How Nuclear Weapon Modernization Undercuts Disarmament

Lasrick writes: John Mecklin details exactly how nuclear weapons modernization is kick-starting a new arms race, and how modernizing these weapons to make them more accurate and stealthy puts the world at even greater risk of nuclear war: "[T]his is precisely why the U.S. Congress rejected the Air Force’s requests for low-yield, precision-guided nuclear weapons in the 1990s: Their very accuracy increases the temptation to use them." The issue is not getting very much attention, but the patience of the non-nuclear states is wearing thin, and a breakthrough in public awareness may be on the horizon: "The disarmament debate is likely to make this spring's NPT conference a contentious one and just might be loud enough to make the public aware that a new type of nuclear arms race is unfolding around the world."

Comments

Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded

[Xenkar]

Often by the United States of America or other western powers. When nations see that having a nuke prevents other nations from toppling them, nukes become vital for stability.

Perhaps we should stop driving them towards nuclear weapons by invading them for oil and minerals.

Re:Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded

[Anonymous Coward]

... or slaughtering their own citizens.

I think you mean "holding back their oil". Because slaughtering their citizens never really registered on any country's radar, except as an excuse to accomplish something else.

Re:Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded

[gstoddart]

The US has never, not once, invaded a country for oil and minerals. The idea that we have started a war for oil is just plain stupid.

No, but the reality was before you went into Iraq in 2003, against any sensible facts, and despite evidence that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 ... your own government had people talking about how the oil you'd get from Iraq would pay for the war because they'd be so grateful. How did that work out for you?

And, further, how many places has America utterly failed to act when there was no oil?

America ignores what's happening in Africa because there's no oil for the most part. And yet claims loudly they must intercede in the middle east out of principle and on humanitarian grounds.

Has it occurred to you that the much vaunted "principles" America claims before going to war are entirely dependent on oil and/or your own economic benefit, and that your claims to do this out of a sense of right and wrong is bullshit?

Because it certainly has to the rest of the world.

Re:Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded

[Major Blud]

"Japan wanted the oil in the Philippines"

uh, wut? Japan wanted the Philippines to protect their southern flank and for agricultural purposes....they wanted Indonesia for oil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

But you are correct.....Afgahnistan does not have oil, and the U.S. gets very little of its overall oil from Iraq.

http://www.eia.gov/energy_in_b...
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/...

Re:Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded

[Fire_Wraith]

And Malaysia for Rubber, as well. They did so in part because the USA had organized a trade embargo on oil, rubber, and related POL products, in response to the Japanese invasion of China (and the subsequent occupation of the French colonies in Indochina).

The Philippines was the forwardmost US military base in the Pacific at the time, and sat directly astride the ocean route from Malaysia/Indonesia to Japan. But moreover it was fully expected by Japan that the US would declare war in response to any attack on British or Dutch possessions in East Asia, so Japan struck first, bombing the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, and following up with invasions of key strategic and economic locations.

Re:Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded

[fsagx]

That episode guaranteed that no tin horn dictator will EVER give up their WMD program.

That seems logical, but Assad did just that:

Syria will give up control of chemical weapons

Re:Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded

[billstewart]

The Iraqis got their chemical weapons from the US for use against Iran. The US still hasn't destroyed their own CBW program products (though they do occasionally retire old unstable chemical weapons, as they've done recently.)

And both the US and Russians still have their hoards of smallpox, pretending they need to keep them to develop vaccines in case the other side uses theirs to attack, even though cowpox ("vaccinia") is good enough for a vaccine and not good enough for a weapon.

Wait... what?

[Penguinisto]

How on earth does increased accuracy increase the temptation to use one? A nuke of any size going off *anywhere* as an act of war would immediately send up the balloon, and cause an all-out retaliation. Frig sakes, even Curtis LeMay knew that when he responded to Kennedy's request for a series of nuclear attack/response scenarios with a single puffed-out version of 'nuke them back to the effing stone age'.

