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How I learned to love the bomb
The dirty secret of the atom bomb is that it is a "peace maker", as in "blessed be the peacemakers".
The "inconvenient truth" is that the only one to have ever used the atomic bomb on human beings (twice) is the USA.
The atomic bomb, like "the sound of a clod of earth falling on a coffin, is something perfect in its seriousness" (hat to A. Machado).
The bomb concentrates people's minds totally and suddenly they act rationally when contemplating war.
How do I know that?
From direct personal experience, that's how...
I owe my life to the atomic bomb and I'm certainly not alone.
I think my whole (boomer) generation owe our lives to the atomic bomb...
Without the bomb we would have gone to war with the USSR for sure.
My whole generation would have been drafted in both countries and the ensuing "conventional" war would have been even more brutal than WWII.
More brutal, why?
Because if we compare the conventional weapons that the Americans used in Vietnam and the Soviets used in Afghanistan with what both sides used in WWII (compare the M1 to the M16), millions of us on both sides would have died (probably me included).
So, I for one think that I owe my long and heretofore happy life directly to the proliferation of the atomic bomb.
It should be underlined that Iran's having the bomb does not mean they will ever use it. Persians are very sensible folk. A people like the Persians don't exist for thousands of years because of lemming tendencies.
What an Iranian bomb will mean is that the Israelis, for example, will not be able to periodically destroy half of Lebanon or massacre Palestinians in Gaza with impunity, as is their wont.
In an "bi" or "multi" lateral atomic Middle East something that brutal could spin out of control.
I remember with what care and caution the Soviet Union and the USA regarded each other.
What do you call an 800 pound gorilla?
"Sir".
When you stop and think about it, MAD (mutually assured destruction) is a rather beautiful thing.
It remains to be seen if the Israelis can lay down their "white man's burden" and deal with their neighbors without "gunboat diplomacy"... that is really what this issue is all about. That is what all the urgency is really about.
Proliferation means the end of colonialism: Sitting Bull gets the Gatling Gun.
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maybe you could address the worst case scenario:
a nuke arms race in the middle east
+ fanatics from Abrahamic religions
------------------------------
BAD
i don't dispute what you say about nukes keeping the cold war cold. i wonder whether it is applicable to the nations of the middle east.
the allies didn't train suicide bombers, as far as i know. the japanese did.
it's just a little more scary when the nations with the trained suicide bombers are the ones with the nukes.
countries that i would take nukes away from: n. korea, israel, india, pakistan.
if i could have caek too, i would bring the number of world nukes from about 40K down to about 4K.
i think you can achieve MAD with a lot less firepower than there actually is.
September 29, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Our Strategic Air Command pilots were in fact suicide bombers, not expected to return from missions to Soviet Russia. Many WW II missions were expected to be suicide missions, and suicidal assaults on enemy positions tended to get you a posthumous Medal of honor.
September 29, 2009 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Suicide missions in the air, land, and sea or given the highest commendations by our government. Ordered missions tend to get a lower commendation than individual initiative and resolve. Google the medal of honor citation for Cpl Maxim to see an example.
Excellent comment, btw.
September 29, 2009 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can we note that India and Pakistan are behaving better toward each other?
The knowledge won't go away, so a disarmed world will not exist. What could be done is reducing stockpiles to modest levels. This is only possible if the deterrent theorizing of the 60s and 70s is better known and discussed honestly.
Fred Kaplan's book "Wizards of Armageddon" details the search for rationales concerning nuclear weapons. RAND and other groups tried to set actual numbers to vague concepts of deterrence and preemption or counterattack. They failed, basically, to arrive at anything coherent. Fortunate that these ideas were not tested, but without a sensible strategy there was no resistance to the arms race, no reason to stop building warheads and delivery systems.
While a few nukes, the "family atomics" in Frank Herbert's "Dune" books, have their use as a real deterrent to invasion, warheads in the thousands are truly insane.
