Just a few comments. Don't know about the legitimacy of the terminology 'preemptive self defense' but... -deterrence in the Cold War and Korea was based on the powers involved both being nuclear. Even in Korea the PRC did not have the capability to hit the US, only our allies and armies in Japan and S Korea. That was enough to deter us from attacking mainland China. The complete and utter devastation we would have retaliated with on China was enough to keep them from going nuclear but not from aggression with neighboring countries. -A 'preemptive strike' against a nuclear foe is much different than against a non-nuclear one. Attacking Iraq would not set a precedent for action against nuclear foes. It might set up deterrence for any states considering proliferation, such as N Korea or Iran, and that would be a good thing. -deterrence has not worked in the simplistic form you represent 'don't attack me and I won't attack you, or else' in all cases in the past. for example, the Japanese attacked us first when they felt conflict was inevitable as they expanded in Asia. once they reached what they felt was equal capability it was much more realistic for them to move from theory to action. if Saddam is determined to acquire nuclear weapons, its for a reason. I am convinced it is NOT for defense, as he has no one to fear invasion from if he behaves himself. the same situation could take place in the middle east, where he miscalculates based on his presumption that HAVING nukes makes him impervious to a US response. the same arguments you hear now about him using WMD if attacked would be true then, except he could go nuclear as we attempt to remove him from power. -China has never had the capability to take Taiwan, so I don't think you're point on that is correct. -Israel has used the preemptive strike in self defense concept against other states, and been successful in removing that danger. Granted the Egyptian army was massing on its border, and that was an obvious threshold that has not yet been reached yet with Iraq. But the question changes radically if he goes nuclear. However, -Israel has also attacked Iraq under the preemption for self defense justification, when they bombed his reactors in '81, and that seemed pretty justified to me for the exact same reasons we would do so now. Deterrence is well and good, but not as effective when the leadership just doesn't give a damn about his people in general. Both Mao and Kruschev did, and Saddam doesn't. -as for the Saddam gives nukes to terrorists, he doesn't even have to do that. he can use nukes once he's acquired them for nuclear blackmail, shutting the US or the West off from oil. that is enough to justify it under 'national security' measures.
Nice post with good points. Israel is a good test case for the pre-emptive policy. Keep the possible terrorists down, take their weapons, etc. The on-going mayhem in Israel and Palestine is extremely discouraging feedback, if you agree that it has any similarities to proposed US policy. Angry desperate people will find a way to hurt you, IMHO. And okay, I understand the boogeyman of Saddam giving, say, nukes to terrorist organizations. But someone needs to show us the real link, any evidence that he really deals with Al Qaeda. I've heard so many "expert" talking heads saying that's one thing Saddam actually doesn't do. Seriously, I'm more open-minded than you think. I wanna believe attacking Iraq is the good thing to do because then I can start sleeping better again. I guess if we keep hounding him, he will definitely start trying to help terrorists attack us, so then my question is moot.
What rationale is there that he would turn WMD over to terrorists? In almost twenty years of possession Saddam hasn't turned over any bio/chem weapons over to terrorists. He's never used them against the U.S. or Israel himself, even when engaged in war with the U.S. He wants to survive and knows that doing that kind of thing would mean that he would never survive. In fact the biggest danger of him using those weapons would be if the U.S. attacked him and he knew he was going to be taken out. Sure he MIGHT turn WMD over to terrorists. The Oceans might rise up and drown every American who lives within fifty miles of the coast too. But both are doubtful.
Planes, trains, or automobiles. Both the USSR and the US have had 'nuclear backpacks' capable of being delivered by a single person. No reason they couldn't do the same. Or no reason he couldn't launch at S Arabia, Turkey, Israel or a host of others at some point in the future if he felt his grip was weakening and/or his rule was threatened.
Not in principle its not. What is the principle we let dictate our policy. If preemptive strikes to prevent nukes are legitimate, then they are legitimate.
