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from the he-might-be-a-little-nuts-too dept.
North Korea's defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities, dramatised by last weekend's powerful underground test and a recent long-range ballistic missile launch over Japan, has been almost universally condemned as posing a grave, unilateral threat to international peace and security.
The growing North Korean menace also reflects the chronic failure of multilateral counter-proliferation efforts and, in particular, the long standing refusal of acknowledged nuclear-armed states such as the US and Britain to honour a legal commitment to reduce and eventually eliminate their arsenals.
In other words, the past and present leaders of the US, Russia, China, France and the UK, whose governments signed but have not fulfilled the terms of the 1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), have to some degree brought the North Korea crisis on themselves. Kim Jong-un's recklessness and bad faith is a product of their own.
The NPT, signed by 191 countries, is probably the most successful arms control treaty ever. When conceived in 1968, at the height of the cold war, the mass proliferation of nuclear weapons was considered a real possibility. Since its inception and prior to North Korea, only India, Pakistan and Israel are known to have joined the nuclear "club" in almost half a century.
To work fully, the NPT relies on keeping a crucial bargain: non-nuclear-armed states agree never to acquire the weapons, while nuclear-armed states agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and pursue nuclear disarmament with the ultimate aim of eliminating them. This, in effect, was the guarantee offered to vulnerable, insecure outlier states such as North Korea. The guarantee was a dud, however, and the bargain has never been truly honoured.
[Ed Note: Since this story was submitted there has been at least one additional ballistic missile test by North Korea.]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Virindi on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:28AM (17 children)
This argument is truly insane.
The idea that those with nuclear weapons ever could, or would, completely eliminate them is ludicrous. No nuclear armed country ever intended to do so. Any statements to the contrary are just pandering.
Even if everyone were to get rid of their weapons, there would always be the possibility that someone in the future could rebuild them, or secretly not comply. That would leave everyone else open to a devastating attack. Nobody is actually stupid enough to let this happen.
Ask yourself: if nobody else in the world had nuclear weapons, would North Korea still want them?
YES! Of course they would! If anything, their position would be drastically improved. Nothing would be different except that now everyone else has no chance to retaliate against their nuclear strikes. Everyone would be annoyed that they had nukes, just like they are now, and we wouldn't be able to do much about it without serious risk, just like now. But, they'd be in a much better position to blackmail the rest of the world.
North Korea is exactly why the existing nuclear powers will never be able to get rid of their weapons. The anti-nuke crowd seem to be practically arguing against themselves by presenting articles like this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:50AM (9 children)
> No nuclear armed country ever intended to do so.
Well then I guess these were unintentional.
States formerly possessing nuclear weapons [wikipedia.org]
Nations that Gave up on Nuclear Bombs [newsweek.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:17PM (8 children)
Meanwhile we have nine countries known to have nuclear weapons capable of being used to blow something up. Not one has relinquished those weapons though we have seen substantial reductions in the US and Russia's arsenals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:56PM (7 children)
The former Soviet republics had working nuclear bombs and missiles, but may not have had the codes with which to use them. One author says [nonproliferation.org] the Ukraine may have had the codes:
What do you mean by "South Africa never had a viable system"? They had a few functional bombs, and bombers that could carry them, did they not?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @01:08PM (5 children)
They never tested [wikipedia.org] the nukes (that right there rules out the viability of the device) and they never had a viable delivery system (the bombs were too big for the missiles they had and the airplanes, that could carry the devices, couldn't penetrate Russian-based anti-air defenses of their neighbors). It was just an expensive negotiation ploy at the end which is why it was so easy to negotiate away.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday September 16 2017, @04:18PM (2 children)
Those of us who read CIA whitepapers and sources like Jane's at the time were pretty certain that the South Africans tested nukes with Israel over the sea. South Africa gave up its nukes after Apartheid. Israel did not.