Only one rather questionable use exists for nukes beyond deterrence. This would be a desperate defense against a large incoming surprise comet. While braking it into many pieces would not prevent impact, it would be less devastating than a single large impact. Comets can surprise us, but the odds are very much in our favor, so twenty would be plenty to keep on the shelf for this hugely unlikely scenario. Asteroids are predictable to a high degree, and eventually we will have all dangerous ones mapped. Long lead times will allow gentle steering to avoid collision.
If we do get surprised by a comet such as Hyakutake, with only 8 weeks between discovery and very close passage, we can expect a huge fight over the best defense, and religious radicals will get into the act, too. Fingers crossed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hyakutake
September 29, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The knowledge won't go away, so a disarmed world will not exist."
Very well put, Tom.
September 29, 2009 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure an Iranian bomb will influence the actions of Israel toward those in contiguous territories. My own view is that if the Iranians actually obtain nuclear weapons it will be for the purpose of defending themselves against the west generally, but the United States in particular. Given our open hostility toward Iran for decades, our many and repeated threats to bomb them, blockade them, and generally to destroy them they have some reason to believe that they might need to defend themselves. Having a nuclear "deterent" makes a great deal of sense in that context. It is for precisely this same reason that Israel developed and produced it's own nuclear weapons.
It is difficult for me to believe that the leadership of Iran (misguided religious zealots that they are) pursues nuclear capabilities in order to launch an attack or attacks upon other nations without first being attacked. We must remember that only the US claims the same rights as the Third Reich did in conducting the immoral practice of "preemptive" warfare. That policy, adopted by Bush and used to justify the illegal/immoral invasion of Iraq drives the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons. We constantly are told that the mullahs of Iran are crazy but only our nation has ever used the bomb. Our country is the only great power in modern times to use it's military capability against other nations with anything like the frequency we have used it in the past 50 years.
Ultimately, I just see no evidence that a nuclear Iran would be the threat our leaders keep telling us it would be. I see Pakistan and North Korea and even India as far more likely to use nuclear weapons than Iran.
September 29, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not that fear of Iran is exactly what will restrain the Israelis. What would happen is that there would be much less international tolerance of the Israelis devastation of Lebanon or Gaza, for example. In a multi-nuclear Middle East, there would be worldwide concern that the situation would spin out of control and so real pressure would be put on the Israelis to stop. America's leaders might be even more afraid of radioactive fallout than of AIPAC.
September 29, 2009 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe I agree David. I kelp thinking (optimistically I know) of Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still. Any aggressive move and your toast.
For some reason humans require the threat of personal extinction to keep from behaving like total jack asses.
C
September 29, 2009 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
You may well be correct. If so, that would be a welcome outcome.
September 29, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
David, years ago I somehow got on the mailing list of The Greater New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to the Human Animal (GNYSPCHA) and they were pushing for the development of the O-Bomb. This weapon caused anyone caught in its "kill zone" to have an orgasm. According to their literature, the principle opponent to the O-Bomb's development were the Civil Defense authorities. Civil Defense thought there would be a logistical catastrophe from thousands and thousands of people rushing towards the target area.
That was around 1960 - dang - I should have saved and conserved that material. It would be priceless today as a collector's item.
September 29, 2009 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
With the "O" bomb I can just see POTUS with his hand inside the little black suitcase that is said to always travel with him, repeatedly pressing the little red button.
September 29, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where can I get one?
September 29, 2009 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't the US military fund a "gay bomb" project for a while, designed to give enemy soldiers an overwhelming.... affinity.... for each other?
I know it's a damn stupid idea, but.... imagine dropping one of those on a homophobic country....
September 29, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.gnn.tv/threads/25839/Pentagon_Confirms_It_Sought_To_Build_A_Gay_Bomb
DARPA
September 29, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just shower 'em with ecstacy.
(And then maybe they'll throw a war and no one will show up.)
September 29, 2009 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Iran... Saudi Arabia... Egypt... Syria...Jordan...
Sure why the hell not? Let em sort themselves out.
You know David I normally love your stuff, but not this one. Israel's "white man's burden?" Gunboat diplomacy? Really?
