I'm paraphrasing from memory, but this comes from 'Millenium' by John Varley:
(time traveler from the future talking to a person circa 1985)
"Did you idiots think that nuclear weapons would never be used? There have been SEVENTEEN nuclear wars in the last 1000 years."

Quoting Beth Meacham: "When, 17 years ago, I read the manuscript of Kim Stanley Robinson's first novel, The Wild Shore, I loved the book but I had a big problem with the basic premise [...]"

I thought the premise of The Wild Shore was small potatoes - plausibility-wise - compared to the premise of, oh, 1984. Or Space Viking.

But, you say tomahto...

re: the implausibility of 1984 Have you looked at what John Poindexer is doing lately?

Deterrence only works if the other guy thinks you might nuke him. It's necessary to look crazy to make the threat credible. This kind of thing has come out every year or two as long as I can remember. Here's an excerpt from an AP wire report from 1998, during the Clinton administration:

March 1, 1998 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States should maintain the threat of nuclear retaliation with an "irrational and vindictive" streak to intimidate would-be attackers such as Iraq, according to an internal military study made public Sunday.

The study, "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence," was written by the Defense Department's Strategic Command, a multiservice organization responsible for the nation's strategic nuclear arsenal. It was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by an arms control group and published Sunday in a report on U.S. strategies for deterring attacks by antagonistic nations using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

"Because of the value that comes from the ambiguity of what the U.S. may do to an adversary if the acts we seek to deter are carried out, it hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed," the 1995 Strategic Command study says.

The British-American Security Information Council, a London-based think tank, cited the STRATCOM document in its report as an example of the Pentagon's push to maintain a mission for its nuclear arsenal long after the Soviet threat disappeared.

The report portrays the command as fighting and winning an internal bureaucratic battle against liberal Clinton administration officials who lean in favor of dramatic nuclear weapons reductions.

Citing a range of formerly classified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the report shows how the United States shifted its nuclear deterrent strategy from the defunct Soviet Union to so-called rogue states: Iraq, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and the like.

It's worth noting that it was this Bush administration -- not the previous Democratic administration -- that finally talked to the Russians and agreed to make deep cuts in nuclear weapons stockpiles.

Threatening to kill millions of civilians is a deeply morally-flawed strategy, which is why I find myself in favor of research ABM systems. There's probably an interesting article tracing out how the MAD-is-immoral idea made the jump from the 1970s/80s CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarment) into the modern neocon and libertarian right....

Speaking of science fiction scenarios turning potentially real, what about Norman Spinrad's story "The Big Flash"?

This reminds me of a recent post by Adam Felbers (of Wait Wait Don92t Tell Me) expounding the "Crazier than thou" strategy, and how it may be suitable for one-on-one encounters on the playground or subway, but it92s a social handicap at dinner parties...

I guess I'm too dense to make the connection. I could see how you could interpret this posture as overly-aggressive and reckless, but how does the scenario unfold that leads to California being nuked?

How exactly would a country like North Korea look at this policy and justify a first strike against California with a tactical nuke?

Unfortunately, I haven't read The Wild Shore. Does the U.S. not retaliate in the book? If not, why?

And Neel, I'm wondering why you support ABM research (which even a modest appraisal indicates is shaky at best) in lieu of disarmament (which is the only certain way to ensure that nukes will not be successfully used on a population).

disarmament doesn't work because force is real; nukes are the *only* way to do two things:
- have technology trump population (you live in a rich, empty country; the water is rising. You care about this.)
- make it clear to even the meanest intelligence that industrial states cannot profit by going to war with each other.

MAD takes a first strike off the table *if the opposition cares about their survivial*. Doesn't work with nihilistic terrorists.

Threats of pre-emptive nuking are of course destablizing; this is why North Korea is going full steam ahead on their own bomb program, having been so silly as to *believe* what the President of the United States said in public about the policy of his administration. They want to get into a position where they're able to *do* MAD, which really ought to tell you something about how well it works, since even the plausible threat has caused a very public change of policy.

Nukes are a net gain; they make being a Great Power a whole lot less useful for coercive purposes, and encourage dialog by making war too obviously expensive and the folks who make policy too obviously vulnerable.

Beth Meacham: re: the implausibility of 1984 Have you looked at what John Poindexer is doing lately?