Seriously... if you use a nuke first these days, the entire planet will cut you off, if they don't come at you with everything they have. If you were nuked first, then the taboo has already been broken, and the world would almost expect you to unleash hell on whoever bombed you.

I realize that global politics is a lot more subtle and complex than most folks realize, and maybe I'm wrong, but on this subject, it seems pretty damned cut and dried.

Re:Wait... what?

[Anonymous Coward]

How on earth does increased accuracy increase the temptation to use one? A nuke of any size going off *anywhere* as an act of war would immediately send up the balloon, and cause an all-out retaliation. Frig sakes, even Curtis LeMay knew that when he responded to Kennedy's request for a series of nuclear attack/response scenarios with a single puffed-out version of 'nuke them back to the effing stone age'.

Seriously... if you use a nuke first these days, the entire planet will cut you off, if they don't come at you with everything they have. If you were nuked first, then the taboo has already been broken, and the world would almost expect you to unleash hell on whoever bombed you.

I realize that global politics is a lot more subtle and complex than most folks realize, and maybe I'm wrong, but on this subject, it seems pretty damned cut and dried.

You say these things as if they were fact. They are not, they are suppositions.
The same way a defensive system can alter strategic balance, so can improved nuclear tipped missiles with highly accurate targetting systems. MAD is irrelevant in regional conflicts. Think about how close a nuclear exchange is possible between India and Pakistan. Or Israel targetting single military installations in Iran with bunker buster that are nuclear not conventional. Americans, Russians, French, British and the Cinese think of nuclear weapons as political weapons. Not military weapons. But if you manage to make a very precise low yield nuclear missile that incinerates let's say less than 1 km^2 it becomes by this simple performance an offensive weapon.Just like neutron bombs were all the rage in the seventies.

Re:Wait... what?

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Seriously... if you use a nuke first these days, the entire planet will cut you off, if they don't come at you with everything they have. If you were nuked first, then the taboo has already been broken, and the world would almost expect you to unleash hell on whoever bombed you.

I realize that global politics is a lot more subtle and complex than most folks realize, and maybe I'm wrong, but on this subject, it seems pretty damned cut and dried.

I really couldn't disagree more. If Russia or China nuked anybody, there would be a lot of world wide anger, but any actual acts against them? Ha ha ha ha ha. Even the USA's BFF the UK really could not possibly be more of China's bitch on a constant basis.

Here's how I see the nuclear powers.
Bad actors: Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea.
Good actors: USA, France, UK, Israel.
I doubt that any of the "good actors" would ever use a nuclear device first. Putin may be just trying to make everybody else think he's unbalanced or he may actually be crazy enough to possibly use a nuke first. I'm not happy with either possibility. India probably wouldn't use a nuke first, but Pakistan may be crazy or irrational enough to do so. North Korea is definitely irrational enough to do so. I doubt that China's civilian government would use a nuke as a first choice, but I fear that the Communist Party may not have as great a control over the PLA as they'd like to think and if the PLA has the ability to launch strikes without the CCP giving the order, there just might be generals crazy enough to do it because they don't believe anybody has the guts to make them pay for it. No amount of public pressure can make the 'bad actors" I listed back off and if anybody honestly thinks the USA, France and the UK are the greatest threats to the world, then you're delusional to a point that nobody can bring you back from.

Re:Wait... what?

[Penguinisto]

i would suspect that a regional conflict a'la India/Pakistan would amplify the ostracism/elimination by the rest of the world, since the stakes would be perceived as being smaller overall (as in 'oh, it's just a couple of small countries doing this, and they only have a small handful of nukes, so...')

Now the act of North Korea tossing a nuke in anger would present some problems, but only insofar as China's tolerance for such an act. Then again, w/o China's protection, North Korea could be turned into a self-lighting parking lot with no one on the planet giving any real objections to it, though I'm not really sure that China would really tolerate the Norks pulling such a stunt.