But sure, less play it out. I would suspect that due to the tiny size of Israel only a few would be needed to take out the whole country. However I would put some money down that they already have nukes aimed at Mecca, Medina, Riyadh, Cairo, Baghdad, Tehran, Esfahan, Tabriz, etc. and those nukes would be automatically triggered if anything befalls the country.
So do you really think that an Iranian nuke would change Israel's treatment of the Palestinians? Why? This is not a question of MAD since Israel has that handled (sure a nuke would level the playing field but it wouldn't really change anything). I don't really see what they would have to change. Israel is operating within the confines of their own controlled territory. Unlike say the US in the Cold war when we needed to get the good will of the world so we finally dealt with our own civil rights issue, Israel has already lost the world. Why would a nuke change any of this? And what the hell is their 'burden' here? You are using loaded terms for no reason.
Forgive my cynicism but I don't really think the Iranians (or many of the regional governments) care that much about the Palestinians. It is a convenient lament, and any thinking kind person shares it, but they are not going to risk their own existence on behalf of starving strangers.
Count me down as no. I am obviously no lover of our actions or unabashed support of Israel's repressive apartheid but Iran's regime is equally atrocious. A nuke would merely strengthen them and force the Sunni countries to get their own. I like the Dune analogy that Tom references but on balance I would rather have less countries with nukes to worry about. I suspect that my reading of history is different then yours. I don't find comfort in multipolar worlds with many matched militaries- no matter how much more ethically fair they might be. Wars tend to breakout more often and the potential for mistakes is much larger. One little archduke gets taken out by a restive local and before you know it the whole damn place is smashed.
No. Put me down for less.
September 29, 2009 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Once the USA took the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, the die was cast, the cat was out of the bag... The rest is inevitable. Not to have the bomb is to be forever subordinate.
September 29, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is nationalism really something in this day and age we want to encourage?
Is the Master/Slave dynamic really all there is?
How sad.
September 29, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, an Iranian bomb wouldn't change Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
It would, however, stop them from threatening Iran, and might also keep them away from bombing other countries (Syria, Lebanon).
September 29, 2009 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
It might make them less likely to bomb Iran, but it might also make them more likely since they have the Nuclear edge already. If Iran tested a nuke and the Israelis came in and bombed there facilities who knows what would happen. Iran would have to have a delivery system in place and that is more difficult. But who knows.
As to Iran helping out Lebanon and Syria. Iran cares about its interests. It will talk a good talk but I doubt it would risk its people to protect those other countries.
Regardless if Iran got a bomb, the Saudi's will follow (if they don't own one already), and likely several more countries.
But David is worried that they are all subordinate. Well we can't have that, feelings get hurt. Hell why stop at states. I hate being subordinate to my gov. Nukes for everyone!
September 29, 2009 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The bomb concentrates people's minds totally and suddenly they act rationally when contemplating war."
Tell that to the Vietnamese. Or the Iraqis. Or the Koreans. Or hell, tell that to Japan.
Tell that to the nations that whose paramilitaries we covertly funded and trained. Tell that to the union leader whose head was cut off in Guatemala and left on the dinner table to be discovered by his family. Tell that to the raped nuns in El Salvador, or the countless children throughout South America and Africa whose parents are dead or missing.
The bomb allows the footprint of US hegemony to expand across most of the globe. During the cold war, the world was carved into spheres of influence, and these nations were transformed into killing fields where the two superpowers played a terrible and bloody game of chess.
It is all well and good to justify the creation of a weapon whose numbers and payload are sufficient to make this planet uninhabitable for millions of years... but try selling that to everyone but the fat and happy boomers. The same boomers who played duck and cover and lived under the shadow of MAD.
I can not abide your premise. It is the same kind of logic that 2nd Amendment diehards use: if everyone were armed, everything would be peaceful...
Until that one idiot starts shooting. Then it's bedlam.
Take Reagan, for instance. He actively wrestled with his faith and contempleted nuclear war on more than one occasion. He was actively lobbied by the evangelical community to be that Lion who would bring about the eschaton.
"Without the bomb we would have gone to war with the USSR for sure."