Clarification: I wasn't saying I found 1984 implausible. I was saying that if one finds 1984's premise to be plausible - and I think it's safe to say, observing its status as one of the most famous of 20th century novels, that many people found it plausible - then accepting the premise of The Wild Shore should be easy.

In other words, it seems to me that for its time, the premise of The Wild Shore was not notably adventurous. (It's also, not, IMO, the interesting part of the book, but since you loved the book despite having trouble with the premise, I suspect we're in agreement there. :-)

The "Crazier than thou" strategy is deeply stupid, because it turns comfortable allies into jittery rivals. Most countries that could seiously threaten US interests have hitherto decided to accept US global hegemony on the grounds that the Americans are more or less decent, don't really want to endanger global stability, and can be dealt with as rational players. Acting like crazed loners with hair triggers and the DTs just convinces other nations to strengthen themselves in opposition to you. It's a major intellectual failure caused by an unwillingness to think beyond the first-order effects.

Patrick: That last paragraph is very funny, but I'm not altogether sure that it should be. As you know, I'm all in favor of laughter, but this particular laughter is sounding a bit hollow. (In those 2 sentences I made at least half a dozen stupid typos. I quit. I'm going to go eat and then go listen to Calvin Trillin--where I expect to laugh some more.)

MKK

Laying several other points aside, a couple of which others have touched upon, I wish I had my old copy, or any copy, of The Wild Shore to hand, because my very fallible memory is raising questions about this:

...forced into economic and technological primitivity by a sudden, overwhelming, tactical nuclear attack....

Could someone maybe let me know whether this not-terribly-important description is actually accurate, and thus whether it's my very old memory of the book, or Beth's, that's failing? Because I don't recall the reason for the circumstances of the US ever being specified. Was it actually specified as a "nuclear attack"? (And I shouldn't quibble, but "overwhelming, tactical" is an oxymoron; clearly Beth means "overwhelming, strategic, nuclear attack.")

One didn't have to find the details of the premise of 1984 plausible to read and enjoy the book, even learn something from it, it wasn't that kind of story any more than Animal Farm was.

Neel, I'm not sure I'm parsing this sentence of yours correct, "It's worth noting that it was this Bush administration -- not the previous Democratic administration -- that finally talked to the Russians and agreed to make deep cuts in nuclear weapons stockpiles." Do you mean that "this Bush administration" agreed to make deep cuts in nuclear weapon stockpiles (in the US, since that's all the Bush administration can agree to), or that this Bush administration changed the approach taken by the Russian government and led to reduction in their stockpiles? Maybe it doesn't matter, since either way I parse this statement it is untrue.

The Clinton administration was responsible for major reductions in US nuclear capabilities. Under the two Clinton administrations, most of the tactical nuclear weapons on hand were destroyed and the strategic nuclear warhead count reduced from 6000 to 1500.

Regarding the progress of administrations and Russian disarmament, President Yeltsin clearly was not as effective in working on this as President Putin. Yeltsin signed off in 1993 and agreed to resubmit START II to the Duma for ratification around 1997, after discussions with the Clinton administration led to some changes to make the treat more acceptable to Russia, and I believe the Duma actually considered ratification around 1999.

However, Russian domestic politics were in disarray, and it took Putin's accession to office to get START II ratified by the Duma and verifiable nuclear arms reductions in Russia started. As noted in an AP story in April, 2002, "One policy Putin appears determined to pursue is nuclear disarmament. As soon as the Duma ratified START II, talks began in Geneva on further cuts of warhead stockpiles."

As to the good offices of the current Bush administration, which wasn't even elected when Russia started disarming, the AP story goes on to say, "But Putin is treading cautiously. He insists Russia will pull out of any arms control pact if Washington follows through on amending the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to build a limited anti-missile defense system."

So the kudos to George W. Bush's administration for advances in Russia's disarmament appear both undeserved in the past and uncertain in the future, since repudiating the ABM treaty is a real part of their policy. Certainly eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide, an idea the Clinton administration endorsed in the Security Council, is certainly not part of the current administration's plan.

My tendrils are suddenly waving and wondering at how this year-old story is suddenly, again, being forwarded all over the Internet. I'm surely too tired to look into it now, but I'm certainly wondering why this over-a-year-old story is suddenly being projected all over the blogosphere when it is based on such an ancient, but, as you note, endlessly reported by newspapers and magazines, story.

