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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Post nukes ergo propter nukes

Post nukes ergo propter nukes

by DougJ|  October 11, 20092:59 pm| 122 Comments

This post is in: Media, Assholes

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I like to joke about Slate running articles with titles like “Why Genocide Is Good For Real Estate Values”, but this is from a real article from Time Magazine:

Want Peace? Give a Nuke the Nobel

As long as a nukeless world remains wishful thinking and pastoral rhetoric, we’ll be all right. But if the Nobel committee truly cares about peace, they will think a little harder about actually trying to make it a reality. Open a history book and you’ll see what the modern world looks like without nuclear weapons. It is horrible beyond description.

During the 31 years leading up to the first atomic bomb, the world without nuclear weapons engaged in two global wars resulting in the deaths of an estimated 78 million to 95 million people, uniformed and civilian. The world wars were the hideous expression of what happens when the human tendency toward conflict hooks up with the violent possibilities of the industrial age. The version of this story we are most familiar with today is the Nazi death machinery, and so we are often tempted to think that if Hitler had not happened, we would never have encountered assembly line murder.

The truth is that industrial killing was practiced by many nations in the old world without nuclear weapons. Soldiers were gassed and machine-gunned by the hundreds of thousands in the trenches of World War I, when Hitler was just another corporal in the Kaiser’s army. By World War II, countries on both sides of the war used airplanes and artillery to rain death on battlefields as well as cities, until the number killed around the world was so huge the best estimates of the total number lost diverge by some 16 million souls. The dead numbered 62 million, or 78 million — somewhere in there.

Look, a huge number of the people who died in wars in the 31 years prior to the invention of the nuclear bomb died in wars that originated in western Europe. Is he really claiming that he can say with a high degree of certainty that German would invaded France again if not for the nuclear bomb? What about the Marshall Plan? What about the European Union?

And, obviously, tell the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki what a lifesaver nuclear bombs have been.

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Reader Interactions

122Comments

  1. 1.

    kid bitzer

    October 11, 2009 at 3:03 pm

    but dougj, don’t you realize? the more guns, the less crime!

  2. 2.

    tc125231

    October 11, 2009 at 3:03 pm

    The confusion of causality with juxtaposition in time is what behavioral psychologists used to call “superstitious behavior in pigeons.”

    I think that about summarizes the intellectual prowess of the MSM: “A propensity for emulating superstitious behavior in pigeons.”

  3. 3.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    October 11, 2009 at 3:08 pm

    You fuckers need to save some of these threads for the weekdays, when we got time to read ’em and fight.

  4. 4.

    inkadu

    October 11, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    A nuclear-armed community of nations is a polite community of nations.

  5. 5.

    A Squirrel

    October 11, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    I love ya, Doug, but I don’t think this is quite as dumb as you make it out to be.

    Isn’t the real counter-factual not “would Germany have invaded France again”, but rather “would the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have had a hot war in eastern Europe”? Or perhaps India and Pakistan would be bombing the hell out of each other as we speak?

    Now I feel a bit dirty for defending a Time piece (heh…time piece), but I don’t think it’s crazy to think that nuclear weapons have given major powers pause before acting aggressively. Now, they may yet lead to our extinction, the book is not closed yet. I just don’t think the thesis can be dismissed out-of-hand.

  6. 6.

    Ash

    October 11, 2009 at 3:15 pm

    So now instead of just being scared that our loved ones could die on the battlefield, we can STILL worry about that, AND worry about being blown to bits by a nuclear blast, or, surviving that, growing arms out of our foreheads.

    FUCK YEAH PEACE!

  7. 7.

    4tehlulz

    October 11, 2009 at 3:15 pm

    I like how they conveniently forgot the Cuban Missile Crisis and how we’re all lucky that we’re alive right now.

    Also, proxy wars weren’t exactly nice, clean ways to fight the Soviet Union, dumbfucks.

  8. 8.

    DougJ

    October 11, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    Now I feel a bit dirty for defending a Time piece (heh…time piece), but I don’t think it’s crazy to think that nuclear weapons have given major powers pause before acting aggressively. Now, they may yet lead to our extinction, the book is not closed yet. I just don’t think the thesis can be dismissed out-of-hand.

    Perhaps not out of hand, but I don’t find the article convincing. It is all post hoc ergo propter hoc.

    I don’t think it’s clear what would have happened in Europe between the US and Russia without nukes. There were proxy wars all over the world with nukes, don’t forget.

  9. 9.

    calling all toasters

    October 11, 2009 at 3:18 pm

    Yeah, without nukes, the Russkies would’ve had *another* one of their invasions of Europe, just like in…

    in…

    Hey, look over there!

  10. 10.

    inkadu

    October 11, 2009 at 3:18 pm

    And the risk of total world annihilation is a small price to pay for an untestable theory.

  11. 11.

    gnomedad

    October 11, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    Next up: the Nobel for medicine goes to avian flu.

  12. 12.

    kid bitzer

    October 11, 2009 at 3:21 pm

    the time piece kinda seems to be ripped off from a recent blog-post, anyhow:

    http://channellingthestrongforce.blogspot.com/2009/10/pax-atomica-prologue-im-posting.html

    but i don’t know the relation between the authors, or the chronological order of composition. probably just a thought in the air. (note that the ‘pax atomica’ author was writing before the nobel award to obama, and so did not put that spin on it.)

  13. 13.

    DBrown

    October 11, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    What these and so many AO’s don’t think about is what it is all about: MAD. The danger of a nation being forced to launch – almost happened AFTER the cold war! far out weighs any safety from conventional war. The danger of killing 6+ billion people is very real as long as massive number of ICBM based nukes exist. Sorry, but no world conflict measures up to that level of danger. The world came close twice (that we know) and no amount of saying nukes keep the peace is worth that danger hanging over our heads.

  14. 14.

    gnomedad

    October 11, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    Stanislav Petrov: The Man Who Saved the World by Doing Nothing

  15. 15.

    RSA

    October 11, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    Open a history book and you’ll see what the modern world looks like without nuclear weapons.

    Right, whenever I want to know what the modern world is like, I open a history book and turn back to the section, “1900 to 1945”.

  16. 16.

    TheFountainHead

    October 11, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    Nukes don’t kill people, Brown people with Nukes kill people.

  17. 17.

    Ash

    October 11, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    @gnomedad: Wait, I thought that was Denzel Washington?

  18. 18.

    Napoleon

    October 11, 2009 at 3:28 pm

    There was not another war in Europe, whether started by Russia or anyone else, because war has always been a negative sum game and with the advance of weapons (other then nuclear weapons) that could kill large segments of civilian populations on an industrialized basis the “negative” in negative sum game became bigger (and therefore the likelihood that a particular player could come out ahead even if the game was a negative sum game smaller) and the consequences on a country harder to hide from the population since they were now effectively combatants.

    Not a single nuclear weapon was deployed, let alone used, in Europe in WWII and yet something like 60-80 million people died in the European theater.

  19. 19.

    Egypt Steve

    October 11, 2009 at 3:31 pm

    This is the geopolitical version of the Second Amendment fundamentalist dogma, that if everyone carried a gun at all times, we’d all be safe. That’s one of those theories that works great until it doesn’t.

  20. 20.

    Chuck

    October 11, 2009 at 3:33 pm

    We haven’t had another Tunguska blast since we developed nuclear weapons.

    Oh, and this rock keeps tigers away.

    Seriously, I can see how it is people fall into anti-intellectualism now, because the people being presented as such Serious Intellectuals are just SUCH FUCKING MORONS.

  21. 21.

    WyldPiratd

    October 11, 2009 at 3:33 pm

    Maybe he’s right.

    It just makes no sense whatsoever that the Afghanis don’t get that our “bombs of peace” aren’t making those green shoots of freedom come up into a beautiful flowering democracy, too.
    /sarcasm

    For fuck’s sake, the asshole that wrote that sounds like Orwell who believes Orwell wasn’t using mocking satire.

  22. 22.

    TruthOfAngels

    October 11, 2009 at 3:37 pm

    @calling all toasters:

    1945?

    Not that I like nukes myself, you understand, but I don’t think the inhabitants of Leipzig and Warsaw felt themselves un-invaded.

  23. 23.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Shorter David Von Drehle:

    The Nobel Peace Prize should have been given to Fat Man and Little Boy: Fear of nuclear armageddon keeps people in line.

    .

  24. 24.

    Napoleon

    October 11, 2009 at 3:43 pm

    BTW, I think that article in reality has nothing to do with the NPP but uses it as a convenient hook for something else you will see coming in the near future, the rights efforts to totally derail any type of US nuclear disarmament.

