Nuclear Ambitions
Much has been made of diplomatic initiatives of the Bush Administration to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in 3rd World countries. Though his assessment that these weapons pose a threat to the dominance of US power in the world is correct, his efforts to peacefully disarm would-be WMD states are failing. The sad truth is that there isn’t any compelling reason to believe that he shouldn’t fail in stopping would-be proliferators from acquiring their weapons.
It seems we are fundamentally misreading the concepts behind proliferation itself. I don’t believe the reasons for Pakistani, Indian, Israeli, Chinese and now Iranian and N. Korean proliferation are fundamentally different from our own reasons for developing weapons of mass destruction after the Second World War. These weapons up the ante of confrontation to generally unacceptable levels, thereby both leaving borders at their status quo (in this case, the Russians on their side of the Iron Curtain) while simultaneously increasing relative power in the world. North Korean and Iranian regimes want a nuclear shield protecting their nations the same way Truman wanted a nuclear shield protecting America from the Soviets. The primary difference is that we are the perceived aggressors, having already eliminated 1/3 of the “Axis of Evil.”
One cannot bride, coax, or scare nations close to acquiring nuclear weapons away from developing said programs. There was no dollar amount, favorable trading status, treaty, or threats of pre-emptive strikes that would have stopped Truman and Eisenhower from building up our nuclear stockpiles. Even nations under the American nuclear umbrella during the cold war, the UK and France, developed WMD. So far, only domestic pressures have stopped nations capable of developing nuclear weapons easily from doing so – as is the case with South Africa, Germany, and Japan.
Even the implicit threat of ownership of WMD has strong security reverberations. Israel has never confirmed nor denied the existence of a program and has never tested a weapons inside its borders. However, the belief that Israeli is a nuclear armed state deters potential invaders. Likewise, Saddam Hussein was so concerned with the appearance of WMD potency that he bluffed still owning deliverable weapons up until his fall from power this year. It seems likely that certain UN inspectors were correct in their assessment that previous stockpiles had gone bad with time and he was never able to revive his program for new munitions. If Iran or North Korea begin honest negotiations to stop their respective nuclear programs, it is likely the programs are so far from success that the immediate rewards – non-aggression pacts and financial incentives – will be greater than the far off goal of insured state sovereignty through nuclear deterrence.
Tags: Treyopia Spinnaker Current Events WMD nuclear proliferation diplomacy theory North Korea North Korea Iran
