Who’s Next?

[ewx]

I recently read The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor by William Langewiesche.

After a bit of WWII-era history the book spend a while discussing the ease or otherwise of producing a non-state nuclear bomb. (If he is right then) there is some reason for hope (though not complacency) here; while security on HEU stocks appears to be very poor in places, there remain substantial difficulties for a non-state group attempting to acquire it and turning it into a usable weapon. The weakest link is presented as border security; the author’s prescription is to cut a deal with the people who control smuggling routes (primarily used for drugs, fuel, etc).

The bulk of the book, however, concerns the activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan, who used stolen European designs and more-or-less legitimately ordered components to create Pakistan’s Uranium enrichment program. In Langewiesche’s account, Khan puts surprisingly little effort into hiding what he is doing - he gets away with it due to the supine nature of his targets - for instance when a Dutch colleague at FDO reported his suspicions he was told not to stir up trouble. A similar pattern holds when he puts together the centrifuge program: although occasionally he used front companies, “generally he or his agents simply went out and bought the stuff”.

For all that Kahn’s program is depicted as a massive failure of intelligence and export control by western Europe, especially Germany, it is also held to be inevitable; the manufacture of nuclear weapons is primarily an exercise in engineering, not research, and a government that wants them is going to get them sooner or later. Kahn’s spying and his network of suppliers, much as his subsequent sale of Pakistan’s nuclear technology to other countries, was ultimately no more than a shortcut. The notion that Kahn acted alone in his proliferation activities is dismissed as a transparent lie.

If Kahn is the villain of the piece, the hero is journalist Mark Hibbs, who spent many years joining dots and exploiting high-level contacts to bring the story into the public domain (albeit in publications that most would find obscure). Intelligence services knew more and earlier - but of course, they don’t publish at all.

The last word is given to Mubashir Hassan, a former finance minister of Pakistan:

“But you cannot have a world order in which you have five or eight nuclear-weapons states on the one hand, and the rest of the international community on the other. There are many places like Pakistan, poor countries which have legitimate security concerns - every bit as legitimate as yours. And you ask them to address those concerns without nuclear weapons, while you have nuclear weapons and you have everything else? It is not a question of what is fair, or right or wrong. It is simply not going to work.”

Comments

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, yes, and he does point out the double standard in the NPT. Despite it flaws I think it was better than nothing - we might otherwise now have nuclear-armed Sweden, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, …

[gerald_duck]

I muttered late last year about an international centralisation of military force as a possible way to reduce conflict in the world.

It occurs to me that such an organisation would be the only thing more legitimately entitled to hold nuclear weapons than individual nation states. It follows that creating such an organisation and giving it all our nukes might be a good way to address why-you-and-not-us arguments from various states like Pakistan, or Iran, or whomever.

As sidheag noted, it doesn't help with conflicts that are already ongoing. It might solve the problem of proliferation to Pakistan, but it wouldn't help with Iran.

The alternative, of course, is to play Tom Leher's Who's Next on loop until we're blown to smithereens.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Let's try that again.

“There was a twist, which continues to limit the effectiveness of IAEA inspections today: as an international agecy whoise primary purpose was to promite the civil use of nuclear power, the IAEA was expressly prohibited form developing expertise in nuclear-weapons design. The prohibition was imposed primarily by nationalists in the U.S. Congress, whose nightmares included the metamorphosis of the United Nations into an independent nuclear-armed power.”

[gerald_duck]

Mmm. And the USA withdrew from compulsory ICJ jurisdiction because the ICJ said it was wrong of them to covertly destabilise a foreign government. The USA… misbehaves quite badly.

It'd be nice if the USA were to start behaving sensibly while it's still the dominant world power. Otherwise, in 2031 I'll be saying "it'd be nice if China were to start behaving sensibly while it's still the dominant world power". What is it about superpowers that make them expect to stay that way for more than a century or two?

It'd be nice if the USA were to start behaving sensibly

[ewx.livejournal.com]

A bit older than Langewiesche, this one: “For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences - either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us - and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

Re: It'd be nice if the USA were to start behaving sensibly

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

"As we think, at any rate, it is expedient- we speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest- that you should not destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current. And you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon."

Re: It'd be nice if the USA were to start behaving sensibly

[ewx.livejournal.com]

If the Melian dialog is the middle of a trilogy, and Ozymandias the conclusion … what’s the first part?

Re: It'd be nice if the USA were to start behaving sensibly

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

Oooh, good question.