    Before Dubya I would have scoffed at anyone who would have said a US government would launch a nuclear first strike but after the Bush years and the efforts, yet again, to revise the anti-ICBM system, which is a first strike system, and actually design a small nuke for first strike use (the bunker buster) as well as restarting general nuclear war head production, and some reading that I did over that period that in fact it is an article of faith among some of the neocon/hard right types during the post war period that we could win a nuclear war with a first strike, I truly believe there is an actual possibility that a Republican administration could launch a nuclear first strike. Obama getting ride of warheads means that even if they come back to power the possibility will exist that even with an 8 year hold on the WH the right would not be in a position at the end of the 8 years to launch a first strike.

  25. 25.

    The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge

    October 11, 2009 at 3:51 pm

    This is part and parcel of the right-wing historical revisionism and amnesia that’s gotten us where we are today. Just as Bush II never happened—Obama took over from the Clenis, and what isn’t Clinton’s fault is Obama’s fault—the Cold War never happened, except when Ronnie Ray-Gun ended it. Also, too.

    Those of us who remember the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over our heads for 40 years? Comsymps or worse. Reagan should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize for the largest military buildup in the history of the world, because it forced the Soviet Union to spend themselves into bankruptcy, but of course that’s not what brought them down, it was the lack of a “Free Market™” over there—yeah, that’s the ticket!

    I want these right-wing maggots who are saying Obama didn’t deserve the award—and even our gracious host, to realize that just because the USA has forgotten the Cold War, the rest of the world hasn’t. The threat of nuclear weapons is still a big deal in the minds of the Nobel Committee. They don’t want to die of radiation sickness because the US can’t bear to share the world with someone who disagrees with them, and who can say that the present improbability of war between the US and Russia will remain for all time?

    Imagine for a moment if Reagan had come back from Reykjavík with an agreement to reduce the world’s nuclear stockpiles by a third—and hadn’t gotten the Nobel Peace Prize. Try to imagine the volume of screaming from the right-wing noise machine. Now of course, a piddly little thing like that doesn’t even make the news in this fucked-up country, but believe you me, in Oslo it’s considered a big, big deal.

    Slightly off-topic, but I missed the Peace Prize threads.

  26. 26.

    inkadu

    October 11, 2009 at 3:57 pm

    @Napoleon: So you’re saying an implicit plank of the Democratic Platform is now, “Preventing neocon assholes from launching a nuclear first strike in their first term”?

    Sounds good.

  27. 27.

    TenguPhule

    October 11, 2009 at 4:08 pm

    I guess blacks and muslims killed in wars after the nuke don’t count.

  28. 28.

    TenguPhule

    October 11, 2009 at 4:09 pm

    Or perhaps India and Pakistan would be bombing the hell out of each other as we speak?

    Never stopped them before.

  29. 29.

    TenguPhule

    October 11, 2009 at 4:11 pm

    Wait, is this Times article suggesting we give peace a chance by arming Iran again?

  30. 30.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    October 11, 2009 at 4:11 pm

    Time must know no one is reading their shit. That is the o-n-l-y excuse for the crap they’re turning out.

  31. 31.

    Corner Stone

    October 11, 2009 at 4:11 pm

    O/T – but – Browns @ Bills?
    6 to 3?
    These are two teams in the NFL?

  32. 32.

    inkadu

    October 11, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    @kommrade reproductive vigor: Didn’t Time magazine recommend George W. Bush as our envoy to the Middle East? Time is slowly shifting from news to parody.

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    October 11, 2009 at 4:13 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    I guess blacks and muslims killed in wars after the nuke don’t count.

    Fuck no they don’t count. They’ve got brown skin for God’s sake!
    Silly TP.

  34. 34.

    The Dangerman

    October 11, 2009 at 4:13 pm

    Sadly, if one looks at a graph, with time on the x-axis and deaths in wartime on the y-axis, the change after 1945 is dramatic. It is as it is.

    Not to say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t tragedies; they clearly were. The first causalities of the Cold War (when did Russia declare war on Japan and when were the bombs dropped?).

  35. 35.

    A Squirrel

    October 11, 2009 at 4:14 pm

    @DougJ:

    I don’t disagree with you there, and all counter-factuals fall victim to a bit of the post hoc fallacy. But as stupid as proxy conflicts like Vietnam were (and they were very, very, stupid), it isn’t crazy to think that absent nuclear deterrents, it would have been worse.

    None of this makes the existence of nukes any less terrifying. But I do think that as irrational as governments often are, they are almost always highly averse to being obliterated in a giant fireball.

    For example, I don’t think it’s totally crazy to think that if Iran acquires nukes, it might prevent us (or Israel) from launching a disastrous attack. Granted, that must be balanced against other possible consequences of Iranian nuclear acquisition, and no one can know the future.

    I guess I just think international relations will always be a bit messy (understatement), and there very well be less innocent dead bodies now than if nuclear weapons had not been invented. I mean, it’s at least a defensible thesis. Not trivially, I do take the point that is a thesis out the window the moment the first global thermonuclear war starts.

    Also, (not directed towards Doug) second amendment hardliner parallels are a bit facile a comparison.

  36. 36.

    Ned Ludd

    October 11, 2009 at 4:14 pm

    Few people realize how close we came to nuclear war on September 26, 1983:

    “As Petrov described it in an interview, one of the Soviet satellites sent a signal to the bunker that a nuclear missile attack was underway. The warning system’s computer, weighing the signal against static, concluded that a missile had been launched from a base in the United States.

    “The responsibility fell to Petrov, then a 44-year-old lieutenant colonel, to make a decision: Was it for real?”

    David Hoffman (who wrote the above for the Washington Post) was just on NPR’s Fresh Air last Thursday. He added this:

    “But there’s only minutes, Terry, to make a decision like this. You know, this is one of the most excruciating scenarios you can imagine if you are the leader of the United States or the Soviet Union. You have only minutes. And if you have a fellow in an early-warning station saying, yes, the map is flashing red, you know, do you press the button based on this fragmentary information?

    “Gorbachev told me once in an interview that his greatest fear was that it would be a flock of geese and somebody would make a mistake.”

  37. 37.

    Corner Stone

    October 11, 2009 at 4:14 pm

    @Egypt Steve: Well, I’d be safe.

  38. 38.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 11, 2009 at 4:15 pm

    @gnomedad:

    The Nobel in philosophy goes to Ayn Rand

    The Nobel in law, dentistry, and real estate goes to Orly Taitz

    The Nobel in blog commentary goes to Brick Oven Bill, koz, and Maleki (joint awards)

  39. 39.

    Corner Stone

    October 11, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    @Napoleon:

    because war has always been a negative sum game

    Not if you invest in the right stocks.

  40. 40.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 11, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    And, of course, the Nobel in art goes to . . . (drumroll) McNAUGHTON!!

  41. 41.

    Napoleon

    October 11, 2009 at 4:18 pm

    @inkadu:

    I don’t know if they have thought of it that way, but I suspect that in practice that is exactly what it means.

  42. 42.

    Corner Stone

    October 11, 2009 at 4:18 pm

    @DougJ:

    It is all post hoc ergo propter hoc.

    Hey! He’s speaking Latin! That must make him a Latino furriner!
    Get ’em!

  43. 43.

    The Dangerman

    October 11, 2009 at 4:18 pm

    Also, I’m quite comfortable today after watching President McCain discuss Afghanistan on CNN (he won, didn’t he?)

  44. 44.

    Wile E. Quixote

    October 11, 2009 at 4:20 pm

    @inkadu

    A nuclear-armed community of nations is a polite community of nations.

    You know, Starbucks Via is pretty good going down. Coming out your nose. Not so much.

  45. 45.

    ruemara

    October 11, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    There are times I would sell humanity out for a most excellent spaceship, maps, skads of galactic currency and a Zagat’s Milky Way guide. This article will just make me build a bigger sign on my roof.

  46. 46.

    freelancer

    October 11, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    @gnomedad:

    That makes at least three instances (that we know about) where we were on the brink of annihilation and luck saved us.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5QtvmyPdII

    and 1995,

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/shatter031598a.htm

  47. 47.

    Wile E. Quixote

    October 11, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    Jesus H. God this is an inane article. David von Drehle apparently feels that the Nobel Peace Prize is like Time’s Man of the Year issue where the editors occasionally do crazy shit because they’re drunk and stupid and give the Time Man of the Year award to inanimate objects like “The Computer” (1982) or amorphous concepts like “The Endangered Earth” (1988) or large group like “25s and under” (1966) or “The Middle Americans” (1969). The best example of this being the 2006 Man of the Year where they put a mirror on the cover of the issue and said that the Man of the Year was you (because America needed a boost to its self esteem and the editors were really, really, really drunk that year).