I blogged on it last year. (No, not the ongoing threat Patrick of course notes.)

I'd also call to attention this, but what do I know?

Gary: In The Wild Shore, the Current Situation is explicitly the result of a surprise nuclear attack on the United State; tactical nukes, apparently delivered by trucks, were detonated in the centers of the 1000 largest cities in the United States.

Perhaps you are remembering the important detail that the party responsible was never identified.

Bob: Clinton's abolition-of-nukes plan was contingent on every nation in the world becoming a party to the Nonproliferation Treaty, so I don't think that was ever a real part of administration strategy. I mean, I doubt that India, Pakistan or Israel ever going to join.

Incidentally, what's the point under contention? If we're just discussing weapons policies, rather than arguing about something, I think I might better serve by pointing people at the Federation of American Scientists web page, which has basically everything you could ever wish to know about WMD programs and treaties. Whenever I talk about this stuff I crib heavily from their site. :)

I think the "point under contention" is the growing evidence that this administration's various statements, leaks, and displayed attitudes are scaring much of the world half to death.

Personally, I don't think this makes us safer. You can talk all you like about details of nuclear doctrine, or the perfidy of our allies, or the uses of the "crazy man" posture. The fact remains that we're not omnipotent. We need friends. Everybody does. We need the regular old functionaries in European police forces to feel like helping the Americans is worth staying a little bit late at the office. That's how the world works. A leadership that regularly displays its contempt for our oldest allies, and muses in the public papers about using nukes on Iraq, is a leadership that has taken leave of its senses. As they keep behaving as they do, we are less and less safe with each passing day. That's the point under contention.

Remember our government's official policy: No one is allowed to have weapons of mass distraction. If we even suspect you might have any, we reserve the right to drop a nuke on you.

Just so. And why doesn't everybody love us? The nerve!

Didn't Stapledon write in "Last in First Men" about a world war between Europe and an energy-wasting America?

Neel, my point was that your assertion that the current administration had done more for nuclear disarmament than the previous was untrue. The only administration one can thank for post-2000 progress in Russian disarmament is the Putin administration.

Mentioning the Security Council resolution for world nuclear disarmament was definitely a sideshow, and it interests me that your response is focussed on that rather than on the point you brought up about the current administrations "good" record for work in nuclear disarmament. The W administration has, if anything, increased nuclear weapon proliferation by (as Graydon notes) making the possession of nuclear equalizers more attractive to "rogue" nations like North Korea.

So far as the need for world disarmament for the plan Clinton agreed to, this also is not true. That would be like saying that there could be no point in moving toward a treaty by which the five nuclear powers in the Security Council agreed to abandon biological weapons. Such an agreement is just a first step to work towards a goal, not the achievement of a goal.

I won't argue that the US does not need nuclear weapons at all, but for India or Pakistan the new Shuck and Jive "Shock & Awe" approach might well be sufficient deterrent against an attack on the US. Even if the damage to their domestic economies from losing the US as a trading partner weren't deterrent enough.

Incidentally, here's a Federation of American Scientists article which notes a possible unintended consequence of of abrogation of the 1972 ABM treaty: a nuclear arms race involving China, India, and Pakistan.

Following on to Patrick's point about needing friends -- I'm a Canadian. In the last year, three separate times with three different groups of friends, I've wound up in a 'what do we do when the US invades?' conversation. (No one in those conversations, including me, really believes that the current US regieme won't attempt to annex Canada, based on W's stated security objectives and the rhetoric about secure borders.)

These are sober sensible middle-aged people with professional careers, advanced degrees, mortgages, that sort of thing.

Scared half to death is right; W's convinced a surprising number of people that *Canada* ought to have an independent nuclear deterent.

He hasn't yet convinced anybody, and I hope he doesn't convince anyone, that the majority of individual Americans aren't perfectly fine people, deserving of help and friendship, or that they don't see us that way, but the current of fear is still there, and it's not getting smaller.

Thank you, Graydon. "Don't blame America; we voted for Gore."

Graydon writes: "These are sober sensible middle-aged people with professional careers, advanced degrees, mortgages, that sort of thing."

Do they also wear tin-foil on their heads?

Let me get this straight: You're worried about America attacking Canada?

I'm sorry, but this is wins the prize for the most ridiculous piece of paranoia I've heard lately.

