Prolif good – War
Download 1.7 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- That’s key to the global environment
- Extinction. Cairns, 2004
- Proliferation will be slow and will not cause instability or terrorism -- their impacts are fabricated as the result of political and economically motivated scaremongering.
- Prolif is inevitable, slow, and stabilizing—no offense
- Prolif will stay slow and won’t snowball.
- Prolif slow and inevitable
Prolif Good – SatellitesProliferation causes satellite surveillance expansion.Norris ‘7 (Pat, Space Strategy Manager – Logica UK, “Spies in the sky: surveillance satellites in war and peace”, p. 169-170, Google Print) Surveillance satellites that are specifically military in nature are operated by seven countries, namely Russia, the US, France, Japan, Germany, China, and Britain (although Britain's is only a technology demonstrator satellite, not an operational system). The impetus for new countries to build these satellites has come from the fragmentation of the world's military threats since the end of the Cold War. Where before the main threat was a US-Soviet confrontation--either directly or via satellite states--military forces from the developed countries are now involved in actions around the globe. The proliferation of missile and nuclear technology has also motivated countries to have an autonomous satellite-monitoring capability. Japan's decision to build a fleet of radar and visible imaging satellites stems from concerns about the missile tests undertaken by North Korea. That’s key to the global environmentReibaldi, 1995 [Giuseppe, European Space Agency, Acta Astronautica, “Contribution of Space Activities to Peace”, 35:8, ScienceDirect] The 1970s have seen the rise of ecological movements, originating from the view of the fragile Earth, as photographed by the Apollo astronauts on the way to the Moon. The human species already consumes or destroys 40% of all energy produced by terrestrial photosynthesis, that is, 40% of the food potentially available to living things on land. Predictions for the future indicate that tropical forests will continue to be destroyed, arable land will shrink because of the top soil pollution that cannot be repaired. The control of the environment is no longer the issue of a single state but its implication is international, so it requires close monitoring to avoid disputes in this matter, eventually generating situations of conflict. Governments realized that pollution had reached unsurpassed levels and after several years of futile discussions they agreed on several environmental treaties which limited the use of substances which proved to be dangerous to the environment (i.e. Montreal Accord which seeks to limit the global emission of CFCs to protect the ozone layer). The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 was a significant step in this direction, since it was attended by Heads of State and Government. Delegates from rich and poor countries participating in the Rio Conference worked out agreements to protect bio- diversity, control carbon dioxide emission and slow deforestation. Those agreements require verification in order to be credible and binding for the countries which adhere to it. Earth observing satellites can bring awareness of any violation of environmental treaties as an independent source of information. For example, the European Space Agency’s Earth Remote Sensing 1 (ERS-1) satellite can detect, by day and by night, river pollution and identify the potential responsible, or oil leakage generated by a transport ship which is washing its tanks in international waters. Furthermore, space technology can provide easier access to “soft technology” such as education and health care as well as “hard technology” such as telecommunication and discovery of natural re- sources and this will help developing countries in achieving a policy of sustainable development. Extinction.Cairns, 2004[John, Department of Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. “Future of Life on Earth,” Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, www.int-res.com/esepbooks/EB2Pt2.pdf] One lesson from the five great global extinctions is that species and ecosystems come and go, but the evolutionary process continues. In short, life forms have a future on Earth, but humankind’s future depends on its stewardship of ecosystems that favor Homo sapiens. By practicing sustainability ethics, humankind can protect and preserve ecosystems that have services favorable to it. Earth has reached its present state through an estimated 4550 million years and may last for 15000 million more years. The sixth mass extinction, now underway, is unique because humankind is a major contributor to the process. Excessive damage to the ecological life support system will markedly alter civilization, as it is presently known, and might even result in human extinction. However, if humankind learns to live sustainably, the likelihood of leaving a habitable planet for posterity will dramatically increase. The 21st century represents a defining moment for humankind—will present generations become good ancestors for their descendants by living sustainably or will they leave a less habitable planet for posterity by continuing to live unsustainably? Prolif SlowProliferation will be slow and will not cause instability or terrorism -- their impacts are fabricated as the result of political and economically motivated scaremongering.Steve Kidd, June 8 2010. Head of Strategy & Research at the World Nuclear Association, where he has worked since 1995 [when