    Of course given that David von Drehle wrote that execrable puff piece/blowjob on Glenn Beck it’s obvious that what von Drehle wants is for Glenn Beck to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and maybe Time’s Man of the Year award too if he can get the editors drunk enough.

  48. 48.

    TD

    October 11, 2009 at 4:50 pm

    I actually agree with the Time piece. Nuclear arms have made full scale conflict amongst armed nations prohibitively costly for both parties. That is hugely important.

    Dougj asks “what about the EU? or the Marshall Plan”. I can only say:

    Under who’s security umbrella did the EU develop? What was the nature of said security umbrella?

    Would the funds available for the Marshall Plan have been available if the United States had chosen to defend Europe with a security umbrella of a different nature? If we we had decided to match tank for tank the Soviet build up of that same period, instead of relying on the RELATIVELY cheap nuclear deterrent.

    I don’t think a nuclear free world is A) possible, or B) desirable. What IS desirable, however, is to greatly lessen the amount of warheads in current stockpiles. As China has shown, deterrence can be maintained with an arsenal of less than 100 weapons. It is also possible, as India has shown, to maintain deterrence without such weapons being held on hair trigger alert.

    We have our trident submarine fleet, hence, the idea that we have to be able to retaliate immediately in case of a first strike is absurd. In case of an attack, our arsenal is appropriately invincible that we could still unleash it well after our entire national infrastructure was virtually destroyed.

  49. 49.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    October 11, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    @inkadu: Yeah, I’ve actually lost track at the number of jaw-droppingly awful articles they’ve squirted out of late. My favorite is still the one about the missing Russian ship carrying nukes to Iran.

    Like all good little DFH’s I thought it would take Big Brother’s thugs strapping rats to the face of double-plus ungood reporters to get journalism to this level. Who knew all it would take was a brain-dead editorial board?

  50. 50.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    TD:

    It is also possible, as India has shown, to maintain deterrence without such weapons being held on hair trigger alert.

    Umm, India’s, and Pakistan’s, nukes are frequently on hair trigger alert. You just don’t hear about it as much because they’re pointed at each other instead of us.

    .

  51. 51.

    calling all toasters

    October 11, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    @TruthOfAngels: The Russians were trying to defeat Germany, yes? And given that Poland, etc., were (1) full of German soldiers and (2) between the USSR and Germany, they really had no choice. Ditto chasing the French across Europe in 1813. *Not leaving for 44 years* was a crime against humanity, but fighting a defensive war to the finish was not.

  52. 52.

    Aaron

    October 11, 2009 at 5:19 pm

    If this is the case, the only recourse should be to make sure that every nation on earth has a nuclear arsenal. Presto! No more war . . .

    Or perhaps this is just a cynical argument designed to make people talk about Time magazine again, as it has not been relevant for quite some time. It has to be close to going under, right?

  53. 53.

    Napoleon

    October 11, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    @JGabriel:

    Over this weekend I listened to an interview by Terry Gross of that historian (his name escapes me but he is known for his books on MLK) who taped interviews with Clinton secretly while he was in the WH and it is really interesting on all kinds of things, particularly the Republicans scorched Earth policy, but he touches on Clinton talking about private conversations he had with the Indians and Pak. on nukes and how he concluded (my words, not his) they were nuts on the issue (one quote he gave from Clinton was something like “these people run countries with nuclear weapons”).

  54. 54.

    freelancer

    October 11, 2009 at 5:34 pm

    OT- Never underestimate the power of a disgust created by smug and dumb.

    “Western Medicine misses a lot.”
    And alternative medicine says it can cure everything. And Fails.

  55. 55.

    Jason Bylinowski

    October 11, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    That article is stuck in the 50’s. Probably the dumbest thing ever written. Just……profoundly backwards and utterly lacking any sort of logical worth.

    People who hold opinions like that….what is going through their heads? M.A.D. is certainly a protocol you can use and historians can write of it in terms of raw results, but like I said, this ain’t the 1950’s anymore, and even back then it was a nightmare waiting to happen. My mother still talks about the horror of having to walk by her school’s nuclear fallout shelter and wondering when she would have to go there for real. And it’s only just now coming to the public’s attention just how many close calls there were. It was a certainty in the minds of many many people……and this is progress for peace? Fuck you, Time.

  56. 56.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    Orly Taitz (h/t belowthebeltway) has a statement on Obama’s “Noble” prize:

    I hope each and every citizen writes an open letter to Noble Prize committee, cc White House, Department of Justice, FBI, congress and state Houses of representatives and state senates, letting all of them know, that this Noble Prize is an embarrassment to this country, it needs to be withdrawn or at the very least actual awarding of the prize needs to be postponed until legal actions on Obama’s illegitimacy for presidency are heard on the merits.

    Those nukes better have legitimate birth certificates! That’s all I’m sayin’.

    .

  57. 57.

    Anne Laurie

    October 11, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    @Napoleon:

    I think that article in reality has nothing to do with the NPP but uses it as a convenient hook for something else you will see coming in the near future, the rights efforts to totally derail any type of US nuclear disarmament.

    This was my impression, too also. To the fReichtards, it looks like Obama, having stolen “their” White House, is getting an award-in-advance for planning to steal “their” most excellent Big Friggin’ Guns as well. The horror!

    In other words: This is the intellectualized dogwhistle version of their less sophisticated brethren’s ‘that kommie muslim darkie wants to take our guns! ! ! which he will use to rape our viriginal White daughters gated communities! ! !’

    Time is slowly shifting from news to parody.

    Slowly?

  58. 58.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 5:43 pm

    @inkadu:

    Time is slowly shifting from news to parody.

    Yes, well, it’s a truism that the forward direction of time is defined by increasing entropy.

    .

  59. 59.

    freelancer

    October 11, 2009 at 5:43 pm

    @Jason Bylinowski:

    Do you suppose David von Drehle is the pen name of Buck Turgidson?

  60. 60.

    Anne Laurie

    October 11, 2009 at 5:45 pm

    @Jason Bylinowski:

    My mother still talks about the horror of having to walk by her school’s nuclear fallout shelter and wondering when she would have to go there for real. And it’s only just now coming to the public’s attention just how many close calls there were.

    Thank you for making me feel old (/snark). Srsly, as someone born in 1955, I can attest that many of us grew up with a continual back-of-the-mind dread that at any time we were liable to join the ashen shadows on the monument at Hiroshima because some radar screen malfunctioned or some mid-level security bureaucrat was having a bad morning. And realizing just how quickly that “universal” terror disappeared in the 1990s was a very personal lesson on the amnesia of public discourse.

  61. 61.

    aimai

    October 11, 2009 at 5:46 pm

    This.This.This Wile E. Coyote nails it. It is only through the lens of Time Magazine and its craptacular man of the year award that this makes any sense.

    And can I get a shout out for Peggy Noonan’s Wall Street Journal meltdown and public cutting event? Peggy’s point is that its an insult to all the real americans who invented stuff the norwegians need that they had the nerve to give the prize to America’s president. America’s president should refuse it and give it to real Americans like military moms. She is not only confused as to the nature of the prize (not for inventors, Peggy, there are other prizes for that) but also thinks that the guy we elected our president isnt, in fact, seen as our rightful leader for four years by the rest of the world. The far right really thinks that because they don’t accept Obama as a symbol of America that the rest of the world shouldn’t. So every nice thing the world says about Obama becomes seen as a kind of insult to the real americans who, of course, hate him.

    aimai

  62. 62.

    TD

    October 11, 2009 at 5:48 pm

    @JGabriel

    I was under the impression after reading Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz’s debate on this very subject (and granted this book isn’t entirely up to date) that India actually has it’s nuclear arsenal almost entirely stacked in boxes in various military basements across the country. They are capable of deploying that arsenal in some hours of course, but that state of affairs really does make it more difficult for catastrophic mistakes to occur (accidental launches etc).

  63. 63.

    MikeJ

    October 11, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    @aimai: I saw fmr ambassador Bolton on BBC the other day, complaining that the Nobel committee was obviously partisan, pointing out that Carter, Gore, and now Obama have won and no Republicans (I guess he doesn’t count Teddy since he left the party). I find it fascinating that they see the Peace Prize going to one party over and over again as a flaw with the prize, not a flaw with their party.

  64. 64.

    Jason Bylinowski

    October 11, 2009 at 5:55 pm

    @TD: Nuclear arms have made full scale conflict amongst armed nations prohibitively costly for both parties.