Really? You can say that? I can't. Without such a thing happening, you are speculating. Speculation like that has no business in a discussion about nuclear arms. It is like asking if Superman would win in a fight against Mighty Mouse. Or if robots are cooler than ninjas.
"When you stop and think about it, MAD (mutually assured destruction) is a rather beautiful thing."
Jesus Christ in a fetish burlesque rodeo that is a bold thing to say. Tell that to the Koreans. Or the Vietnamese. Or the Iraqis. Or the Polish.
Etc. Etc. AD INFINITUM AD NAUSEUM
September 29, 2009 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you misunderstand David. Read about the nearly overwhelming pressure on Eisenhower and Kennedy to get it over with, Curtis LeMay and the JCS wanting to settle the score with the USSR while we still had a substantial nuclear advantage. If Russia had not had its own nukes it could have happened.
And if Guatemala, Iran, Vietnam, etc. had their own deterrent, could we have strong-armed them?
September 30, 2009 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
"It should be underlined that Iran's having the bomb does not mean they will ever use it. Persians are very sensible folk. A people like the Persians don't exist for thousands of years because of lemming tendencies."
And I want to call this paragraph out for racism. Even if it's "positive" racism, it is still racism. Who is stay say that a race of people is or is not sensible? Is there an insensible race? What races, outside of those poor sods on Easter Island, have died out over thousands of years?
And your "sensible Persian" value judgment is a mighty small hook to hang a nuclear weapon upon.
September 29, 2009 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would maintain that over several thousand years the people of Persia have had more chances to demonstrate the kind of common sense necessary to possess something like the A bomb than the Americans have. In fact in living memory the Americans have dropped the A bomb twice on defenseless civilians. As far as I know that is some sort of a world's record... or is it "racist" to remind ourselves of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
September 29, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Common sense was not vital to the discovery of the A bomb. Scientific research combined with an international brain trust thanks to refugees from the European theatre led us to the bomb.
Dropping it was not necessarily common sense. It depends on your reading of the tea leaves of history. There is the commonly held conception that Japan would have fought to the death and led to hundreds of thousands more dead GIs were it not for fat man and little boy. Others believe that they were dropped as a message to not only our enemies but our erstwhile allies that we possessed the sine qua non of destruction.
The truth probably lies somewhere in between, but has little to do with a cultural/racial tendency towards common sense or lack thereof.
So I still take umbrage with taking a race and applying a euphemism to them. It is racism. And this same rhetorical blind spot is playing tricks on the rest of this post. The bomb may or may not have saved your particular life, but the presence of the bomb contributed to the policy of containment, which has wreaked havoc on the third world.
September 29, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
It may be lacking in altruism on my part, but I'd rather be alive to worry about "containment's effects on the third world".
As to racism, I consider the Persians a people and a culture not a "race"... and they have been around a long, long time.
September 29, 2009 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Persian is an ethnic group. While an ethnic group may have a particular culture, it is not only impolitic but incorrect to ascribe concepts to that group/culture, especially value judgments that can not be quantified.
I mean, you are more or less saying that it would cool if the Persians had a nuke, because they monolithically behave in a manner that would be fortunate for the world.
it is not my job to refute that... it is my duty to point out the statement's racial absurdity. Your only rejoinder is that the Americans used it, so what does that say about us.
I would reply that Iran never had it, so who knows?!
"It may be lacking in altruism on my part, but I'd rather be alive to worry about "containment's effects on the third world"."
Well, this shows your presumption. You believe that the bomb has kept YOU alive, so the consequences of the Cold War are kosher because you are happy. Your intellectual curiosity hits an hindrance when it falls outside your purview. Never mind that there is no conclusive proof that the US and Russia would have engaged in a war that would have left you dead. In your world, the bomb prevented that war, so YAY ME.
It is one thing to lack altruism and another to display solipsism.
September 29, 2009 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
You seem to believe that the Cold War would have had a happier outcome if nukes had not been developed.
Given the history of the previous fifty years in Europe, that's a truly cosmic level of silly.