Or were you being ironic? It's getting hard to tell.

Not being ironic at all.

You think it's paranoia because you have a mental model of the US -- which may or may not be tightly coupled to your mental model of the US government -- which says 'we don't do stuff like that.'

Bob, as I understand it, despite ratifying START II in 2000, the Duma was reluctant to authorize cutting Russia's nuclear arsenal until Bush announced in November 2001 that he was willing to cut the US's arsenal deeply and unilaterally, to well below the START II levels. That gave Putin the political cover he needed to respond in kind. While you might prefer to credit Putin, I think that's a misreading of what actually happened.

Also, if you want me to directly criticize the Clinton administration, I'm perfectly willing to do so. I think that the Clinton administration had a really badly-designed policy with respect to nuclear proliferation, and that the current Bush policy is a lot better.

The basic benefit of the NPT -- the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- is that it enables signatories to send a signal to their neighbors: "Hi, I'm not building nukes so you don't need to build a deterrent force either." Fewer nukes get built, and the world becomes a safer place. However, for this to work, the signal must be reliable -- a country needs to be sure that the signatories really don't have nuclear arms. Otherwise a nation can't trust the fact that its neighbors are signatories, and the mechanism of nonproliferation breaks down.

Note that you want countries that are seeking nukes -- like India, Pakistan and Israel -- to remain outside the NPT framework, because a lying signatory badly damages the value of the whole accord. In this light, the Clinton adminstration's policy of trying to get every nation in the world to sign up to the NPT (as part of their universal disarmament scheme) was a terrible failure. They wasted immense amounts of effort trying to get India to sign, and didn't promptly denounce countries like Iran that were covertly seeking nukes because that would have meant shrinking rather than growing the number of signatories. The number of signatories was treated as more important than the degree of sincerity -- exactly backwards from what we want.

The Bush administration? Well, there are three countries that are NPT signatories, and which also have active nuclear programs: North Korea[*], Iran, and Iraq. The fact that this is exactly the "Axis of Evil" is no coincidence at all. In order to keep the NPT framework credible, the US government has to a) readily denounce violators, and b) show that violating the terms of the treaty is a bad idea. If the US government invades Iraq, that will be a big step forwards. If there's also a democratic revolution in Iran, then the NPT framework will probably keep working for at least another decade.

You can argue, with justice, that the Bush administration had little interest in this until 9/11, but that's besides the point. What they're doing now is a lot better than the Clinton administration ever did. The strongest criticism I can see of the Bush administration's policy is that it is being much, much too lax wrt Pakistan. That's a country whose government barely exists, and it's frighteningly easy to see nukes getting 'lost' there. But that's a criticism that applies with just as much force to the previous administration.

[*] North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 1993, but as part of the Agreed Framework with the Clinton administration they agreed to abide by its terms anyway. So its nuclear weapons program has to be counted as a threat to the NPT.

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Patrick, I don't think I've ever said anything about the "perfidy of our allies", because emotionalizing the decisions of large organizations is foolish. Obviously, I think the policy of, say, the German government is wrong, but I see that as arising out of the political process there. There's no reason to get very excited about that -- democracies choose incorrect policies all the time, like when Bush decided to push steel tariffs. As long as some subset of our governments choose a better policy, we'll muddle through.

Now, is maintaining precisely the same nuclear policy the US has had for decades the mark of an administration that is taking leave of its senses? No. Do we need to worry that seeing the policy repeated in the news can suddenly frighten people? Of course; it's presumably intended to frighten the Iraqis. But that's also precisely why it's important to point how little has changed to friends.

I disagree comprehensively that "little has changed."

UN Weapons Inspector Mohamed ElBaradei would like anyone who has evidence that Iraq has an active nuclear programme to please contact him, as he has been unable to uncover any evidence that this might be the case.

Neel, I'm still at a loss as to how the Bush administration's reductions from 1,500 warheads is more significant than the Clinton administration's reduction from 6,000 to 1,500. If you can point to some reportage on how the Duma was uncooperative until Bush helped out (the Duma ratified START II before Bush was elected, which was what they had been obstructing under Yeltsin), I'm willing to read and consider it. On the other hand you might want to check out the Duma's bill of ratification of START II, especially Article 2, which allows them to withdraw from START II if the US withdraws from the 1972 ABM treaty.