It does raise the question why the US did not come down like a ton of bricks on Israel for its nukes. It is a dangerous country that has no compunction about invading its neighbors and using banned weapons like cluster bombs. It too should be under absolute international sanctions until it surrenders its nuclear weapons.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:20PM
Then where's the fallout? That's the definitive proof of a nuclear explosion which can't be masked. I believe there's sufficient evidence to indicate that the CIA and other sources were confusing asteroid impacts with nuclear explosions.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:31PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:07PM (1 child)
The gun-type design used in the Little Boy bomb was never tested until it was dropped on Hiroshima. Clearly that did not rule out the viability of the device.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:29PM
You just wrote that the Little Boy was tested (and we're neglecting previous testing of other designs). At the least, the builders could point to the implosion detonation of the Trinity test to show that they were competent enough to design nuclear weapons. South Africa made six warheads with no practical demonstration that they or any other design made by the development group would work.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday September 16 2017, @06:48PM
And after the end of the USSR, the Ukraine gave the nukes back to Russia in exchange to Russia guaranteeing the Ukraine's territorial integrity. That didn't work out so well for the Ukraine …
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:18PM (2 children)
> The idea that those with nuclear weapons ever could, or would, completely eliminate them is ludicrous. No nuclear armed country ever intended to do so.
South Africa and Ukraine disarmed. The US, Russia, China, France and the UK, contrary to what they promised, have not. They didn't have to sign the NPT, but they did.
> Any statements to the contrary are just pandering.
I don't understand what you mean by "pandering" or which statements you're referring to. Maybe you mean the treaty, or the article's paraphrase of it. I would say that the US, Russia, China, France and the UK, by signing a treaty that obliges them to dismantle their nuclear weapons but not doing so promptly (it's been close to 50 years), are acting in bad faith.
> ...if nobody else in the world had nuclear weapons, would North Korea still want them? ...they'd be in a much better position to blackmail the rest of the world.
North Korea was estimated in 2015 to have 10 to 20 [wsj.com] nuclear warheads (they may have more now). Assuming those could all be delivered successfully, that isn't enough to end the industrial age or to cause a major extinction event. The global inventory that now exists--22,000 warheads, says the article--arguably could. From what I've read, North Korea's surest way of delivering a nuclear bomb may be via its old Soviet aircraft, which can elude radar by flying low. Anyone outside northeast Asia would be much safer under the scenario you posit.
Early in the nuclear age, it was proposed that all nuclear bombs should be put under international control. If most of them were dismantled, but a few were kept under international control, that could deter a country such as North Korea. Even without any bombs under international control, the possibility of a non-nuclear counterattack might deter a country such as North Korea. They were devastated in the Korean War. Also, we now have ABMs such as THAAD, so we can defend ourselves, however imperfectly, against nuclear attack. The ability of the North Koreans to blackmail the rest of us--if that is even their intention--is limited.
> The anti-nuke crowd seem to be practically arguing against themselves by presenting articles like this.
The proposition that NPT non-compliance has led to North Korea's nuclear armament is a shaky one. However, the article is correct in pointing out that non-compliance, and in saying it's led to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (however ineffective that treaty may be). I think it's right to draw our attention to the thousands of warheads held by the older nuclear powers, in contrast to the tens held by North Korea.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @01:15PM (1 child)
In 1945, the US and Russia didn't have the power to end the industrial age with nuclear weapons either. And yet, they do now in 2017, which somehow is no longer 1945. The world doesn't stay constant. Someone who has 10-20 prototype nukes in 2015 might have 0 today or 100 nukes. In the scenario given, where North Korea had nukes and no one else did, is that they would have both the capability to make more and plenty of incentive to do so. So 10-20 nukes in 2015 would be more today and more in the future. What are the upper limits to such a policy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @04:30PM
> In the scenario given, where North Korea had nukes and no one else did, is that they would have both the capability to make more and plenty of incentive to do so.
In the world we're living in, they have both the capability and sufficient incentive. In the scenario, they wouldn't be threatened with nuclear attack, so they might have less incentive. The US removed its nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991, but there have been proposals to bring them back.
> So 10-20 nukes in 2015 would be more today and more in the future
No need to remind me: I wrote "they may have more now."
> What are the upper limits to such a policy?
The WSJ blog quotes estimates of 20 to 100 warheads by 2020. The nuclear powers that signed the NPT each had more [economist.com] (in 2013) than that. Pakistan, India and Israel each had 80 to 120. The US and Russia, of course, have thousands.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tfried on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:57PM (3 children)
Ok, so somebody tell me, why can't I post this reply [pastebin.com], or any of the dozen variants that I have tried? Perhaps it's lame, but the filter is lamer.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 16 2017, @09:05PM (1 child)
Regex typo. My bad. Should be resolved now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Sunday September 17 2017, @05:59AM
Thanks!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @04:21AM