    I would say this is or has been historically correct but I think as time moves on, you get more and more countries who get the bomb, creating a new environment in which having nukes is just the status quo. Why do you think Iran wants nukes? Don’t believe the millenarian hype. They want them solely because Israel has them (huge mistake on our part, letting that happen and trying to keep it a secret, IMO) and frankly I don’t blame them, considering what a nutjockey Ariel Sharon was.

    I would also say that even though it has been historically correct, we have also been extremely fortunate in that we have had a series of leaders on both sides who were not entirely megalomaniacal, but in my view in the long-term it is simply unavoidable, politics and human nature being what is, that this streak of good luck can continue in definitely.

  65. 65.

    TD

    October 11, 2009 at 5:57 pm

    I’d just like to add that the constant fear of nuclear attack is, of course, a terrible mental burden which we all have to bear. But it seems that as a simple structural matter, it won’t EVER be possible for states to rationally disable their entire nuclear stockpiles.

    States always act on imperfect information and are always suspicious of one another even on MINOR issues concerning security. The notion that a state would actually trust another to undertake complete disarmament, thus making their own disarmament attractive, seems unlikely.

    This is all elementary IR stuff I learned in undergrad; but it does make sense, no?

    That said, the two points I raised above do point to how that fear of nuclear annihilation can be mitigated. And, the trade off of that fear is that we don’t actually have to seriously worry about going to war with China (no matter what the Kagan’s say).

  66. 66.

    Martin

    October 11, 2009 at 5:57 pm

    What’s so astonishingly stupid about the Time piece is the sheer ignorance about the prize itself.

    This is what was said about the inventor of dynamite: “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”

    Now, he hadn’t actually died but the prizes came about because of that perception about him. So Time suggests, not that nuclear power get the prize, rather nuclear bombs get a prize created in order to make amends for the use of dynamite in war, is mind-blowingly stupid. I mean, it’s worse than the Neda business because rather than just be patently stupid, it also manages to be incredibly insulting to the origin of the prize itself.

    This is Malkin/Beck levels of stupidity here.

  67. 67.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 6:00 pm

    TD:

    I was under the impression … that India actually has it’s nuclear arsenal almost entirely stacked in boxes in various military basements across the country.

    TD, you may well be right. I remember a few years ago (late 90’s? early noughts?), that India and Pakistan came very close to trading nukes over the Kashmir border.

    India may have their nukes packed away at present, I don’t know, but that event is still fresh enough in memory to make me skeptical that India can be characterized as not keeping their nukes on “hair-trigger alert”. Once they’ve been stored that way for 15 or 20 years, I’ll be happy to concede the point.

    Overjoyed, in fact.

    So I’m not arguing that India isn’t making an effort to keep their nukes from being prematurely deployed, just that the most recent flare-up of nuclear tensions between India and Pakistan is too recent to use India as good example of such efforts. Yet. IMO. YMMV.

    .

  68. 68.

    MikeJ

    October 11, 2009 at 6:00 pm

    They want them solely because Israel has them (huge mistake on our part, letting that happen and trying to keep it a secret, IMO) and frankly I don’t blame them, considering what a nutjockey Ariel Sharon was.

    Secret nukes do nothing to act as a deterrent.

  69. 69.

    Jason Bylinowski

    October 11, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    @Anne Laurie: well, to be fair, I also had a fallout shelter at my school……we just didn’t do any drills because I guess by the late 80’s everybody figured glasnost and perestroika were gonna fix everything, which in a way I guess they did as luck would have it.

  70. 70.

    TD

    October 11, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    “I would say this is or has been historically correct but I think as time moves on, you get more and more countries who get the bomb, creating a new environment in which having nukes is just the status quo. Why do you think Iran wants nukes? Don’t believe the millenarian hype. They want them solely because Israel has them (huge mistake on our part, letting that happen and trying to keep it a secret, IMO) and frankly I don’t blame them, considering what a nutjockey Ariel Sharon was.”

    I don’t doubt that one of Iran’s primary motivations for developing a weapon is Israel’s own stockpile. And I actually think it would be possible for the United States to extend to Israel the protection of the US’ nuclear umbrella, in exchange for Israel’s disarmament, as some component of a grand bargain with Iran to cease it’s program.

    “I would also say that even though it has been historically correct, we have also been extremely fortunate in that we have had a series of leaders on both sides who were not entirely megalomaniacal, but in my view in the long-term it is simply unavoidable, politics and human nature being what is, that this streak of good luck can continue in definitely.”

    I would put Kim Jong Il up there in the megalomaniacal types. But it is true that the internal nature of that regime (absolutist and totalitarian) does make it particularly scary as a nuclear weapons state (considering how happy they were to proliferate their technology to the unaccountable substate AQ Khan network). That is, however, more an argument for non-proliferation than it is an argument for complete disarmament.

  71. 71.

    Martin

    October 11, 2009 at 6:10 pm

    They want them solely because Israel has them

    I think that’s a fairly narrow read of things. The harsh reality of the world today is that anyone with nukes is untouchable by the U.S. or other first world powers.

    As soon as Iran demonstrates a nuclear capability, expect all of the Sunday morning sabre rattling against them to stop. Even most of the wingnuts will stop. We created this climate by collectively being willing to shit on everyone that didn’t pose a direct threat to us or someone we care about, so the only way to stop being shit on is to become a threat.

    You only need to see Liz Cheney’s comments this morning to see that in full action:

    You know, Americans don’t elect a president to do that. We elect a president to defend our national interests. And so I think that, you know, they may believe that President Obama also doesn’t agree with American dominance, and they may have been trying to affirm that belief with the prize. I think, unfortunately, they may be right, and I think it’s a concern.

    Shorter Liz: If the world isn’t bending to our knee, we’re doing something wrong.

    And that’s 2nd generation crazy speaking there.

  72. 72.

    Alex

    October 11, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    Let’s give Hitler one while were at, since his actions led to the creation of the United Nations.

  73. 73.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    Jason Bylinowski:

    I would say this is or has been historically correct but I think as time moves on, you get more and more countries who get the bomb …

    Back when the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was first being negotiated, it was predicted that something like 30-40 countries would have the bomb by 2000. Since then, only 4 countries, that I know of, have had gained nukes – India, Pakistan, North Korea, and South Africa. (Israel already had the bomb by the time the NNPT was being negotiated, I believe.)

    Of those four, South Africa has given up their nukes, and North Korea’s tests have not been very successful. Its first test yielded approximately 1 kiloton, and the second test was approximated, by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, at less than 5 kilotons. For reference, the first nuclear bomb yielded 15 kilotons.

    So, yes, more countries have the bomb than 40 years ago. But to characterize it as “more and more” countries overstates the extent, in my opinion, and underestimates the success of the NPT.

    .

  74. 74.

    Martin

    October 11, 2009 at 6:18 pm

    And I actually think it would be possible for the United States to extend to Israel the protection of the US’ nuclear umbrella, in exchange for Israel’s disarmament, as some component of a grand bargain with Iran to cease it’s program.

    Yeah, right. Israel has always been under our umbrella and they’re too far down that path to give up now. They’ve got sub-launched nuclear cruise missiles now. Their aspirations are broader than just defending against their neighbors at this stage.

  75. 75.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 6:18 pm

    TD:

    But it seems that as a simple structural matter, it won’t EVER be possible for states to rationally disable their entire nuclear stockpiles.

    South Africa has done it, so clearly it’s possible.

    .

  76. 76.

    bill

    October 11, 2009 at 6:18 pm

    Seems the bombs are still raining down, courtesy of the number-one nuclear nation. Just ask the Vietnamese, who suffered more steel on their heads and up their ass than all of Europe during WW2. If nukes had any effect there, my guess would be that it was to immobilize the Soviets and the Chinese, who figured one of their cities could be the next Hiroshima.

    And I think your average Iraqi might have something to say as well about the nuclear politeness effect. Oh, my yes, we are so much more safe and secure because of our precious nukes.

  77. 77.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    October 11, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    @Martin: Is it me or is there something Hi-fucking-larious about the obnoxious spawn of CthCheney opining on why Democrats put Obama in office?

    Probably just me.

  78. 78.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    JGabriel:

    North Korea’s tests have not been very successful. Its first test yielded approximately 1 kiloton, and the second test was approximated … at less than 5 kilotons.

    By the way, I should also note that North Korea’s results, especially given the possibility that NK’s second test may have been purposefully conducted on top of a fault line to cause an earthquake and increase its apparent magnitude (which it did), suggests that NK may have faked their explosions using conventional weapons.

    Alternately, maybe they didn’t achieve a full chain reaction in either test and only a partial explosion. Either way, NK’s status as a nuclear power remains in question, despite their hype.

    .