it was the Uranium Institute]. (“Nuclear proliferation risk - is it vastly overrated?” June 8, 2010 Nuclear Engineering International, Lexis, Ajones) A significant amount of media attention has recently attached itself to the nuclear security meeting convened by US president Barack Obama and the five-yearly review conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which followed soon afterwards. The fear of so-called 'rogue nations' acquiring nuclear weapons, or terrorist organisations creating outrages by misuse of nuclear materials, clearly remains strong. Many column inches also continue to be devoted to various North Korean nuclear activities and to Iran's alleged intentions to pursue a weapons programme. There therefore remains a fear that this may cast a shadow over the nuclear renaissance, particularly as many people clearly believe that nuclear energy and bombs are merely two faces of the same coin. But it is surely not unreasonable to question whether these fears are being substantially inflated and possibly manipulated by various interest groups in order to suit their own purposes. There is, however, no doubt that nuclear materials could conceivably be diverted from a civil nuclear power programme into the production of nuclear weapons or alternatively, major fuel cycle processes (notably enrichment and reprocessing of used fuel) could be employed to produce weapons rather than fuel for civil reactors. Similarly, it is understandable that concerns over the security of civil nuclear facilities have multiplied since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. The possibility of aircraft crashing into such plants has naturally now been raised, as have possible terrorist incursions at plants either to acquire materials for weapons or to misuse the facility to create an explosion or a major radioactive release (see also 'Security since September 11th,' NEI March 2010, pp 14-9]. Rather like the risks of operating nuclear power plants themselves, these possibilities largely boil down to assessing very low probability events which may have big consequences. Human beings are notoriously bad at this and frequently reach what seem to be illogical conclusions. This is highlighted by a recent book by a US academic, John Mueller, Atomic Obsession-Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda (ISBN No 978-0195381368). Mueller argues very persuasively (but certainly also controversially) that the impact of nuclear weapons has been substantially overstated both in terms of their likely destructive power (in the hands of any party other than one of the five recognised nuclear weapons states) but also in their real impact on human history since 1945. He emphasizes how slow proliferation of weapons has been in reality, partly because the difficulties of acquiring nuclear materials and developing weapons technology are much greater than commonly stated, but also because all but a few countries have no real interest in acquiring weapons, as they make little sense beyond supposedly increasing national prestige. Similarly, the task of the atomic terrorist is far from simple. If it were as easy as many people claim, why haven't there been any incidents, even when the controls on nuclear materials were far looser than today? And why do terrorist incidents (with the possible exception of the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995) usually involve low tech methods, such as people attaching bombs to themselves or taking over commercial airlines armed with box cutters and then flying them into prominent buildings? There may not be, in reality, any substantive black market in nuclear materials, despite the stories we regularly hear of nuclear trafficking. The comparison sometimes made with narcotic drugs is not reasonable; although drug seizures are known to be the tip of a very large iceberg, controls on the production, trade and transport of nuclear materials are much stiffer and potential buyers are very limited in number. First, security considerations have been addressed by deploying additional armed personnel at facilities and by other measures to prevent incursions, while new nuclear plants are designed with the possibility of an aircraft impact much in mind. Although such events are clearly not impossible, the entire 50-year history of civil nuclear power contains nothing to suggest that the risks are other than very remote. Little can be done other than what has been accomplished already and the risks should certainly not be allowed to dominate the assessment of potential future actions. Indeed, critics of nuclear power are very bad at keeping things in perspective and fail to apply similar degrees of scrutiny to other plans. For example, should football stadiums not be licensed for 80,000 fans, simply because a direct aircraft strike during a game could conceivably kill many thousands? Should the walls of the stadium have to be several metres thick? Proliferation of nuclear materials and technology and their integration into weapons are notably more substantive risks, particularly as they will likely involve sovereign states with their greater resources above those of a terrorist organisation. Critics of nuclear power emphasise that designing a nuclear bomb itself is not particularly difficult (even if, as Mueller emphasises, actually manufacturing and delivering a weapon certainly is). So much of the world anti-proliferation regime is based on controls on fissile materials; if the necessary plutonium or highly enriched uranium is not available either by diversion from civil uses or