Regarding the W administration's ability to move further disarmament initiatives forward, this article reports the speaker of the Duma as saying, "Last time they cheated us," regarding the failure of the US to ratify START II after the Russians did it, as well as saying (14 Jan this year), "The never-ending blackmailing of Iraq is not conductive [sic] for a favorable climate in this issue [of signing new arms reduction treaties].

The Arms Control Association states that, "Tough rhetoric and finger pointing will seldome produce nonproliferation results, especially if the United States itself wields the nuclear-weapons stick," and, "The Bush policy adjustment follows the failure of the administration's attempts to coerce Pyongyang to implement it denuclearization commitments and threatening punitive economic measures if it does not. Upon its arrival in office, the Bush administration abandoned its predecessor's policy of engagement, which had produced important, if limited, success in freezing Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and missile activities. In early 2002, Bush also stoked North Korean security fears by naming it as one of three `axis of evil' states subject to the administration's policy of pre-emption."

The article entitled "How U.S. Strategic Policy Is Changing China's Nuclear Plans" also indicates that the current Bush administration's policies increase the likelihood of nuclear proliferation.

If this contradiction to the notion that the nuclear deterrent and build-down policies are the same now as in recent decades isn't enough, note that the Clinton administration changed the launch policy from "launch on warning" to "launch on destruction," and proposed or implemented a number of other measures to reduct the likelihood of the use of nuclear arms. The W. Bush administration has been promoting the policy noted in the news story you quoted upthread and the use of nuclear arms in a kind of "launch on suspicion" mode.

Your whole argument about the intentions of the Clinton administration in encouraging India and Pakistan is without any object or evidentiary foundation. You cannot definitively say the the intention of the Clinton administration was not to bring India and Pakistan into the NPT so that they would actually stop building nuclear weapons and be subject to IAEA inspections so we'd have a clue about whether or not they were compliant.

Further, you have no way of establishing that the DPRK, Iraq, and Iran are the only NPT signatories seeking nuclear weapons. You do not know for a fact that the rulers of Saudi Arabia, for example, have not gone out and bought themselves some nuclear weapons. And unless you are privy to high-level intelligence agency briefings, you don't have any evidence that Iran is in violation of the NPT -- the IAEA, which is given the discretion to judge such things by treaty, does not agree with you or with W's administration.

By the way, if sincerity in signing a treaty is important, the current Bush administration should withdraw from GATT and stop pretending to believe in free trade worldwide. Walking the walk of free international trade is another area where the Clinton administration outperformed the W administration.

And thanks for so graciously allowing me to have a point, albeit one you don't consider important or relevant and that I didn't actually express and don't agree with. I wouldn't want to return the favour of doing your thinking for you, but it increasingly seems from here that your beliefs are based on prejudice against the Clinton administration, or perhaps the Democratic Party in general. You don't seem to have much to offer in response to factual points that indicate problems with your positions, often a sign of conviction from prejudice, rather than rationality.

A better response to Neel Krishnaswami is contained in Jim Henley's recent post to Stand Down. Jim and I part company on many issues, but I admire his approach, all the more when I agree with his conclusions:

I think that in purely practical terms, the Bush Administration's articulated national security strategy--essentially, Hegemony Now, Hegemony Tomorrow, Hegemony Forever--and its blunt-force rhetoric against all doubters (e.g. Germany, France et al), will tend to motivate anti-US coalitions, either open or covert. Michel Foucault was a piece of work, but stripped of ideological tendentiousness, his claim that every power engenders its resisitance seems like simple common sense. As an American, I don't want to make more enemies than necessary.

Americans seem to have considerable trouble grasping that last.

Patrick notes "Americans seem to have considerable trouble grasping ['that the rest of the world doesn't have confidence that America will inevitably work everything out for the best']"

I suspect that such Americans will continue to have this problem as long as their chief executive tells them they are hated for their freedoms rather than for what has been done in their name in the rest of the world.

