Smart people

Nice. (0.00 / 0)

I thought you were going to comment on the smart people who asked the smart questions, but you're right that the answers were smart.
Now, if we can just persuade Republicans that smart thinking is more important than just being "smart."

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by: hannah @ Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 07:36:10 AM CDT

No role (0.00 / 0)

for a nuclear deterrent in the post Cold War? We've done a pretty good job averting a great power war since the development of the atom bomb. I'm not too sure about 100% worldwide nuclear disarmament or how the government could approach it. Seems unrealistic to me.

I liked your write-up, though. I prefer pragmatism and intelligence to obedience and ideology any day.

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 08:27:47 AM CDT

Glad you asked. (0.00 / 0)

The establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZs) contributes to controlling the spread of weapons of mass destruction and is an important step towards a nuclear-weapon-free world. To date, treaties establishing NWFZs exist: the Treaty of Tlatelolco (Latin America and the Caribbean NWFZ), the Treaty of Rarotonga (South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone), the Treaty of Bangkok (Southeast Asia NWFZ), and the Treaty of Pelindaba (African NWFZ). Of these four treaties, the Pelindaba Treaty has not yet entered into force. In addition to these NWFZ treaties, other agreements, including the Antarctic Treaty, the Outer Space Treaty, the Moon Agreement, and the Seabed Treaty denuclearize and demilitarize specific areas of the globe, as well as outer space. (Mongolia also declares itself, and is internationally recognized, as a single-state nuclear-weapon-free zone. )

Update: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan signed a treaty establishing a Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone on September 8, 2006.

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Presumably such treaties would include an inspection regime
("trust but verify")
The CANWFZ was endorsed by China and Russia and Egypt has already agreed to join, were the area to be extended down the Arabian Peninsula.
Senator Dodd claimed not to have heard of the CANWFZ.  One suspects that the Bush Administration did not inform the Senate that it had been blocking this treaty at the U.N. with the claim that the participants would prohibit the transit of nuclear weapons on American planes through their air space.

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by: hannah @ Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 10:05:16 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Effectively a counterproliferation effort (0.00 / 0)

Not the elimination of the all nuclear weapons.

USA, China, France, UK, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea would take a lot of persuasion to give them up entirely. Even if they did, I don't think humanity would necessarily be better served. We obviously had some close calls during the Cold War (Cuba, Able Archer), but nothing as horrible as the transcontinental great power wars of World War I and World War II has occurred since the development of nuclear weapons (and the establishment of the UN system).

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 10:23:50 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

M.A.D. (0.00 / 0)

The accumulation of nuclear weapons was once thought to be the answer to keeping the Cold War from turning hot. Now such behavior is considered the purview of rogue nations.

Nuclear weapons, it seems to me, serve no purpose in the actual defense of a modern industrialized nation. And what if a rogue nation were to use a nuclear device? Do we answer with a bigger nuclear device? Isn't the the definition of "mutually assured destruction" that was supposed to be the great deterring factor?

Not as smart as I think I am, but not as dumb as I look.

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by: epm @ Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 10:23:15 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

M.A.D. (0.00 / 0)

is nuclear power on nuclear power. Having a nuclear deterrent also keeps non-nuclear powers from attacking nuclear powers. In the age of airplanes, ICBMs, and space technology, the Atlantic and Pacific ocean offer no certain security guarantee for the United States. Nuclear weapons are used in an almost exclusively defensive role.

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 10:31:46 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

The Threat, The Politics, The ACTION (0.00 / 0)

Stopping Nuclear Terrorism

The greatest threat our nation faces is a nuclear weapon falling into terrorists' hands. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed 650 cases of illicit trafficking in nuclear and radiological materials worldwide between 1993 and 2004. As little as four kilograms of plutonium - about the size of a soda can - can potentially be enough for a fissile nuclear bomb.

Senator Obama passed legislation with Senator Lugar to prevent weapons of mass destruction from being smuggled across the globe. Signed into law in January 2007, the Lugar-Obama initiative will help other nations detect and secure weapons of mass destruction before they ever leave their borders. Senator Obama also worked with Senator Lugar to successfully restore $8 million in budget cuts to the original Nunn-Lugar Initiative.

Cooperative Proliferation Detection, Interdiction Assistance, and Conventional Threat Reduction Act of 2005 (Introduced in Senate)

What rising Democratic star Barack Obama can learn from an old lion of the GOP.

The two men grew closer in August of 2005, when Obama joined Lugar on a tour of Russia and Eastern Europe to inspect weapons facilities, a trip that Lugar makes annually. For the younger senator, it was a chance to see first-hand the situation that had long unsettled the older statesman. In Kiev, they visited a pathogen laboratory, an unsecured nondescript downtown building, where the senators were shown a storage unit resembling a mini-refrigerator that contained vast rows of test tubes. Some tubes held anthrax; others, the plague. As Obama has recounted the story, "At this point I turned around and said 'Hey, where's Lugar? Doesn't he want to see this?'" But the older senator was standing in the back of the room, nonchalantly. "Been there, done that," Lugar said.

SGS is Jack Mitchell of Lowell, MA. The symbolism of the "sleeping giant" is based on my HOPE for America.

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by: Sleeping Giant Stirs @ Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 12:30:34 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I don't if you're familiar with it (4.00 / 1)

but you might be interested in Last Best Chance, a fictional film by the Nuclear Threat Initiative. It's kind of about what you're talking about. For extra kicks, Fred Thompson's in it.

I thought you could watch it online (maybe you can and I just couldn't figure it out), but apparently you can get a free DVD.

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 14:57:01 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Endorsed by Republican Senator Richard Lugar (0.00 / 0)

The film that is! ;p

Thank you very much for the tip.

SGS is Jack Mitchell of Lowell, MA. The symbolism of the "sleeping giant" is based on my HOPE for America.

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by: Sleeping Giant Stirs @ Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 15:22:21 PM CDT

[ Parent ]