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.]
Related Stories
The BBC is reporting that North Korea has fired another missile:
North Korea has fired a missile eastwards from its capital, Pyongyang, towards Japan, media reports say.
Japan said that the missile likely passed over its territory and has warned residents to take shelter, local media report.
South Korea and the US are analysing the details of the launch, the South's military said.
Al Jazeera reports:
The projectile was launched at 6:57am (21:57GMT Thursday) and flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido before falling into the Pacific Ocean - 2,000km east of Cape Erimo, said Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.
"Japan protests the latest launch in the strongest terms and will take appropriate and timely action at the United Nations and elsewhere, staying in close contact with the United States and South Korea," Suga told reporters.
South Korea's defence ministry said the missile travelled about 3,700km and reached a maximum altitude of 770km - both higher and further than previous tests.
Just more saber rattling? Another step in escalation? What's next?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @06:41AM (3 children)
Nuclear-Armed Nations Brought the North Korea Crisis on Themselves
That is how a narcissist gaslights you into accepting blame for what they do. I wouldn't be beating the hell out of you if you had just sat on the couch and not changed the channel.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:23AM
But who are the narcissists?
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @03:12PM (1 child)
Indeed. Let's call a spade a spade. The real truth is, NK would not be where they are today if Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter hadn't given them two nuclear reactors, and billions in aid, in exchange for a promise not to use them for evil.
They violated this promise on day one.
Ranks way up there in 'the worst deals ever made'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:35AM
Before that, they had reactors, a fuel fabrication facility, and a reprocessing facility [nti.org] and had separated plutonium. At Yongbyon they removed spent fuel without IAEA supervision.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:17AM (5 children)
We should have finished off the damn commies when we had the chance. And Israel's enemies too. It's called "finishing the job"! We had the power and failed to use it. Now? We're pretty much fucked. Our constant state of crisis is just what the tyrants need to keep us all cowering in the corner.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:43AM (1 child)
Flamebait
See how the truth hurts? Pansy ass moderators are a perfect reflection of why we are doomed. We will never win another war again. People like them and most of you just don't have the stomach to do what it takes! Well, fine! Then you people will learn what hell war and tyranny really is. Lord help your heathen souls!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @06:50PM
I'm not sure if I could say there were winners after N-day. BRICS forces seemed to be winning as the siege of Denver began.
On the other hand, who really wins when Moscow and Beijing are irradiated ruins the same as every other major city, and the luxury bunkers have been sealed with cement? I think the people win, at least those of us who survived the year from hell. Humanity may just have learned something important from the walk to the gas station.
(Score: 3, Offtopic) by DeathMonkey on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:59AM
We should have finished off the damn commies when we had the chance. And Israel's enemies too.
The Nazis?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @04:32PM (1 child)
I'm gonna go ahead and feed the troll: the US could not have exterminated the communists or the arabs (I assume that's what you mean by Israel's enemies).
The US had enough citizens sympathetic to these groups to generate serious problems in the long term if such plans had been carried out.
In fact, this is a generic reason for genocides not being a practical approach: there will always be someone who does not fit the imediate definition of "enemy", but they are willing to make your life hell for going through with the genocide.
Unless you are willing to kill enough humans to make survival of the species very unlikely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:23PM
Unless you are willing to kill enough humans to make survival of the species very unlikely.
We only need to get rid of about 6 billion or so. The Africans and Asians and India, and of course the Russians and much of Eastern Europe, should cover it, and maybe anything from Guatemala on south. They won't be missed. The surviving one billion and change will be extremely grateful and will do just fine. Maybe we'll actually evolve into reasonable humans instead of the tribal ones from all that riff-raff hanging around like parasites. If anything is jeopardizing the survival of the species today, it's all this political correctness. It's time to do what's right. The purge is much needed. We do this and we will all be better off. That is a guarantee.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:11AM (1 child)
While it has been said that military action by the USA would be illegal under international law, I do not think that that is true as technically the USA is still at war with NK. Not that USA cares about international law.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:37AM
Technically, war was never declared. Technically, U.S. forces were fighting a United Nations police action.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:19AM (12 children)
Been 72 years since the one time nuclear bombs were used in war. The entire 45 year stretch of the Cold War stayed cold, both sides understanding that nuclear weapons could not be used. There were some close calls, but no one ever crossed that line. There were individuals who would have done it, but thanks to prudent dissipation of the authority to do so among several people, giving each person veto power, it never happened. There was also always the possibility that the losing side could launch the nukes, same as a kid losing at a game of checkers might flip the board over. That the Soviet Union didn't launch nuclear weapons in its last years when it was obvious that their empire was failing, I regard as one of humanity's shining moments.
I wonder how long it can last. 100 years? 1000 years? Longer? I fear that we're too stupid not to ever do it again, and the best to hope for is just one more being used, which will show and remind everyone for millenia to never ever do that again. There are plenty of fools in the world who would use nuclear weapons in war if only they could. Insanity is another avenue by which it could happen. I wonder how crazy N. Korea really is? Can Kim launch the nukes without assent from anyone else? Is his authority that extreme? Hope not.
(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]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday September 16 2017, @09:23AM (2 children)
I believe his authority *is* that extreme.
While his technology is not... ( at least, yet ).
I do not believe *anybody* under Kim's authority has questioned him and lived to tell about it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:33PM (1 child)
Nobody would question him. That's not how its done in countries like that.
He would just get a bullet to the brain or a grenade under the car seat.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:48PM
Bicycle seat, you mean.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JNCF on Saturday September 16 2017, @02:22PM (3 children)
Who has veto power over a US President ordering a nuclear strike? Radio Lab couldn't find anybody. [radiolab.org] There are other people in the chain of command, but they don't have the authority to veto.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:04PM (2 children)
All members in that chain of command swear an oath. Not to the president (first). For example, here's the US Air Force (PDF warning!): http://www.airman.af.mil/Portals/17/002%20All%20Products/006%20Trifolds/Oath_Pamphlet_for_Officer.pdf?ver=2015-12-22-113949-437 [af.mil]
Veto authority over a nuclear strike doesn't have to be explicit. Disobeying an illegal order covers a lot of territory.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:42PM
By that flimsy standard, the US government has had a "prudent dissipation of the authority" to carry out all of the atrocities which have occured during all of the military actions it has ever taken. I don't think this is what OP was talking about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @04:53PM
The military makes great attempts to weed out the sort of people who would disobey such orders. See what happened to this guy: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/an_unsung_hero_of_the_nuclear_age.html [slate.com]
(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
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @01:16PM
Libya, Iraq, Ukraine .... isn't it clear by now that nations that stopped or removed their nuclear weapons got fucked over? If anything, this proves that the only safe way of preventing getting fucked over by stronger nations is to have nuclear weapons.
Unemployment brought revolt in Libya and first thing that nuclear nations did was to turn on Qaddafi and bomb his side.
Ukraine gave up its huge arsenal and returned it to Russia following collapse of Soviet Union. And now they got invaded by Russia due to perceived interference by West in causing 2 consecutive revolts against *democratically elected governments*!!
So if you are a fat kid in North Korea, what do you do? China doesn't like you. Rest of the world likes you even less. And now you will go in same direction as the rest of the nations that had a nuclear program and gave it up?? Right...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:27PM (1 child)
Blaming rape victims for the crime?
F-ing idiots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @09:20PM
It's more like blaming a rape culture.