production in a local facility, a weapon is impossible. It is therefore necessary for nuclear power critics to focus on alleged weaknesses in the international nuclear safeguards regime or in the security of nuclear materials transport, plus the possible spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to countries who may have an interest beyond normal civil uses. While there is no room for complacency, the real risks are actually as remote as those associated with nuclear facility security and mean that attempts to stiffen safeguards even further will encounter reasonable objections. Nevertheless, over the past 35 years, the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) safeguards system under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been a conspicuous international success in curbing the diversion of civil uranium into military uses. Most countries have indeed renounced nuclear weapons, recognising that possessing of them would threaten rather than enhance national security. They have therefore embraced the NPT as a public commitment to use nuclear materials and technology only for peaceful purposes. Parties to the NPT agree to accept technical safeguards measures applied by the IAEA, complemented by controls on the export of sensitive technology from countries such as UK and USA through voluntary bodies such as the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG). Safeguards require that operators of nuclear facilities maintain and declare detailed accounting records of all movements and transactions involving nuclear material. The aim is to deter the diversion of nuclear material from peaceful use by maximising the risk of early detection. At a broader level they provide assurance to the international community that countries are honouring their treaty commitments to use nuclear materials and facilities exclusively for peaceful purposes. In this way safeguards are a service both to the international community and to individual states, who recognise that it is in their own interest to demonstrate compliance with these commitments. All NPT non-weapons states must accept these full-scope safeguards, while facility-specific safeguards apply in the five weapons states (USA, Russia, UK, France and China) plus the non-NPT states (India, Pakistan and Israel). Iran and North Korea illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of international safeguards. While accepting safeguards at declared facilities, Iran has allegedly set up equipment elsewhere in an attempt to enrich uranium to weapons grade (see also 'Figuring out Fordow,' NEI March 2010, pp20-2]. North Korea used research reactors (not commercial electricity-generating reactors) and a reprocessing plant to produce some weapons-grade plutonium. The weakness of the NPT regime lies in the fact that no obvious diversion of material has been involved. In both countries, the uranium used as fuel probably came from indigenous sources, and the countries themselves built the nuclear facilities concerned, without being declared or placed under safeguards arrangements. The greatest risk of nuclear weapons proliferation has traditionally rested with countries which have not joined the NPT and which have significant unsafeguarded nuclear activities. India, Pakistan and Israel are in this category. While safeguards apply to some of their activities, others remain beyond scrutiny. A further concern is that countries may develop various sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities and research reactors under full NPT safeguards and then subsequently opt out of the NPT. This is the argument for moving to some kind of intrinsic proliferation resistance in the fuel cycle, where there are a number of ideas, previously floated many years ago, which keep on being revamped. One key principle is that the assurance of non-proliferation must be linked to assurance of supply and services in the nuclear fuel cycle to any country embracing nuclear power. Various proposals for fuel banks and multinational fuel cycle centres may aim to guarantee the supply of nuclear fuel and services for bona fide uses, thereby removing the incentive for countries to develop indigenous fuel cycle capabilities. Yet there is clearly a risk here of dividing the world into 'good guys' and 'bad guys,' in a politically discriminatory way. Already, some international fuel cycle proposals have raised the ire of major developing countries like Brazil and South Africa. The real problem is that nuclear non-proliferation and security have powerful lobby groups behind them, largely claiming to have nothing against nuclear power as such, apart from the dangers of misuse of nuclear technology. In fact in Washington DC, home of the US federal government, there is a cottage industry of lobby groups dedicated to this. Those who oppose their scaremongering (and it essentially amounts to no more than this) are castigated as being in the industry's pocket or acting unresponsively to allegedly genuinely expressed public fears. Pointing out that very few new countries will acquire nuclear power by even 2030, and that very few of these will likely express any interest in acquiring enrichment or reprocessing facilities, seems to go completely over their heads. In any case, nuclear fuel cycle technologies are very expensive to acquire and it makes perfect sense to buy nuclear fuel from the existing commercial international supply chain. This already guarantees security of supply, so moves towards international fuel banks are essentially irrelevant, while measures supposedly to increase