  79. 79.

    aimai

    October 11, 2009 at 6:27 pm

    Mention of the Vietnamese reminds me of…oh…I don’t know…land mines, anyone? Guess the Nobel prize shouldn’t have gone to those crazy people who wanted to get rid of land mines. Because peace really means just not being blowed up by Nukes. Not all the stuff that happens to you while you are just going about your business in your own country before, during, and after a given war. The whole Nukes deserve a prize argument is just all of a piece with the rest of the incoherence on the right–peace really means “liberating” people! No, “peace” means not blowing the entire world to smithereens! No, “Peace means Peeance and Freeance” and Bush should have gotten it for starting two wars he couldn’t finish!

    Not to go all Tich Nhat Hanh but there’s no way to Peace, Peace is the way. Mere cold war stasis is not *peace.* Just as the deep freeze isn’t a hot house.

    aimai

  80. 80.

    TenguPhule

    October 11, 2009 at 6:31 pm

    And I actually think it would be possible for the United States to extend to Israel the protection of the US’ nuclear umbrella, in exchange for Israel’s disarmament, as some component of a grand bargain with Iran to cease it’s program.

    Yes, because an independent nation who has had a history of being shafted by former allies is going to take America’s word that we’ll protect them with something so unspeakable when push comes to shove even if it might be against our best interests at the time.

    Would you like a pony too?

  81. 81.

    TenguPhule

    October 11, 2009 at 6:32 pm

    It is also possible, as India has shown, to maintain deterrence without such weapons being held on hair trigger alert.

    Good grief, the stupid, it burns.

  82. 82.

    TD

    October 11, 2009 at 6:32 pm

    As a geo-political matter, I don’t think South Africa had the same list of security concerns as other established and aspiring powers of the time period. I mean, it’s one thing for a relatively minor global actor to give up their weapons, confident in the fact that they don’t have neighbors who are hostile and capable of seriously threatening them (SA); it’s quite another to be a state competing for global influence, and to not have them while competitor states’ do.

    Plus, and this is rarely mentioned (as the validity of the claim is contested, so take it with a pinch of salt), it’s been argued that SA gave up their nukes, at least in part, because apartheid was ending. The apartheid government didn’t want the ANC to get ahold of them.

  83. 83.

    Martin

    October 11, 2009 at 6:36 pm

    Is it me or is there something Hi-fucking-larious about the obnoxious spawn of CthCheney opining on why Democrats put Obama in office?

    It’d be funny if she wasn’t likely to get elected to high office a few steps down the line.

  84. 84.

    Napoleon

    October 11, 2009 at 6:41 pm

    @Jason Bylinowski:

    You said: “They want them solely because Israel has them (huge mistake on our part, letting that happen and trying to keep it a secret, IMO)”

    The US had nothing to do with that and in fact did not even know they had them at first. It was the French who basically armed them.

  85. 85.

    simonee

    October 11, 2009 at 6:43 pm

    These so-called “nuclear optimists” have been thoroughly discredited in academia… of course Time Magazine would champion it.

  86. 86.

    TD

    October 11, 2009 at 6:45 pm

    “Yes, because an independent nation who has had a history of being shafted by former allies is going to take America’s word that we’ll protect them with something so unspeakable when push comes to shove even if it might be against our best interests at the time.”

    Ummm…you are aware of OUR history with Israel correct? You are aware that a similar policy has helped keep Taiwan unmolested for decades right?

    Ugghhh the stupid…it hurts.

    =P

  87. 87.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 6:48 pm

    TD:

    As a geo-political matter, I don’t think South Africa had the same list of security concerns as other established and aspiring powers of the time period.

    Perhaps, but that’s not what you initially argued. You said:

    … it seems that as a simple structural matter, it won’t EVER be possible for states to rationally disable their entire nuclear stockpiles.

    But even granting that you meant to exclude SA from the discussion on the basis of its security concerns, the exclusion seems kind of silly given that there are only 9 or 10 states known to have ever possessed nuclear weapons.

    Can we also exclude, for instance, India and Pakistan? One could argue that their security concerns also become simpler if a peace is negotiated between them.

    Finally, isn’t the goal of diplomacy to reduce “security concerns”? It seems to me that other nations, possibly all of the current nuclear powers, could give up their nukes if their fears of nuclear attack from other countries were alleviated.

    So the statement that SA could give up its nukes because it didn’t have “the same list of security concerns as other established and aspiring powers” suggests a path to disarmament — reducing those concerns — rather than a de facto permanent state of armament.

    .

  88. 88.

    TD

    October 11, 2009 at 6:53 pm

    “These so-called “nuclear optimists” have been thoroughly discredited in academia”

    I mean, I don’t think that’s true. I think Scott Sagan and Graham Allsion, not at all a nuclear optimists, have more or less explicitly said that complete disarmament is a chimera.

    And, it cannot be stated with a straight face that industrial warfare amongst the great powers has not largely ceased since the advent of these weapons. It can be argued, as Dougj has, that this correlation between the deadly atom and lack of conflict is dubious at best, but it is still a serious argument which deserves more than a flippant dismissal.

  89. 89.

    TenguPhule

    October 11, 2009 at 6:54 pm

    You are aware that a similar policy has helped keep Taiwan unmolested for decades right?

    1) Taiwan is not afraid of being genocided by its neighbors. China wants them back as part of the nation.

    2) Taiwan has no nukes to give up. Their whole defense policy is to delay any attack until help arrives. Israel’s defense policy is completely different.

    3) Our policy with Taiwan involves use of CONVENTIONAL FORCES. Not flinging around weapons intended as a last resort.

    4) We backstabbed Taiwan with Nixon.

    Comparison *FAIL*.

  90. 90.

    Anne Laurie

    October 11, 2009 at 6:54 pm

    @Jason Bylinowski:

    …we just didn’t do any drills because I guess by the late 80’s everybody figured glasnost and perestroika were gonna fix everything, which in a way I guess they did as luck would have it.

    More pessimistically, by the late 80s, your mom’s and my generation knew that ‘fallout shelters’ were a cruel joke, because even the few of us who weren’t vaporized before we could flinch would perish slowly & painfully over the ensuing weeks of radiation poisoning and nuclear winter.

  91. 91.

    gnomedad

    October 11, 2009 at 7:00 pm

    @JGabriel:

    Those nukes better have legitimate birth certificates! That’s all I’m sayin’.

    Damn straight! Are we sure Edward Teller is the father of the H-bomb?

  92. 92.

    Martin

    October 11, 2009 at 7:09 pm

    More pessimistically realistically, by the late 80s, your mom’s and my generation knew that ‘fallout shelters’ were a cruel joke

    By the mid-60s this was the case, but it made the pubic feel better about things to continue the practice.

  93. 93.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 7:15 pm

    Martin:

    The harsh reality of the world today is that anyone with nukes is untouchable by the U.S. or other first world powers. As soon as Iran demonstrates a nuclear capability, expect all of the Sunday morning sabre rattling against them to stop. … We created this climate by collectively being willing to shit on everyone that didn’t pose a direct threat to us or someone we care about, so the only way to stop being shit on is to become a threat.

    This, as much as anything, explains why Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. They awarded a man who came into the office of the Presidency and immediately returned the country to engaging in multilateral diplomacy rather than shitting on anyone who displeases us, and pledged to work towards nuclear disarmament and reducing the tensions that provoke nuclear armament.

    Seems worth recognizing.

    .

  94. 94.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2009 at 7:17 pm

    @gnomedad:

    Are we sure Edward Teller is the father of the H-bomb?

    To be fair, there’s probably no need to question that. The whole project bears his paranoid genetic imprint.

    .

  95. 95.

    TenguPhule

    October 11, 2009 at 7:20 pm

    They awarded a man who came into the office of the Presidency and immediately returned the country to engaging in multilateral diplomacy rather than shitting on anyone who displeases us, and pledged to work towards nuclear disarmament and reducing the tensions that provoke nuclear armament.

    But it makes Becks nuclear hardon shrivel and so Malkin is Sad.

  96. 96.

    TD

    October 11, 2009 at 7:26 pm

    “1) Taiwan is not afraid of being genocided by its neighbors. China wants them back as part of the nation.”

    A forced invasion of Taiwan would kill tens of thousands of people–if not more. Their national government would be dismantled. Whether or not there is a fear of being “genocided”, the consequences of an invasion would be dire. But anyway…what’s your point?

    “2) Taiwan has no nukes to give up. Their whole defense policy is to delay any attack until help arrives. Israel’s defense policy is completely different.”

    Again, what is your point? I was arguing that US guaranteed security umbrella’s have been shown to work elsewhere. The Chinese apparently think we would back Taiwan if “push came to shove”. I think a similarly backed guarantee could make sense for Israel.

