Accelerating Future

Eloquent Speech by Hillary Clinton on Nuclear Proliferation Sunday, Apr 11 2010 

nuclear and risks Michael Anissimov 1:29 pm

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4 Responses to “Eloquent Speech by Hillary Clinton on Nuclear Proliferation”

1. John Hunt says:

   April 12, 2010 at 11:43 am

   Hillary is right. Reduction in nuclear arms has had bipartisan support. Very few people want a scenario, 30 years in the future, in which North Korea and Iran were into production of dozens or potentially hundreds of ICBMs and with their regional neighbors wanting to get into the act as well. Yet, there is a possibility that that is exactly where we’re headed unless major steps are taken now towards nuke reduction or, better yet, outright elimination. Reducing strategic nukes by 1/3 isn’t sufficient to get Iran to stop developing large quantities of fissile material.

   Yes, we need to move towards Global Zero and quickly. But if the approach used is the liberal equivalent to what happened at Copenhagen or with the US health care plan then the opposition will be sufficient to prevent a practical Global Zero from being able to be achieved.

   There are several legitimate reasons against an irresponsible approach to Global Zero and why a responsible approach is necessary:
   1) Western countries might comply but if others agree but don’t then we’ve potentially made a very bad mistake.
   2) Countries would want to retain the ability to rearm quickly if someone leaves the treaty or even if someone is suspected of secretly developing nukes.
   3) It an enemy country secretly or rapidly develops ICBMs then countries need an effective way of defending against them.
   4) Countries who fear being invaded (mainly by the US) won’t agree to sign up unless they had solid security guarantees or unless their regime was changed to one that was friendly.
   5) The US (in particular) won’t want to take regime change off the table so long as there are countries whose regimes act in a way where they deserve to be removed (e.g. supporting proxy forces against Israel, letting millions of their own DPRK citizens starve to death, etc)
   6) Israel, legitimately, won’t want to give up its nukes unless it can otherwise guarantee its own safety. The US can’t guarantee Israel’s safety because some future US administration might change his/her mind.
   And I’m sure that there are more reasons.

   Sure Obama is earning his Nobel Peace prize. But how many of these legitimate issues is he openly trying to find a solution for? Basically none. So we need to go well beyond wishing for a Global Zero and find ways of practically achieving it. It’s naive to think that overcoming the above hurdles can be done without taking unpopular steps.

   Here are my suggested solutions:
   1) Compliance – There would have to be a universal regime of snap inspections anywhere in all countries (including Yamantau Mountain) in order to ensure that no one was cheating. It doesn’t have to be very many inspections each year. There would also have to be pre-agreed upon and very severe penalties for not only when a violation is found but also for when snap inspections are not allowed (even when no “smoking gun” had been found). My suggested penalty would be automatic, mandatory, crippling sanctions enforceable (i.e. blocking shipping) by any country. If that doesn’t work then the treaty would be terminated after a certain point because it isn’t working.

   2) Rapid Rearming – When we reach Global Zero, no country should be able to be a year away from being able to reassemble dozens of ICBMs. The temptation to use them immediately would exist. Fissile material and the ability to enrich large quantities would need to be dismantled. Long-range missiles should also probably need to be eliminated.

   3) Defending Against ICBMs – If a country were to have secretly developed ICBMs then, in my opinion, anti-ballistic missile systems would prevent the offending country from being certain of complete victory.

   4) Fear of Regime Change – Now for the really hard parts. North Korea won’t give up its nukes so long as it fears regime change. It may not even give them up if offered security “guarantees”. If everyone else is agreeing to go to Global Zero, maybe everyone would agree to an effective (i.e. unilaterally enforceable) embargo on the outstanding countries until they agreed to a verifiable Global Zero. If such an embargo isn’t effective then unilateral regime change may be the only way to achieve Global Zero. That’s right…regime change.

   5) Need for Regime Change – All US presidents have kept things on the table in case they felt it would be necessary in the future. There would need to be an actual and lasting solution to North Korea and Iran (and its proxies) before the US would remove those options. Practically, this probably means effective embargoes or regime change itself.

   6) Israel’s Security – Israel would need to have such an imbalance in conventional power that it could be certain that its existence couldn’t be threatened.

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2. Michael Anissimov says:

   April 14, 2010 at 3:52 pm

   John, nice analysis, but wouldn’t the elimination of all long-range missiles also mean the end of all space research and development? It’s difficult to expect that to happen.

   What anti-ballistic systems have succeeded in extensive testing? Zero. The very concept of anti-ballistic missile systems is still speculative.

   Even if 5 were carried out by toppling certain leaders, new ones would emerge in their place. Look at South Africa today, for instance.

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3. John Hunt says:

   April 16, 2010 at 1:41 am

   Hi Michael,

   Abolition of armed long-range missiles wouldn’t have to preclude the development of space rockets, just the arming of rockets, and keeping a large number of rockets on mobile launchers. The purpose isn’t so much to prevent R&D but rather deployment so as to ensure that there was enough time to respond in case one country was attempting to make a rush to an overwhelming nuclear advantage over conventional forces. Universal snap inspections would need to include ensuring that no country develops a large long-range missile force.

   > What anti-ballistic systems have succeeded in extensive testing?

   Safeguard, Russian A-135, GMD, Patriot, Aegis, Israel’s Arrow, THAAD, China’s ASAT. Several others are in development. Let’s not create definitional arguments. Simply put, the more ABMs are developed, tested, and refined, the more uncertain an aggressor country is that their aggression will be successful. This has got to be stabilizing. The less money put into developing and maintaining nuclear weapons, the more can go into R&D of ABM systems.

   > toppling certain leaders, new ones would emerge in their place

   This depends. If the action were very limited such as an assassination of an individual then, yes, someone else could replace them for better or for worse. But if regime change overthrew the entire regime rather than just its top leader then future leaders would likely operate in a manner consistent with international norms (e.g. Nazi Germany, Japan, Iraq).

   This isn’t really the issue. The primary difficulty with externally-caused regime change is comparing the likely direct consequences (i.e. number of war fatalities) compared to the estimated harm from allowing the dangers to gather (e.g. future mega deaths from a nuclear war which may or may not happen). This is a very legitimate debate but one which should be addressed honestly and not ignored.

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