the proliferation resistance of the fuel cycle are unwarranted, particularly if they impose additional costs on the industry. It is likely that more countries will foolishly choose to acquire nuclear weapons. Prolif is inevitable, slow, and stabilizing—no offenseTepperman 9 (Jonathon, former Deputy Managing Editor Foreign Affairs and Assistant Managing Editors Newsweek, Newsweek, “Why Obama should Learn to Love the Bomb”, http://www.newsweek.com/2009/08/28/why-obama-should-learn-to-love-the-bomb.html, ZBurdette) These efforts are all grounded in the same proposition: that, as Obama has said several times, nuclear weapons represent the "gravest threat" to U.S. security. This argument has a lot going for it. It's strongly intuitive, as anyone who's ever seen pictures of Hiroshima or Nagasaki knows. It's also popular; U.S. presidents have been making similar noises since the Eisenhower administration, and halting the spread of nukes (if not eliminating them altogether) is one of the few things Obama, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, and Benjamin Netanyahu can all agree on. There's just one problem with the reasoning: it may well be wrong. A growing and compelling body of research suggests that nuclear weapons may not, in fact, make the world more dangerous, as Obama and most people assume. The bomb may actually make us safer. In this era of rogue states and transnational terrorists, that idea sounds so obviously wrongheaded that few politicians or policymakers are willing to entertain it. But that's a mistake. Knowing the truth about nukes would have a profound impact on government policy. Obama's idealistic campaign, so out of character for a pragmatic administration, may be unlikely to get far (past presidents have tried and failed). But it's not even clear he should make the effort. There are more important measures the U.S. government can and should take to make the real world safer, and these mustn't be ignored in the name of a dreamy ideal (a nuke-free planet) that's both unrealistic and possibly undesirable. The argument that nuclear weapons can be agents of peace as well as destruction rests on two deceptively simple observations. First, nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. Second, there's never been a nuclear, or even a nonnuclear, war between two states that possess them. Just stop for a second and think about that: it's hard to overstate how remarkable it is, especially given the singular viciousness of the 20th century. As Kenneth Waltz, the leading "nuclear optimist" and a professor emeritus of political science at UC Berkeley puts it, "We now have 64 years of experience since Hiroshima. It's striking and against all historical precedent that for that substantial period, there has not been any war among nuclear states." To understand why—and why the next 64 years are likely to play out the same way—you need to start by recognizing that all states are rational on some basic level. Their leaders may be stupid, petty, venal, even evil, but they tend to do things only when they're pretty sure they can get away with them. Take war: a country will start a fight only when it's almost certain it can get what it wants at an acceptable price. Not even Hitler or Saddam waged wars they didn't think they could win. The problem historically has been that leaders often make the wrong gamble and underestimate the other side—and millions of innocents pay the price. Nuclear weapons change all that by making the costs of war obvious, inevitable, and unacceptable. Suddenly, when both sides have the ability to turn the other to ashes with the push of a button—and everybody knows it—the basic math shifts. Even the craziest tin-pot dictator is forced to accept that war with a nuclear state is unwinnable and thus not worth the effort. As Waltz puts it, "Why fight if you can't win and might lose everything?" Why indeed? The iron logic of deterrence and mutually assured destruction is so compelling, it's led to what's known as the nuclear peace: the virtually unprecedented stretch since the end of World War II in which all the world's major powers have avoided coming to blows. They did fight proxy wars, ranging from Korea to Vietnam to Angola to Latin America. But these never matched the furious destruction of full-on, great-power war (World War II alone was responsible for some 50 million to 70 million deaths). And since the end of the Cold War, such bloodshed has declined precipitously. Meanwhile, the nuclear powers have scrupulously avoided direct combat, and there's very good reason to think they always will. There have been some near misses, but a close look at these cases is fundamentally reassuring—because in each instance, very different leaders all came to the same safe conclusion. Take the mother of all nuclear standoffs: the Cuban missile crisis. For 13 days in October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union each threatened the other with destruction. But both countries soon stepped back from the brink when they recognized that a war would have meant curtains for everyone. As important as the fact that they did is the reason why: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's aide Fyodor Burlatsky said later on, "It is impossible to win a nuclear war, and both sides realized that, maybe for the first time." The record since then shows the same pattern repeating: nuclear-armed enemies slide toward war, then pull back, always for the same reasons. The best recent example is India and Pakistan, which fought three bloody wars after independence before acquiring