In principle I think they are. I know the Israeli strike was prior to the UN resolutions but in the current climate, limited strikes enforcing UN resolutions are very different than a full scale invasion.
I would rather live and be part of a ruthless empire that slaughtered all in its path, than die in a nuclear firestorm as part of a kind, benevolent, and "lay down, bend over, and **** us in the ass" country.
They are what, the same or not? Only in measure of force. The principle of WHEN you can legitimately say X is more important than sovereignty is not. And the reason Israel made a 'limited strike' was that Saddam's nuclear program was rooted to one location, of the processing plant. Now they will not be sitting with a big sign 'we are making nuclear material HERE,' as they were then. Which is WHY we would invade, because we would have to control many locations.
Can you really go from having "no technology" to having advanced miniaturized? Are there not a lot of nuclear countries that still have very basic - almost WWII level US nukes? Wouldn't a nuclear backpack be too obvious to pass through screening?
another assumption..."in almost twenty years of possession Saddam hasn't turned over any bio/chem weapons over to terrorists" THAT WE KNOW OF!!!!! if i'm vegas, i'm putting much better odds on saddam turning over to nukes to terrorists than i am on the oceans swelling up and eating up the land.
Well, fair enough, Nomar. But I don't think a my opposition to unilateral pre-emptive military action is equal to "lay down, bend over, and **** us in the ass" even though I live in San Francisco now, I'd say that's hyperbole.
Don't know. Good question. But at the point Iraq goes nuclear we no longer can invade to remove refining capability. And few of the countries that have proliferated would have literally billions a year to spend on the technology, as Iraq would have. Saddam has not put the needs of his people above his weapons drive (in terms of % of total resources) as say India has to. Screening on a plane, maybe. But not in an automobile or a boat. And that still leaves the threat of usage in the middle east, which could result in an embargo of oil, or of ACTUAL usage in the middle east, either of which could crash the world economy overnight. Oh yeah, and we know the Frogs helped Israel prolif, who is to say they wouldn't help Saddam with his backpacks for a few billion?
I don't believe this has been conclusively established. In any event, Pakistan, which sponsors its own terrorist organizations in Kashmir, is a far greater offender in this regard, and already is nuclear. They have a military dictator, they trained and supplied the Taliban. But I guess they don't qualify under the Bush doctrine.
To expand on this... if ABC News can do it then surely well funded terrorists can do it. Pretty scary stuff. How Safe Are Our Borders? Customs Fails to Detect Depleted Uranium Carried From Europe to U.S. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/sept11_uranium020911.html Sept. 11 — On July 4, in a train station in Europe, a suitcase containing 15 pounds of depleted uranium, shielded by a steel pipe with a lead lining, began a secret 25-day, seven-country journey. Its destination was the United States. It was the kind of uranium that — if highly enriched — would, by some estimates, provide about half the material required for a crude nuclear device and more than enough for a so-called dirty bomb — a nightmare scenario for U.S. authorities. "I would say that the single largest, most urgent threat to Americans today is the threat of nuclear terrorism," said Graham Allison, an expert on nuclear terrorism. Allison is the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a former assistant secretary of defense. This suitcase's journey was not part of a terrorist plot, but rather part of an ABCNEWS investigation into whether American authorities could, in fact, stop a shipment of radioactive material. The depleted uranium packed in the suitcase was not highly enriched and therefore not dangerous, but similar in many other key respects. In other words, to the to the human eye or to an X-ray scanner, the depleted uranium would look the same as an actual radioactive shipment. ABCNEWS' project was designed with the help of three of the world's leading authorities on nuclear terrorism: Dr. Thomas Cochran, senior scientist and nuclear weapons expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that lent the depleted uranium to ABCNEWS for the investigation; Dr. Fritz Steinhausler of Stanford University in California and the University of Salzburg in Austria; and Allison of Harvard's Belfer Center. "It is a perfect mockup," said Cochran. "It replicates everything but the capability to explode. Shielded by a steel pipe with a lead lining, 15 pounds of depleted