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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: 4, Insightful) by Virindi on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:43AM (4 children)
Accident is probably more likely than intentional strike. The world has come quite close to accidental "attack" before, but nobody has ordered a first strike that we know of.
The thing about dictators is that their lives are a constant struggle for personal survival. As dictator, someone is always plotting against you. The primary skill of the dictator is self-preservation instinct.
And self-preservation instinct prevents someone, even someone who outwardly appears crazy, from launching a strike that would result in the end of their reign (or their likely death). I am confident that this effect will be a very good way of stopping small dictatorships ruled by crazies from nuking everyone else*.
For large countries such as the US and the USSR, mutually assured destruction has a proven track record. Even if it is a question of the attitude of the military command, the people in power still tend to want to preserve it. And even when you are on equal footing with your enemy like this, the personal risk of nuclear war is too great.
Finally you have a large nuclear country and a small non-nuclear country. What is stopping the big guy from nuking the little guy? Not much, compared to the other two scenarios. It just comes down to not being worth the PR cost when you could achieve your aims by conventional might alone. So, I suppose I could see this happening.
*Note: this works because they believe that a retaliatory strike is likely.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:45AM
Note to nitpickers: when I say "nobody has ordered a first strike" obviously I am not talking about the US attacking Japan in WWII. I am talking in that sentence about one nuclear country attacking another nuclear country.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Virindi on Sunday September 17 2017, @12:21AM (2 children)
I would like to explicitly add the conclusion to this reasoning:
1) More countries having nuclear weapons decreases the chance of the intentional use in warfare. As examined above no nuclear country wants to use them against another.
BUT also,
2) More countries having nuclear weapons increases the chance of an accidental launch.
So really I think the most critical thing for the human race going forward, is not the scaling back of nuclear arsenals. Rather, it is the deployment of communications systems, redundancy, etc designed to prevent an accident, and reduce the chance of an accident turning into a full scale nuclear war that neither side wanted.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @01:43AM
On the flip side of the scenario in Dr. Strangelove is Fail-Safe [imdb.com].
How long can the matador keep dodging the bull?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @04:50PM
Objectively the USSR's system was saner than the USA's system.
Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) [wikipedia.org]
With: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/no-one-can-stop-president-trump-from-using-nuclear-weapons-thats-by-design/ [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/an_unsung_hero_of_the_nuclear_age.html [slate.com]