their own nukes in 1998. Getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction didn't do anything to lessen their animosity. But it did dramatically mellow their behavior. Since acquiring atomic weapons, the two sides have never fought another war, despite severe provocations (like Pakistani-based terrorist attacks on India in 2001 and 2008). They have skirmished once. But during that flare-up, in Kashmir in 1999, both countries were careful to keep the fighting limited and to avoid threatening the other's vital interests. Sumit Ganguly, an Indiana University professor and coauthor of the forthcoming India, Pakistan, and the Bomb, has found that on both sides, officials' thinking was strikingly similar to that of the Russians and Americans in 1962. The prospect of war brought Delhi and Islamabad face to face with a nuclear holocaust, and leaders in each country did what they had to do to avoid it. Nuclear pessimists—and there are many—insist that even if this pattern has held in the past, it's crazy to rely on it in the future, for several reasons. The first is that today's nuclear wannabes are so completely unhinged, you'd be mad to trust them with a bomb. Take the sybaritic Kim Jong Il, who's never missed a chance to demonstrate his battiness, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has denied the Holocaust and promised the destruction of Israel, and who, according to some respected Middle East scholars, runs a messianic martyrdom cult that would welcome nuclear obliteration. These regimes are the ultimate rogues, the thinking goes—and there's no deterring rogues. But are Kim and Ahmadinejad really scarier and crazier than were Stalin and Mao? It might look that way from Seoul or Tel Aviv, but history says otherwise. Khrushchev, remember, threatened to "bury" the United States, and in 1957, Mao blithely declared that a nuclear war with America wouldn't be so bad because even "if half of mankind died … the whole world would become socialist." Pyongyang and Tehran support terrorism—but so did Moscow and Beijing. And as for seeming suicidal, Michael Desch of the University of Notre Dame points out that Stalin and Mao are the real record holders here: both were responsible for the deaths of some 20 million of their own citizens. Yet when push came to shove, their regimes balked at nuclear suicide, and so would today's international bogeymen. For all of Ahmadinejad's antics, his power is limited, and the clerical regime has always proved rational and pragmatic when its life is on the line. Revolutionary Iran has never started a war, has done deals with both Washington and Jerusalem, and sued for peace in its war with Iraq (which Saddam started) once it realized it couldn't win. North Korea, meanwhile, is a tiny, impoverished, family-run country with a history of being invaded; its overwhelming preoccupation is survival, and every time it becomes more belligerent it reverses itself a few months later (witness last week, when Pyongyang told Seoul and Washington it was ready to return to the bargaining table). These countries may be brutally oppressive, but nothing in their behavior suggests they have a death wish. Still, even if Iran or North Korea are deterrable, nuclear pessimists fear they'll give or sell their deadly toys to terrorists, who aren't—for it's hard to bomb a group with no return address. Yet look closely, and the risk of a WMD handoff starts to seem overblown. For one thing, assuming Iran is able to actually build a nuke, Desch explains that "it doesn't make sense that they'd then give something they regard as central to their survival to groups like Hizbullah, over which they have limited control. As for Al Qaeda, they don't even share common interests. Why would the mullahs give Osama bin Laden the crown jewels?" To do so would be fatal, for Washington has made it very clear that it would regard any terrorist use of a WMD as an attack by the country that supplied it—and would respond accordingly. A much greater threat is that a nuclear North Korea or Pakistan could collapse and lose control of its weapons entirely. Yet here again history offers some comfort. China acquired its first nuke in 1964, just two years before it descended into the mad chaos of the Cultural Revolution, when virtually every Chinese institution was threatened—except for its nuclear infrastructure, which remained secure. "It was nearly a coup," says Desch, "yet with all the unrest, nobody ever thought that there might be an unauthorized nuclear use." The Soviets' weapons were also kept largely safe (with U.S. help) during the breakup of their union in the early '90s. And in recent years Moscow has greatly upped its defense spending (by 20 to 30 percent a year), using some of the cash to modernize and protect its arsenal. As for Pakistan, it has taken numerous precautions to ensure that its own weapons are insulated from the country's chaos, installing complicated firing mechanisms to prevent a launch by lone radicals, for example, and instituting special training and screening for its nuclear personnel to ensure they're not infiltrated by extremists. Even if the Pakistani state did collapse entirely—the nightmare scenario—the chance of a Taliban bomb would still be remote. Desch argues that the idea that terrorists "could use these weapons radically underestimates the difficulty of actually operating a modern nuclear arsenal. These things need constant maintenance and they're very easy to disable. So the idea that these things could be stuffed into a gunnysack and smuggled across the Rio Grande is preposterous." The