    For Israel, we would shove. Count on it.

    They may not believe it, and it is their choice if they think a nuclear armed Iran is less of a threat than not having their own nuclear weapons…but it was just a suggestion (something that is being considered, i might add).

    “3) Our policy with Taiwan involves use of CONVENTIONAL FORCES. Not flinging around weapons intended as a last resort.”

    What makes you think this? I was under the impression that we were prepared to “use any means” to defend Taiwan. Regardless, the very presence of nuclear weapons in a states’ arsenal means there is a potential for their use in case of a conflagration. That is an INEVITABLE part in a states’ calculus when determining whether or not to engage in a hot war. In the real world, you cannot divorce the United States’ (or China’s, or India’s etc.) deterrent power from their nuclear power status.

    “4) We backstabbed Taiwan with Nixon.”

    Wow, I didn’t realize Taiwan had been reabsorbed by mainland China.

    “Comparison FAIL.”

    Please look up the word: “similar”

  97. 97.

    John O

    October 11, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    Point well taken, DougJ, but the reason I don’t mind if Iran gets a nuke is because they can’t use it, and more importantly, can’t even really threaten to use it without the promise of losing a majority of their population (60% in four urban areas, IIRC) from a smart world community.

    I’m old, though. I can remember when MAD worked, which is not to say it always would. But most power people are not suicidal, not even close. Power is too fun.

  98. 98.

    jl

    October 11, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    I think it is bad article. When does snappy and provocative become so stupid and plug ignorant as to be dangerous? The article has both of the following two sentences close together, which should raise alarm bells about incoherence:

    “if nukes are outlawed someday, only outlaws will have nukes.”

    “That probably means fewer nukes in fewer hands — when President Obama talks about strengthening the non-proliferation regime and stepping up efforts to secure loose nukes, he is on the right track. Nuclear weapons are only helpful if they are never used.”

    I think commenters DBrown and Bylinowski explicitly mentioned the problem with the article’s argument. A better argument is that it was the infrastructure and protocols that implemented Mutually Assured Destruction policies of the US and USSR that produced the stability. Each country had to be careful, otherwise they could trip an unstoppable descent into complete mutual destruction of their societies, and perhaps human civilization, as the nuclear winter theory gained credibility.

    That was why there was tremendous opposition to the development and deployment of tactical nukes that supposedly limited damage to the theatre of conflict.

    The two statements at the top of this post indicate incoherence because they bring us back to the debates that took place during the cold war: what if the USSR used tactical nukes, and all we had to respond with was a mass attack, which would likely trip MAD? How could the US respond? We would be a ”pitiful helpless giant”, unless we could tactical nuke them back.

    Will the argument that nukes, in and of themselves, produce stability still hold when 20 or 30 countries have small nukes that can be delivered in a given theatre? Or dirty bombs? How far will US or Russian or Chinese security guarantees, or Indian or Pakistan guarantees (which may exist in 10 years, say, for some of their neighbors, or may exist now, for all we know)? Will the experience of two superpowers under MAD have any relevance to that situation? The article seems blissfully unaware of that problem.

    Bad bad bad article. Very glib and a opening for very dangerous thinking. Remember William F. Buckley, the supposedly sane ancestor of the current wingnuts? I saw an internet podcast about MAD and Cold War nuclear doctrine, and saw a clip of him saying that one reason that the US should use tactical nukes was to impress on the world that we would use nuclear weapons.

    Part of the neocon agenda was (and maybe still is) to develope a US tactical nuclear war fighting capability. Their vision of the world, as recently as the beginning of the GW Bush administration (and foreign policy disaster) was not a balance of terror with any kind of deterrence, it was a world in which countries did inflict terror, and the US would be on the top of the shitpile, because it could respond with more terror, that included tactical nuclear weapons. That world is where the very much too glib Time article leads, not to the one of a balance of terror through MAD deterrence, which was bad enough. I grew up during the last years of that world, and do not want them back again, let alone the depraved and horrific vision of the neocons.

    I think this is a reasonable conclusion for the article:
    “That probably means fewer nukes in fewer hands — when President Obama talks about strengthening the non-proliferation regime and stepping up efforts to secure loose nukes, he is on the right track. Nuclear weapons are only helpful if they are never used.”

    if by “that” the author means a careful and moderage policy towards strong world nuclear nonproliferation policy, and buidling consensus to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, and a strong internation inspection regime.

  99. 99.

    Cataphract

    October 11, 2009 at 7:40 pm

    OT but am I the only one to find Glenn Greenwald becoming…shrill? His latest posts, covering Barry Izz-O’s Nobel and the DNC’s equating the GOP with the Taliban and Hamas for lashing out against the former subject.

    Under Greenwald’s rubric, Obama will never be a success because he’s still prosecuting a war in Afghanistan that is killing people. I find that a tad bit insufferable.

    http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/10/prize_reaction/index.html

    …Think I’m just gonna zone out for a while.

  100. 100.

    Bill Arnold

    October 11, 2009 at 7:43 pm

    Some of you are missing the real danger (excepting DBrown and several others). Most of us have lived our entire adult lives (or our entire lives) under a perhaps 1 percent per year threat of death by nuclear explosion, fallout, or subsequent collapse of civilization. We’re still living under these odds, and Russian early warning systems and command and control of nuclear weapons are ever more dubious. A 1 percent risk per year of hundreds of millions dead (not factoring in a possible collapse of global civilization) is inexcusable odds. It’s as if the nation has been collectively drunk-driving since the 50s.

    There is no good reason to believe that the odds are smaller than this. I am reminded of the space shuttle program prior to the Challenger accident, when NASA was suggesting some ridiculously low rate of catastrophic mission failure. The correct rate of failure turned out to be closer to 1/(number of launches so far).

  101. 101.

    TD

    October 11, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    @Gabriel

    I suppose what I meant by “states” was “states more generally”. I don’t doubt that individual states can be offered deals in which the carrots are attractive enough, and the sticks are onerous enough, that makes their pursuit (or maintenance) of nuclear weapons less desirable. But I think this situation can only be maintained when there are clear hegemons in the system willing to dole out those punishments/rewards for compliance. This is partially what the United States and the USSR did in the Cold War. But that system clearly has limits on how much disarmament/non-proliferation can actually be achieved (in such a system, neither the US or the USSR would ever give up their weapons).

    Though the point is taken, and rephrasing it does make my intent more clear.

    “Can we also exclude, for instance, India and Pakistan? One could argue that their security concerns also become simpler if a peace is negotiated between them.”

    I think theoretically it would be possible, but not likely in reality. At least for decades. Fear and mistrust will (most likely) be around for a long time, and neither of their government’s will disarm even if a somewhat warmer (it will still be chilly) peace does become established.

    “Finally, isn’t the goal of diplomacy to reduce “security concerns”? It seems to me that other nations, possibly all of the current nuclear powers, could give up their nukes if their fears of nuclear attack from other countries were alleviated.”

    Will this be possible though? There is too much of a realist in me to envision this (though, god knows, my geo-political vision is nothing to brag about). I can see instances where diplomacy will make the need for specific states to acquire nukes superfluous or counterproductive (generally marginal states at the fringes of our geo-political drama. Either dependent enough to be successfully strong armed by enemy/patron states, or securely allied with other nuclear states which would defend it against its foes). But the point is, nuclear weapons are still, somewhere, part of this calculation.

    That, to me, points to both the potential for successful non-proliferation, as well as its limits.

  102. 102.

    MNPundit

    October 11, 2009 at 7:57 pm

    You will never convince me it would have been somehow better for Japan had either we or the Soviets launched a land invasion which is what otherwise would have happened.

  103. 103.

    Silver Owl

    October 11, 2009 at 7:58 pm

    Someone is talking with their one-eyed winkie after a triple dose of viagra.

  104. 104.

    John O

    October 11, 2009 at 7:59 pm

    @Bill Arnold:

    Bill, assume it is 1%. Even 2%, which is far higher than your drunk-driving fatality rate, but not an unreasonable estimate of your nuclear annihilation odds, at least for the sake of discussion.

    How much death and destruction and expense to move the risk from 1-2% to .25%-.5%, which if I may seems to make you much more comfortable?

    Unless you assume the risk can get to 0, with which I would respectfully disagree.

  105. 105.

    Brett

    October 11, 2009 at 8:00 pm

    It’s an excellent article, to be honest. He rightfully points out that you had serious, large-scale conventional warfare between the Great Powers that killed millions, because those states could look at the balance of forces and decide, “I think we can do this.” But with nukes, suddenly it’s “Do I want to risk the destruction of my army and probably my country in the process?”