Bob, the Clinton administration didn't cut our arsenal down to 1500 warheads. In the 1993 START II treaty, Bush Sr and Yeltsin agreed to cut forces from around 7000 to 3500 by 2003. In 1997, the Clinton administration and Yeltsin moved this target date back to 2007. Then, they agreed that when they got around to negotiating START III, the target would be 2500 warheads, with the treaty being negotiated by 2003. However, there was little progress made towards that new treaty, because the Duma was unwilling to ratify START II, and the Clinton administration said it did not want to negotiate START III until the START II was ratified. This stalled the arms control process until 2000 -- at the end of the Clinton administration the US had 7200 warheads, as many as it had at the start. The new Bush administration jump-started the process by proposing to unilaterally cut the US arsenal down to 1700-2200 warheads. They evidently did this in order to shame the Russians into cutting their arsenals, despite the US pulling out of the ABM treaty, and this led to the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, which reaffirms the START II targets for 2007 and sets a target of 1700-2200 by 2012. I think this was treaty was okay, but not as good as it could have been -- the Russians might have been willing to go down to 1500 warheads, and the US should have agreed to destroy its warheads rather than mothball them. But it does represent a very significant advance over the Clinton administration's efforts, assuming that implementation doesn't get delayed once again.

You are of course correct that I don't know that there aren't countries with secret nuclear programs, like the one South Africa ran in the 1970s and 80s. But I don't need to be privy to high-level intelligence briefings to know about Iran's nuclear weapons program -- I just need to read CNN.

I don't believe the Arms Control Association's assessment of the relative merits of negotiation and violence, because I think that North Korea is very much a special case: we are currently appeasing them because Seoul is within artillery range of the North Korean army. (You'll note that in my previous note I made no mention of North Korea in the possible successful resolutions. That's because I don't believe there will be any.) Also, the article about China doesn't say what you claim: it reports that the Chinese plan on increasing their nuclear force to just beyond the ability of US NMD to block. That doesn't actually change the balance of risks we face.

Regarding India and Pakistan, administration officials repeatedly said that their goal was to denuclearize the subcontinent. It's also hardly news that the US was the most energetic and determined western nation about trying to punish them after their 1998 nuclear tests. They tried everything from sanctions to (unsuccessful) attempts to get the G-8 to block development aid -- large amounts of very visible diplomacy were spent on that problem. And it's also implausible that India, a country that has openly been a nuclear power since 1976, would have been willing to completely disarm.

Your comment about the importance of sincerity shows that I did not make my argument clear enough. Honesty is important to the NPT framework because it's only a meaningful treaty to the extent that the signatories trust each other about their nuclear intentions. Nuclear escalation is basically a prisoner's dilemma problem -- since disarming if the opponent doesn't is so bad, the dominant strategy is to arm. The NPT is an attempt to enable participants to credibly commit to disarmament, thus eliminating the arm/disarm outcome and enabling both parties to disarm. Enforcement is the whole point of the treaty! Fortunately, a tariff regime doesn't suffer from this problem, because your country will still be there no matter what the other nation does.

While I am hardly a fan of the Democratic party -- aside from abortion rights I disagree with nearly all of their positions -- I don't think that I have an irrational grudge against the Clinton administration. I think the previous administration was much better than the Bush administration at economic management (compare the handling of the Mexican currency crisis to the Argentine!), about as bad on civil liberties (there's not much to choose from between CALEA and the PATRIOT act), and substantially worse on foreign policy.

The reason I think this last is because I think that the Clinton administration's grand strategy turned out to be flawed, or at least incomplete. See Brad deLong's article about what people in the administration believed. I find it hard to disagree with any of the propositions he lays out -- it's just that that strategy turned out to be critically incomplete. My own pre-9/11 preferred foreign policy, as a proper subset of the Clinton administration's, was even more incorrect. I favored promoting free trade as pretty much the whole of our foreign policy; I wasn't very concerned with nuclear proliferation; I thought the Somali and Haitian interventions were mistakes; and I thought the EU should have handled the Kosovo war themselves. I think I got each of these calls wrong. Intervention was pretty much the right choice in all of those cases. While half a success out of three tries is a pretty poor rate, it's better than zero for three.

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I don't find much resonance in Patrick's worries that we are unnecessarily antagonizing our allies, which makes it kind of hard to address -- I just don't feel the force of it. If I understand him correctly, there are two parts to it. First, there's the worry that our governments are unnecessarily antagonizing each other. Second, and more subtly, there's the risk that we are stirring up anti-Americanism to the point that the individual-level cooperation between officials will become more difficult, and hence create cracks for terrorists to hide in.