risk of an arms race—with, say, other Persian Gulf states rushing to build a bomb after Iran got one—is a bit harder to dispel. Once again, however, history is instructive. "In 64 years, the most nuclear-weapons states we've ever had is 12," says Waltz. "Now with North Korea we're at nine. That's not proliferation; that's spread at glacial pace." Nuclear weapons are so controversial and expensive that only countries that deem them absolutely critical to their survival go through the extreme trouble of acquiring them. That's why South Africa, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan voluntarily gave theirs up in the early '90s, and why other countries like Brazil and Argentina dropped nascent programs. This doesn't guarantee that one or more of Iran's neighbors—Egypt or Saudi Arabia, say—might not still go for the bomb if Iran manages to build one. But the risks of a rapid spread are low, especially given Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent suggestion that the United States would extend a nuclear umbrella over the region, as Washington has over South Korea and Japan, if Iran does complete a bomb. If one or two Gulf states nonetheless decided to pursue their own weapon, that still might not be so disastrous, given the way that bombs tend to mellow behavior. Put this all together and nuclear weapons start to seem a lot less frightening. So why have so few people in Washington recognized this? Most of us suffer from what Desch calls a nuclear phobia, an irrational fear that's grounded in good evidence—nuclear weapons are terrifying—but that keeps us from making clear, coldblooded calculations about just how dangerous possessing them actually is. The logic of nuclear peace rests on a scary bargain: you accept a small chance that something extremely bad will happen in exchange for a much bigger chance that something very bad—conventional war—won't happen. This may well be a rational bet to take, especially if that first risk is very small indeed. But it's a tough case to make to the public. Still, it's worth keeping in mind as Obama coaxes the world toward nuclear disarmament—especially because he's destined to fail. The Russians and Chinese have shown little inclination to give up their nukes, for several reasons—chief among them that the U.S. is vastly more powerful in conventional terms, and these weapons are thus their main way of leveling the playing field. Moscow and Beijing would likely be unmoved by anything short of a unilateral U.S. disarmament, which no one in Washington contemplates. And even if Russia and China (and France, Britain, Israel, India, and Pakistan) could be coaxed to abandon their weapons, we'd still live with the fear that any of them could quickly and secretly rearm. Meanwhile, the U.S. campaign to slow Iran's weapons program and reverse North Korea's is also unlikely to work. States want nukes if they feel their survival is in jeopardy. The Obama administration may have dropped talk of regime change, but it continues to threaten Pyongyang and Tehran. That ensures the standoff will continue, for so long as these states feel insecure, they'll never give up their nuclear dreams. Prolif will stay slow and won’t snowball.Waltz 95Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, 1995 p43-44 Ajones Some have feared that weakening opposition to the spread of nuclear weapons will lead numerous states to obtain them because it may seem that "everyone is doing it. Why should we think that if we relax, numerous states will begin to make nuclear weapons? Both the United States and thc Soviet Union were relaxed in the past, and those effects did not follow. The Soviet Union initially supported China's nuclear program. The United States helped both Britain and France to produce nuclear weapons. By 1968 the CIA had informed President ]ohnson of the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons, and in Iuly of 1970, Richard Helms, director of the CIA, gave this information to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. These and later disclosures were not followed by censure of Israel or by reductions of economic assistance." And in September of 1980, the executive branch, against the will of the House of Representatives but with the approval of the Senate, continued to do nuclear business with India despite its explosion of a nuclear device and despite its unwillingness to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Many more countries can make nuclear weapons than do. One can believe that American opposition to nuclear arming stays the deluge only by overlooking the complications of international life. Any state has to examine many conditions before deciding whether or not to develop nuclear weapons. Our opposition is only one factor and is not likely to be the decisive one. Many states feel fairly secure living with their neighbors. Why should they want nuclear weapons? Some countries, feeling threatened, have found security through their own strenuous efforts and through arrangements made with others. South Korea is an outstanding example. Many officials believe that South Korea would lose more in terms of American support if it acquired nuclear weapons than it would gain by having them.Further, on occasion we might slow the spread of nuclear weapons by not opposing the nuclear weapons programs of some countries. When we oppose Pak No epidemic – even if one state proliferates, it will not create a domino effect because every state has a different strategic calculus Potter and Mukhatzhanova 8 (William C. Potter is Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar Professor of Nonproliferation Studies and Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova is Research Associate at the James Martin Center. “Nuclear Phobia”, International Herald Tribune, September 23, Infotrac) Egypt - the domino most often identified as likely to fall in the wake of an overt Iranian nuclear weapons program - is a case in point. As James Walsh demonstrates in his case study for our project, Egypt's motivations to acquire nuclear weapons were more intense in past decades than they are today or are likely to be in the near future, while disincentives are as severe if not more so than in the past. Why would Cairo decide to emulate an Iranian nuclear posture when it has so long tolerated a far more potent Israeli nuclear weapons capability? Why would it risk severe damage to its relations with the United States, not to mention the loss of huge amounts of economic and military aid, for the very uncertain benefits of an expensive weapons program? One should also be skeptical that Turkey, another prospective link in an Iran-instigated chain reaction, would abandon its quest for membership in the European Union and jeopardize its NATO security guarantees to emulate Iran. And what about Saudi Arabia, another Middle Eastern kingpin? What problem, internal or otherwise, would the kingdom solve with nuclear weapons? To suggest that the proverbial proliferation sky is not yet falling is not to dismiss the risk of weapons spread. Indeed, Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, or military action against Iran, could well shift the balance of incentives and disincentives in the proliferation calculus for a number of states. If history is any guide, however, these factors will be country-specific, and even if one nation should decide to disavow its nonproliferation commitments, there is little reason to expect an epidemic. Proliferation is slow and non-threatening – states won’t abandon nuclear restraint Potter and Mukhatzhanova 8 (William C. Potter is Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar Professor of Nonproliferation Studies and Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova is Research Associate at the James Martin Center. “Nuclear Phobia”, International Herald Tribune, September 23, Infotrac) A review of declassified U.S. national intelligence estimates (NIEs), as well as scholarly prognoses, shows that nuclear alarmism has been a feature of U.S. threat assessments throughout most of the nuclear age. The catalysts for projections of rapid proliferation and the characteristics of "threshold states" have changed over time, but past forecasts have routinely overestimated the pace of proliferation. The most famous dire prognosis was President John F. Kennedy's 1963 nightmare of a future world of 15, 20 or 25 nuclear powers. Although there has been little movement in that direction, the assumption persists that the birth of a new nuclear-armed state will beget many others. Waves of proliferation were widely anticipated following India's "peaceful" nuclear explosion in 1974; the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998; and, most recently, North Korea's defection from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. While these events produced no obvious diffusion effect, policy makers have identified the Middle East as the site of the next proliferation epidemic. Do the facts on the ground support this prognosis? Our multiyear study of the dynamics of nuclear proliferation for a dozen "usual suspects" suggests otherwise. It indicates that the further spread of nuclear weapons is neither imminent nor likely to involve a "chain reaction." Although surprising in terms of its challenge to conventional wisdom about a proliferation pandemic, our conclusion is consistent with the historically slow pace of proliferation and the exceptional circumstances that must pertain for states to abandon nuclear restraint. It also highlights the important role played by individual leaders and domestic political coalitions for whom pursuit of nuclear weapons poses major political, economic and security costs. Prolif slow and inevitableWaltz 95Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, 1995 p1 Ajones What will the spread of nuclear weapons do to the world? l say "spread" rather than "proliferation" because so far nuclear weapons have proliferated only vertically as the major nuclear powers have added to their arsenals. Horizontally, they have spread slowly across countries, and the pace is not likely to change much. Short term candidates for the nuclear club are not numerous, and they are not likely to rush into the nuclear business. One reason is that the United States works with some effect to keep countries from doing that. Nuclear weapons will nevertheless spread, with a new member occasionally joining the club. Membership grew to twelve in the first Hfty years of the nuclear age, and that number includes three countries who suddenly found themselves in the nuclear military business as successor states to the Soviet Union. A 50 percent growth of membership in the next decade would be surprising. Since rapid changes in international conditions can be unsettling, the slowness of the spread of nuclear weap ons is fortunate. Someday the world will be populated by fifteen or eighteen nuclear-weapon states (hereafter referred to as nuclear states). What the further spread of nuclear weapons will do to the world is therefore a compelling question. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 1.7 Mb. Share with your friends:
|