    Look, a huge number of the people who died in wars in the 31 years prior to the invention of the nuclear bomb died in wars that originated in western Europe. Is he really claiming that he can say with a high degree of certainty that German would invaded France again if not for the nuclear bomb? What about the Marshall Plan? What about the European Union?

    He’s probably referring to the potential for a hot war between the Soviet Union and the US + Western Europe in the aftermath of World War 2. Whether or not that would happen is anyones’ guess, but he is well within his rights to point out that without nukes, the costs of a US security guarantee to Western Europe would have been absolutely staggering – the US and Western Europe were heavily outnumbered, and the latter was militarily and economically devastated from the war. Mind you, this is a period before Precision Weaponry, too, so the technological advantage of the US over the Soviet Union is much less of a factor in terms of weaponry and equipment.

    Nukes were invaluable, particularly in the 1950s, because they allowed the US to draw down forces and cut back expenses significantly, which was critical considering the strain on the US’s industrial base from the war, as well as the more than 120% national debt the US had wracked up in the process.

    As for the smaller wars in which people have died – that’s missing his point, which was that it has prevented further major Great Power wars.

    And, obviously, tell the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki what a lifesaver nuclear bombs have been.

    Was it worse for Japan as a whole than a US conventional invasion that would have devastated the entire country and cost lives in the millions?

  106. 106.

    Anne Laurie

    October 11, 2009 at 8:05 pm

    @Martin:

    More pessimistically realistically, by the late 80s, your mom’s and my generation knew that ‘fallout shelters’ were a cruel joke
    …
    By the mid-60s this was the case, but it made the pubic feel better about things to continue the practice.

    I love that typo. But I think your comment relates back to my original point — the civil-defense school drills tagged off in the 1970s and 1980s because the educational bureaucrats responsible for scheduling them no longer believed that more of the ‘the pubic’ (the parents) would protest their discontinuance than would complain about their uselessness. And during the Reagan presidency, the last time the Neocons tried to implement an upgrade to America’s Big Swinging Nuclear Dick policies, there was sufficient public pushback (anybody else old enough to remember The Day After or Testament?) that they ended up with a big fat fail. I’m afraid the new yay nukes! campaign is a deliberate attempt to conflate the Moran-Merkun fear of the Scary Black Dude in the White House Who Wants to Steal Our Mighty Weapons with the general amnesia about how realistically scary it was to live under the ever-present threat of nuclear conflagration. The people for whom Time published this article are not just lazy and jingoistic, they’re evil. It’s not (just) about denigrating Obama’s NPP, it’s about using the Peace Prize as a combination jackalope and boogeymonster as an opening salvo in their Bring Back Zombie Reagan’s Nuclear Winter campaign.

  107. 107.

    John O

    October 11, 2009 at 8:09 pm

    I suppose in a nutshell my position on the whole deal goes like this:

    I would much rather take my chances with nuclear war-death than with a complete destruction of my Constitution.

    The LATTER would mess with me every day, and MY odds of being messed with are near 100% by this Bush-born, Obama-followed policy.

    There are days I wish the Dems would come out in favor of repeal of the 4th Amendment, just to watch Republican heads explode and move the Overton Window.

  108. 108.

    simonee

    October 11, 2009 at 8:13 pm

    @TD:

    The pro-nuclear crew talks a good game about stability in the international system because of nuclear weapons, but they more or less disregard the instability that is caused during the time a country is building up (see: Iran).

    The international system is only stable when nuclear countries possess second strike capability– a deterrence from attack– something fledgling nuclear powers don’t have.

  109. 109.

    jl

    October 11, 2009 at 8:33 pm

    @Brett: The flaw in the article is that the argument for stability comes from an era in which ‘nukes’ came with a bipolar world of two superpowers operating under Mutually Assured Destructon policies. The argument cannot depend only on the existence of nukes themselves. The article completely ignores that this post-WWII Cold War world is gone forever.

    The article completely ignores, and glides over, the whole debate about what nuclear doctrine should be at smaller levels of conflict, or at a tactical theatre level. That debate was never resolved during the Cold War, because the Cold War ended, and US and Russia no longer considered conflict likely enough to deal with those issues. They concentrated on dismantling a hair trigger MAD policy, which was nightmarish, especially whenever a regional conflict flared up someplace in the world.

    The articles is very simplistic, historically uninformed, and, to be honest, not worth the time it takes to read it, IMHO. If that kind of thing is worth writing, it should be a serious piece, not some glib throwawy argument, which is what it is now.

  110. 110.

    John O

    October 11, 2009 at 8:39 pm

    jl, you’re assuming the psychology of tactical nukes is different than with strategic nukes, which I don’t accept.

    Even relative mad men know not to go there.

    Yes, widespread nuclear armament is a bad thing. But as long as everyone makes it clear that all bets are off if someone decides to toss one up, even a “tactical” one (not good strategy, just for the record) our odds are still good.

  111. 111.

    jl

    October 11, 2009 at 9:07 pm

    @John O: OK, if you want to assume that, that is your right.

    I cannot assume that would hold for many nations with a collection of dirty bombs, tactical nukes, regional strategic nukes good for middle sized countries and I guess the US, Russia and China with ‘world’ strategic nukes.

    Your assumption has to work for maybe hundreds of years n that world described above with doznes of countries, not for 45 years with only two really big players who could destroy the world.

    So, I will take that dreaded ‘world government’ please, with lots of endless negotiations, and slowly develop world consensus on strong inspection regime under said dreaded ‘world government’, I would prefer that approach.

    As far as Iran, (which I recognize is not the tipic of your comment, but I just want to throw it out there) every informed military person I have read says that you cannot prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapona unless you are prepared to spend a huge amount in reducing the country’s infrastructure. Only question is whether to go ahead with long term strategy of negotiations, or to arm up and get ready to rumble (and bankrupt the country in doing so). I think there the first choice is better.

  112. 112.

    John O

    October 11, 2009 at 9:41 pm

    jl, you’re absolutely right that n is statistically improbable, though I suspect the survival instinct is stronger in most of us than you may think.

    In any case, I’m objectively pro-death, for which I apologize. I think the world would be a lot more sustainable place with a few billion less humans.

    I favor plague-like natural disasters, because they’re so democratic. Global warming type disasters running a close second.

    I just need 50-70 years for virtually everyone I know to have a decent life. It’s as far forward as I’m willing to look.

  113. 113.

    John O

    October 11, 2009 at 9:44 pm

    @jl:

    LOL, upon re-read I realized your reference to “n” was not mathematical, but typographical.

    My bad.

  114. 114.

    TenguPhule

    October 11, 2009 at 10:02 pm

    Nukes were invaluable, particularly in the 1950s, because they allowed the US to draw down forces and cut back expenses significantly, which was critical considering the strain on the US’s industrial base from the war, as well as the more than 120% national debt the US had wracked up in the process.

    And yet with nukes we still spend more then the next 20 nations combined on military doo dads.

  115. 115.

    John O

    October 11, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Completely true, but neglectful of the fact that most of that money is already sunk.

  116. 116.

    Wile E. Quixote

    October 11, 2009 at 11:36 pm

    @aimai

    And can I get a shout out for Peggy Noonan’s Wall Street Journal meltdown and public cutting event? Peggy’s point is that its an insult to all the real americans who invented stuff the norwegians need that they had the nerve to give the prize to America’s president. America’s president should refuse it and give it to real Americans like military moms. She is not only confused as to the nature of the prize (not for inventors, Peggy, there are other prizes for that) but also thinks that the guy we elected our president isnt, in fact, seen as our rightful leader for four years by the rest of the world. The far right really thinks that because they don’t accept Obama as a symbol of America that the rest of the world shouldn’t. So every nice thing the world says about Obama becomes seen as a kind of insult to the real americans who, of course, hate him.

    Fuck me rigid. Nooners really lost her shit there didn’t she. They probably had to lay her out on the floor and turn her head to the side so that the copious amounts of stinking bile she was puking up (real bile, not the spew that is her column) and have someone clean the floors after she lost control of her sphincters.

    As mockable as the entire piece is there are a some areas that really stand out. Nooners writes:

    It is absurd and it is embarrassing. It would even be infuriating if it were not such a declaration of emptiness.
    The Norwegian Nobel Committee has embarrassed itself and cheapened a great award that had real meaning.

    Wow, it sounds like someone told her that Henry Kissinger got the prize back in 1973. Oh wait, she’s talking about President Obama, never mind.

    Some Peace Prizes have been more roughly political, or had a political edge, and were of course debatable.