uranium was packed in a suitcase that sailed through customs. (ABCNEWS.com) "This is what [customs is] looking for, or should be looking for," he added, "and this is what they absolutely have to stop." "What I hope your program will help people do, is say, 'My God, this could really happen.' And this could really happen," said Allison. "There [are] things we could do to prevent it." Route Well-Traveled by Smugglers Starting in Austria on July 4, the suitcase began its journey by rail, traveling first across the border to Hungary, where the ABCNEWS team's passports were checked — but there was no inspection of the suitcase. From there, it was on to Romania, through the Transylvanian Alps, across the fields of Bulgaria and into Turkey — all without even one inspection of the suitcase. This is precisely the route and the method authorities say has been used in the past to transport radioactive material smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. But throughout the 47-hour European rail trip, the suitcase, packed with depleted uranium, sat untouched on a rack in the cabin. ABCNEWS saw no evidence of radiation detectors in use anywhere. "Well, that's a pretty good test," said Allison. "I would have wished or hoped that you would have at least gotten some look." But there was nothing. The suitcase traveled all the way to Istanbul, Turkey, which is considered a hub of the world's nuclear black market. Steinhausler, an expert in weapons trafficking who has compiled a database of nuclear-smuggling incidents, described it as "a crossroad between a leaking Central Asian region and possibly a receptive Middle East." Turkish authorities report they have detected more than 100 cases of such attempted smuggling in the last few years. ABCNEWS was doing what some law enforcement officials say al Qaeda terrorists have known how to do for years. "For a decade, they've sought nuclear weapons," said Allison."[Osama] bin Laden has said it is his and al Qaeda's religious duty … to acquire nuclear weapons." Documents in Arabic seized from one of bin Laden's top aides five years ago show how he apparently planned to use shipping containers packed with sesame seeds as part of a plan to smuggle high-grade radioactive material to the United States. Allison is concerned that what ABCNEWS did as a test may have already been done for real. "There's no reason to think that they haven't," he said. Suitcase Labeled ‘Depleted Uranium’ Hours after the ABCNEWS team arrived in Istanbul, the suitcase of radioactive material was prepared for shipment by sea to the United States. The suitcase was placed inside an ornamental Turkish chest that was carefully marked as containing depleted uranium, in case inspectors discovered it. Then, in the middle of a busy Istanbul street, the chest itself was crated and nailed shut. The crate containing the suitcase was then nestled alongside crates of huge vases and Turkish horse carts in a large metal shipping container that was ordered from a company that arranges shipments to the United States. "If it were a real weapon, you know, that you'd managed to get out of the Soviet inventory, [it] would fit in this container," said Allison. "A battlefield nuclear weapon, an artillery shell would fit fine in there." The company hired to handle the shipping did not know, nor did its workers check to see, what was inside the crate. The company told ABCNEWS this week that it is re-evaluating its practices in light of this report. The container, with the suitcase inside, left Istanbul on July 10, bound for the Port of New York, where U.S. Customs Service officials have very publicly claimed they've made huge improvements to prevent anything radioactive from getting through. "We're doing everything we possibly can to keep terrorists and terrorists weapons out of this country," said Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner. At 2 a.m. on July 29, the ship carrying this suitcase cleared the Verrazano Bridge and entered New York Harbor. At this point, no one had asked a single a question about what was in the container. A Dangerous Delivery Device This scenario was too close for comfort for Allison, who explained that a weapon smuggled in this way could be armed in advance and ready to fire — and the ship could be the delivery device. "The ship, I think, is one of the most dangerous delivery devices," said Allison. "A weapon or material in the belly of a ship has been one of the nightmare scenarios for people that think about how nuclear weapons might arrive in the U.S." The ship carrying the container was tied up at the Staten Island dock in New York, where the Customs Service says it has a state-of-the-art system in place to detect even a small, low-level amount of radioactive material. "We're doing whatever it takes to screen the high-risk