Israel I think is smart enough to know that if they used anything nuclear in an aggressive manner, what few friends they do have would cut them off at the economic knees, leaving them at the mercy of, well, all of their neighbors. I strongly suspect that the presence of Israeli nuclear weapons is purely political and/or last-ditch, and for no other discernable reason.

This is a silly article

[HBI]

Only in the eyes of an ivory tower theoretical type could the tripwire of nuclear weapons first use be "eased" by "low yield". No matter how low the yield, the secondary effects of the nuclear weapon remain the same. It remains a WMD. If someone lobs a "low yield" nuke at you, do you think you're going to blink an eye before using your own arsenal? The whole premise is silly.

Nuclear disarmament is a fool's errand. The deterrent effect of a nuclear arsenal cannot easily be understated. All nations would aspire to it, if it were possible. They aren't going away, and reducing the arsenal below a certain point may actually be more destabilizing than maintaining more warheads. (see below)

The construction of newer weapons has no impact on the equation, except on the counterforce mission. It might make it easier to destroy your opponent's arsenal, but you still retain the SSBN problem, meaning that in practical terms there is no difference. But newer anti-missile technologies have a similar but greater destabilizing effect on deterrence, as they CAN shoot down the SSBN-based missiles.

tl;dr - article is a bunch of pointless hot air

Nukes will always be in our back-pocket

[TWX]

As long as other powers have nukes or have developed them and could develop them again then we'll have nukes. And as long as we have nukes then other countries will continue to have them as a deterrent against us.

It doesn't matter how crude or sophisticated the device is- the two nukes that were used in conflict were just about as crude as one could get and they still each destroyed a city in one stroke.

Science always progresses faster than poltiical thought. It's not usually science that uses the developments for ill intead of for benefit though, that's firmly in the realm of politics. That we've only used nuclear weapons in anger twice, effectively in one drawn-out moment in history, and have not used them cavalierly subsequently is hopefully proof that we're maturing, however slowly.

Disarmamant?

[serviscope_minor]

I frankly don't believe that disarmament is ever going to happen because too many people want power. So, the nuclear powers are:

France - never going to disarm because they've been invaded twice in living memory (just) and suffered awful consequences. Never going to happen again.

USA - lolno.

Russia - yeah Putin is totally going to disarm when everyone does because he's such a nice guy. I think he'd wet himself with glee if everyone else disarmed.

India - not until Pakistan disarms, because Pakistan is way too unstable (and probably not even then).

Pakistan - not until India disarms, and, well, who will be a serious power without them.

North Korea - well, they're a total basket case of a country so whatever they do wouldn't surprise me. But evil dictators aren't know for relinquishing power.

Iseael - disarm while they're surrounded by hostile nations who tried to wipe them off the map within living memory? Not likely.

China - eeeynope. I think they're going to keep on growing their power, and not being uninvadable is not a good way to do that.

UK - I don't think we actually will (I really hope).

Re:Disarmamant?

[smoore]

India developed their nukes because of China not Pakistan. China is the only country with more potential soldiers than India and after several wars in the 60s where Chinese swamped the Indians with numbers they looked for an equalizer. Pakistan then followed India for the same reason to equalize their lesser forces with India's. India isn't going to disarm unless China does.

Ukraine?

[jklovanc]

Most nuclear countries will see Ukraine as a cautionary tale. They disarmed and got invaded.

not necessarily ridiculous

[Chirs]

Imagine that a nation had a small "clean" nuke that could be delivered with pinpoint precision. At that point it's basically just a more efficient form of high explosive. Why *wouldn't* they use it? (As opposed to tens or hundreds of conventional bombs.)

The issue with nukes is that they're WMDs. If they got to the point where they were no longer WMDs but rather just a very efficient way of blowing up a relatively small area (a single remote military installation, for example) then people are going to use them.

Re:Nuclear Disarmament is Idiotic

[dryeo]

Trying to have wars in a world with nuclear weapons is like trying to have gangs of roving banditos in a nation where everyone carries around rifles and handguns. It's just not possible, and anyone who tries won't last very long.

I guess that is why places like the middle east and Afghanistan are so peaceful.