    Now she’s back to writing about Kissinger. Oh wait, never mind, she’s talking about Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat. And then she slams on Teddy Roosevelt because even though he was a Republican he didn’t believe in Jeebus and wasn’t Ronald Reagan, so it’s OK to go off on him.

    More deeply into the political life of the 20th century, there were Jimmy Carter and Al Gore, and their Peace Prizes were what they were. But each man had a body of work; each had devoted considerable time and effort to a great issue

    I thought that she was going to mention Henry Kissinger after this sentence, you know, continuing on with the whole “prizes of dubious merit” theme she has going, but nope, she then writes:

    It was always absurd that Ronald Reagan, whose political project led to the end of the gulag and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and who gambled his personal standing in the world for a system that would protect the common man from annihilation in a nuclear missile attack, could not win it.

    I heard that Peggy Noonan once wrote a column that didn’t mention Ronald Reagan but that it was suppressed, just like that rare photograph of Norman Rockwell beating a child. Interestingly enough if you read Richard Rhodes excellent Arsenals of Folly you’ll discover that Reagan did take a lot of shit for his negotiations with the Soviets, all of it from the conservative wing of the Republican party. Oh and Cheney tried to fuck things up with the Soviets during the George H.W. Bush administration until James Baker and George H.W. Bush told him to shut the fuck up.

    But nobody wept over it, and for one reason: because everyone, every sentient adult who cared to know about such things, knew that the Nobel Peace Prize is, when awarded to a political figure, a great and prestigious award given by liberals to liberals. NCNA–no conservatives need apply. This is the way of the world, and so what? Life isn’t for prizes.

    I heard that Peggy Noonan also once wrote a column where she didn’t whine about how unfair things are for conservatives. It’s in the same place as the column that didn’t mention Ronald Reagan and the rare photograph of Norman Rockwell beating a child. But she’s right, no conservatives need apply for the Nobel Peace Prize, which is why it’s only been given to DFHs like General George C. Marshall, Henry Kissinger, and F.W. deKlerk. Oh, interestingly enough Nooners waxes eloquently over Nelson Mandela getting the prize (he shared it with F.W. deKlerk) but never mentions Martin Luther King, presumably because while both Mandela and King are uppity Negroes, just like Obama, Mandela’s uppityness is less offensive than King or Obama’s because he doesn’t live in America.

    But this is just the beginning, here’s where Nooners really loses her shit.

    America hasn’t just helped the world, it literally lit the world with its inventions, which are the product of its freedoms. The lights under which the Peace Prize judges read, and rejected, the worthy nominations? Why, those lights were invented by an American. The emails the committee members sent to each other, sharing their banal insights on leadership? They came through the Internet. Who invented the Internet?

    Didn’t Al Gore have something to do with that? Not with inventing it, but getting it out of the labs and to a place where it could be used by regular folks? Or was the internet another thing that Ronald Reagan invented, right after he came up with missile defense?

    It was a Norwegian bureaucrat with a long face and hair on his nose and little plastic geometric eyeglasses? Oh wait, it was Americans. The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are healthy because they have been inoculated against diseases such as polio.

    And of course because they have a good national health care system too.

    Who invented the polio vaccine, an enfeebled old leftist academic in Oslo? Nah, it was a man named Jonas Salk. He was an American.

    I’m an American, I love this country, really I do, and I want to do what I can to make it a better place. Reading shit like this, and there is no way to describe it other than shit, the runny, petulant ideological bowel movement of a conservative with poor sphincter control really pisses me the fuck off, because as much as I love America I fucking hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate stupidity and arrogance.* And when the stupidity and arrogance comes from a total fucking no-load like Nooners, taking pride in the hard work and brilliance of other people, hard work and brilliance that she could never match, not in a million years, it’s even more offensive.

    Europe’s elites experience Mr. Obama as a historical accident that needs and deserves their encouragement. Actually he was elected with 69.5 million votes, and you know, they were cast by Americans. Go figure.

    Wait, I’m confused, isn’t Nooners, as a conservative, supposed to point out that most of those 69.5 million votes were stolen by ACORN and that if it hadn’t been for them and the nefarious machinations of Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright that John McCain and Caribou Barbie would be in the White House today? Does admitting that Obama won mean that they won’t let her teabag any more? Will the editors of the WSJ take away her Ronald Reagan RealDoll?

    *I really have to do something about these run-on sentences. Is there medication for that?

  117. 117.

    tc125231

    October 12, 2009 at 12:15 am

    @John O:

    But as long as everyone makes it clear that all bets are off if someone decides to toss one up, even a “tactical” one (not good strategy, just for the record) our odds are still good.

    Spoken like someone with a poor grasp of statistics. AT 99.9% effective, there would be 22,000 checks taken or credited to the wrong accounts per hour.

    So the more nutjobs you get with nuclear weapons –and there are going to be more and more, guaranteed by our policy of half-assed interventionism, the more you are going to have to have a really high probability.

    There is NO evidence you can get it.

  118. 118.

    jl

    October 12, 2009 at 12:29 am

    Wow, I didn’t know Koch and Pasteur were Americans, or Fleming, but am not sure. By Noonan’s logic, either they had nothing to do with modern contagious disease control, or they were Americans.

    The whole column is spiteful nonsense, written in a tantrum of some kind of floating resentment.

    What if this prize just doesn’t make any sense in America, where we do not see that Obama has done anything big yet, but for the rest of the world, Obama turning away from Cheney/Bush doctrine is already a big enough achievement to deserve a prize. That would be quite a statement on what US foreign policy has been, and maybe that possibility is what is eating away at the wingnuts. After all, they knew, and told us, that the free world was begging for the Cheney/Bush treatment, and if they weren’t they weren’t free and were either evildoers or dupes

    That perspective won’t make the wingnuts happy, but it is a reasonable argument for the prize. If the Cheney/Bush plans seemed ghastly from the prespective of the rest of the world, this prize might make some sense, and not be merely ‘anticipatory’ as most in America see it.

    Oh, I forgot, if everything doesn’t always center on how Americans decide it should be, then it is bad, and I am a self-hating American even for considering the idea. I guess that is Noonan’s world. I don’t want it.

  119. 119.

    Brett

    October 12, 2009 at 2:44 am

    And yet with nukes we still spend more then the next 20 nations combined on military doo dads.

    That came later, in the early 1960s. Before then, Eisenhower’s “New Look” strategy dominated US policy along with “Massive Retaliation”, which centered around two things: using the US’s overwhelming nuclear superiority in the 1950s to balance the Soviet’s overwhelming conventional military superiority in Europe, and then cultivating local allies in other arenas (the Thais, for example, who actually received better equipment than the NATO allies in a number of areas). This helped to keep costs down considerably, since Eisenhower also attempted to more or less gut the Army and turn it into a nuclear-armed tripwire (they had things like nuclear artillery and the like).

    Kennedy decided this didn’t give him enough flexibility, so he started moving the US strategy towards “flexible response” by building up a large US conventional army and conventional forces in general. That’s where the costs emerged.

    The argument cannot depend only on the existence of nukes themselves. The article completely ignores that this post-WWII Cold War world is gone forever.

    The “nuke stability” thing is not dependent on MAD so much as it is dependent on rational actors possessing the weapons. Even then, nukes can serve as an excellent deterrent against conventional invasion. Israel’s nukes, for example, wouldn’t save them against a US nuclear strike, but they could probably deter pretty much any kind of conventional assault.

    That goes beyond nukes as well. Technically, all deterrence is dependent on rational actors, both with regards to conventional military strength as well as WMDs.

    So, I will take that dreaded ‘world government’ please, with lots of endless negotiations, and slowly develop world consensus on strong inspection regime under said dreaded ‘world government’, I would prefer that approach.

    The problem with that approach is that it’s unrealistic at this point. To have a truly credible and meaningful inspection regime necessary to eliminate nuclear weapons (since the one actor with nukes in a nuke-less world gains an enormous advantage), you need enforcement on the level and capabilities that is just not within the horizon of any international organization at this point. Sorry.

  120. 120.

    grumpy realist

    October 12, 2009 at 11:37 am

    Have I gone totally over the loop or has Time just ended up advocating that Iran be allowed to get Teh Nuke? Seems to me what their argument’s logic ends up as….

  121. 121.

    Stefan

    October 12, 2009 at 12:12 pm

    Yeah, without nukes, the Russkies would’ve had another one of their invasions of Europe, just like in…in…

    1814-1815 (Napoleonic wars), 1939 (invasion of Poland), 1956 (invasion of Hungary), 1968 (invasion of Czechoslovakia).

  122. 122.

    Stan

    October 12, 2009 at 12:58 pm

    Two words: Pol Pot.

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