containers," said customs inspector Kevin McCabe, the chief of the contraband enforcement team, who did not know about the test when he demonstrated the screening measures to ABCNEWS. During an interview in August, he gave ABCNEWS the same demonstration he said he had given to President Bush when he visited the port. McCabe displayed the small radiation pager used by inspectors, which he said could detect even a shielded, low-level radiation shipment — like depleted uranium. In addition, the customs inspector demonstrated a second screening device, an X-ray scanning machine on wheels, used on suspect containers to detect even small items. "The inspector should see [that] even if it's something small, [of] unusual density, unusual something … would lead us to strip that container and look," said McCabe. "If we can't tell exactly what is in that container by those screenings, we're going to get into that container and find out for ourselves." And while the shipping container holding ABCNEWS' suitcase was selected by customs for this kind of screening, it sailed right through the inspection and left the port without ever being opened by customs inspectors. And a few days after its arrival in the United States, the container was on the back of a truck headed for New York City. Customs Defends Detection Capabilities Bonner, the customs commissioner, says his inspectors correctly singled out the container for screening and would have detected anything truly dangerous. "We ran it for radiation detection and we also did a large-scale X-ray," he said. "Nothing appeared that would indicate that there was a potential for a nuclear device to be in the container." When asked why a large piece of metal in the shipment of Turkish horse carts didn't stand out, Bonner responded, "Well, look I'm not gonna get into it … We have the X-ray pictures." Bonner refused to show ABCNEWS what the Customs Service saw on the X-ray scans taken by its equipment. But when ABCNEWS later put the suitcase through a much less sophisticated X-ray machine, the outline of the depleted uranium in its shielded casing was clear. It looked like a pipe bomb was inside. The experts ABCNEWS consulted say that with the screening devices custom officials said they used on the shipping container, without opening the crate there would be no way for customs inspectors to know whether the material was the low-level, safe, depleted uranium of the kind used by ABCNEWS in this investigation, or the highly enriched, dangerous uranium that could be used in nuclear weapons. "If you didn't detect this, you wouldn't have detected … the real thing," said Cochran. "[Bonner] missed it and he's covering up." Cochran says the ABCNEWS test demonstrated an important shortcoming of the customs screening process — that the radiation pagers are essentially useless unless the pager is placed right on top of the radioactive material. "U.S. Customs absolutely … missed it," he said. ‘We Are Not Safe’ Finally, the container was taken to a New York Port Authority warehouse on Pier No. 1, just across the river from lower Manhattan, at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. When the crate was pulled out, it was easy to see it had never been opened since leaving Istanbul. Port Authority police are assigned to this warehouse facility, but there are no radiation detectors there and no one asked about the unusual shipment in a container full of Turkish horse carts. "If that were a weapon and you blew it up, you would have very, very substantial consequences," said Allison. The material ABCNEWS moved was not dangerous and entirely legal to transport. "You provided an illustration, a vivid illustration of the fact that this could happen tomorrow," Allison said. "We are not safe. Not safe from that."
Hey Haven, Its been awhile since I've read Waltz's stuff. Isn't the key to his horizontal proliferation idea that you have to have balance in the proliferation ala India/Pakistan? What if we gave nukes to Kuwait, or even Iran. Would that balance out the risk?
precisely. That limited kind of thinking symbolizes problem with the current our way or the highway plan, it's too black and white, too extreme, and too inviting of confrontation. You're practically guaranteed to have it with the 'with us or against us and we kill you' philosophy. That's the same kind of motivation, the refusal to compromise, that leads people to commit acts of terror.
I would put more money on the likelyhood Saddam would turn those over to terrorists too, but I don't think it's likely. And while I might bet money on it, I certainly would not gamble anyone's life on it, which is what the invasion would do.
so you would be against enforcing the UN orders and his terms of surrender even if you found nukes in iraq?? sorry..i'm not willing to risk it at that point