The reason I don't forsee any great danger to the state-level relationships is that the US and the rest of the West are so interdependent that they couldn't untwine if they wanted to. One day Bush and Schroeder will be out of office, and their successors will find it very inconvenient to nurse a grudge. Consider that the US gave extremely half-hearted support to the UK during the Falklands war, and the two nations remain extremely close allies. (Indeed, British commentary on the US is eerily familiar to readers of warbloggery about France and Germany!) I think that fears of popular resentment form a much more substantial argument, but don't think they are a killer problem, in the sense of hubris seeking nemesis. There was substantial opposition to Reagan's confrontational approach to the Soviets, and to the first Gulf War, after all. I think that the potential benefits of a war in Iraq outweigh the costs, and that having seen it public opinion will likely come to accept it.

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Also, at this point I've written almost 2000 words on this topic in the last two days. I feel like I'm about to spark a flamewar in these forums, and I'd really rather not do so. I promise to read all of your responses, but I think it would be better for me to stop publically following up. If you'd like to prompt a response from me, please note it and I'll respond privately. (It might even be better for me not to post this message, but vanity pricks us all!)

Neel, I think that the point about a flame war starting here is well taken -- though with Teresa standing by to yank the vowels on the first flamer, actual immolation seems unlikely. And you are right that I got my warhead numbers wrong at some point and carried the error forward.

I cannot agree at all that an arms limitation treaty like SORT which doesn't limit tactical nuclear weapons (the kind we presumably should most worry about terrorists using), doesn't specify a counting method, doesn't limit MIRVs, doesn't limit delivery vehicles (so "mothballed" warheads can be redeployed very quickly), and which can be cancelled on 90 days notice by either party for any reason is better than a treaty with all those provisions, like START II. Basically, the Bush "initiative" has resulted in an "arms limitation treaty" that doesn't limit much of anything except what the parties say they have.

Meanwhile, the US never ratified START II and the Russians withdrew from START II when the US withdrew from the 1972 ABM treaty. START II was a way to back away from MAD capabilities in a way both sides could verify and learn to trust -- something you, Neel, say is important. SORT is only even a treaty instead of a handshake deal between chief executives because the Russians pushed for it.

A treaty with inspection and verification provisions that limited delivery vehicles and required destruction of warheads beyond the allowed limits is better than a "good intentions" treaty with a smaller limit on warheads, no limit on delivery systems, and no limit on man-carryable nuclear weapons at all.

CNN says Iran has a nuclear weapons program violating the NPT. Iran says they don't. The IAEA says they probably don't.

The text of the NPT actually doesn't include anything that would require India and Pakistan to eliminate existing nuclear weapons in the short run even if they became signatories, so long as they signed as "nuclear weapons state Parties to the treaty." They'd be agreeing not to pass their technology on to other nations and to a 3rd party inspection and verification regime to ensure that they weren't doing so. Clearly the original nuclear weapon state Parties did not stop nuclear weapons development.

The NPT lists disarmament as a motivation, but doesn't require it. Actual reduction in nuclear weapon stockpiles is left to other bilateral and multilateral treaties in which parties will specify inspection and verification regimes upon which they can agree. NPT says, "Anybody else who wants to join the nuclear club has to get there by themselves: nobody in the club is allowed to sponsor their friends."

Something Dr Hans Blix noted in a report to the Security Council about inspections of Iraq seems to me very much to apply to SORT/"The Moscow Treaty" and its lack of a verification and inspection regime.

"A person accused of the illegal possession of weapons may, indeed, be acquitted for lack of evidence, but if a state, which has used such weapons, is to create confidence that it has no longer any prohibited weapons, it will need to present solid evidence or present remaining items for elimination under supervision."

I doubt very much that the Bush administration's statement that they would eliminate many nuclear warheads "shamed" the Russian government much. It might have if SORT actually had any verification provisions, but a claim from this administration -- which might be gone in a couple of years, if we're lucky -- that the US would put warheads on the shelf and should be trusted to do so on its word seems unlikely to me to impress Russians either in the street or in the Duma.

I sympathise with Neel Krishnaswami, speaking as someone who mysteriously disappeared from Patrick's "friends" links, and, indeed, from all his blogroll (again) -- which has shocked me beyond end, as it did the last time - but I do hope Neel will keep writing here, and I'd like to find a link where I can keep reading Neel's writings.

My other comment is: murphle.