result being that we are less safe. He provided cover to the NKs (I will grant you unwittingly, but that goes to his dullness) in their nuclear development; it's that simple.
* choose your consonant
World Net Daily has reported another threat from Dr. Evil today:
"Everything will be settled in a week," said Kim Myong-chol on KBS Radio. "That is, whether we, Korean people, will remain as we are now, or lose, or New York will lose, or Washington, D.C., will lose, it will all be settled once and for all."
Man would I love to see the Hermit Kingdom take a full load from a SSBN. The look on Wen Jiaboa and Ahmadinejad's faces would be priceless.
"...a full load from a SSBN."
You lookin' to make the rubble bounce?
USN has 18 SSBNs, each with 24 Tridents, I believe, each of which has up to 10 MIRVs @ 100 kilotons per warhead.
So, a single SSBN can kill 200 plus cities, each target hit with a weapon five times the size of the Hiroshima bomb.
Every single SSBN is tied for third largest military power in the world.
Ouch, that hurts.
It's like feeding a beast as the alternative to shooting him, the beast getting all the while larger while we feed him. Until maybe one day we won't have the bullets big enough to kill the monster we ourselves have bred.
Even the many layers of missile defense we are getting on-line aren't enough for 100% coverage, so we will have to ration the protection for those countries which vote with us for sanctions against North Korea. Countries which exercise their veto or engage in "sunshine" policies with Li'l Kim, unfortunately, cannot fall under the US strategic missile defense shield at this time.
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