And if nukes had not been developed, would the Polish/Vietnamese etc. etc. have been any better off? Not bloody likely.
Your argument is nothing but sentimentalism.
September 29, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
And your counter argument is built on nothing but speculation.
I am not saying nukes should not exist.
But to BE GRATEFUL for their existence and to presume that the common sense Persians should have one too isn't sentimental... it is pathological.
I am for disarmament. I am for the unilateral disarmament of a fixed percentage of our conventional and nuclear arsenal as a first step, with worldwide benchmarks that can be reasonably achived by all nations in order for us to disarm and draw down continually.
To a degree that is naive in this world of imperial realpolitik. But I believe that realpolitik will lead to the death of the planet, whether by fire or ice.
So, bottom line:
The development and proliferation of nuclear weapons have lead to policies that have destroyed nations and peoples. Whether or not the lack of nuclear weapons would have changed a thing is besides the point, because I am interested strictly in reality... not rhetorical CALVINBALL.
So, to argue that these reckless policies should not only continue but expand to common-sense races is the height of audacity.
Finally, to presume that the arms race is somehow promoting peace is ridiculous. For now, there is peace with tension and exploitation. When proliferation continues due to our imperial arrogance, and enough nations have their knives on the table... it will explode.
What happens to a dream deferred?
September 29, 2009 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
So if everybody has equal weapons then the world will be safer?
Given the history of the previous fifty years in Europe, that's a truly cosmic level of silly.
It only takes one nutjob and it all goes up in smoke. You really think it is better to increase that risk? Cosmic indeed.
September 29, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cultures do not drop bombs, people do. It doesn't matter how sensible the Iranian culture may be any more than it mattered how cultured the Germans were. What matters is who has control of the weapons. For whatever reason, Germans handed over their governmental power to Hitler and company. Something went wrong.
Looking at Ahmedinijad it is hard to convince me that something can't go wrong in Iran as well.
David you love MAD because you believe it kept you alive. Has it ever occurred to you that the Israelis may very well love AD because they believe it kept tiny Israel from being overrun by its neighbors? That the 'most dangerous' reactors in the Mideast have kept the combatants from trying to eradicate each other? The Arabs because they now fear the results and the Israelis because they felt safe without taking out the opposition?
September 29, 2009 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
People who seem to know tell us that Ahmediejad hasn't the ppower to make war; it is the Supreme Ayatollah and his Council.
To tell you the truth, I think the amount of Loose Nukes on the planet pose a huge threat. I don't remember how much enriched enranium it takes to make a dirty bomb, but not much I think. My point being, it is not only "A Bomb" that is a threat; it's the potential of lots of small ones. I can picture zealots convincing themselves that they are less catastrophic than nukes on missiles, and so, more okay.
September 29, 2009 10:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've heard that too but it doesn't console me much:
A) Ahmedinejad would not be in his current position without the approval and support of the Supreme Ayatollah and B)what matters is who has his finger on the button -- not who has the legal right to tell him to push it.
Agreed that a suicide bomber with access is probably more of a threat than any regime.
September 29, 2009 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mutually Assured Destruction: Didn't seem that great when we were having drills in elementary school where we would hover under our desks with our hands over the backs of our heads to protect us from the radiation, but I agree - compared to now, it was a wonderful thing. Why? Because it worked.
Now we have religious nutcases who WANT Armageddon so they can be raptured (could there BE a more OBVIOUSLY made up thing, since it is so contemporary? These are the people who claim biblical literacy but can't find the rapture anywhere in it) --- poised against the pathetic and emotionally immature muslims who think that they will each FINALLY have sex (with 70 virgins, no less) if they just slaughter a bunch of innocents at a pizza parlor.
Somehow, MAD takes on a new meaning.
I guess my father was right when he said, "Ole man usta is dead and gone." If you need that translated from "southern," it means you can't turn back the clock.
September 29, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I remember those A bomb drills!
We had the instructions written on the bulletin board:
1) Get on your knees under your desk
2) Put your head between your knees
and some kid penciled in,
3) kiss your ass goodbye
September 30, 2009 1:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here is the Israeli right wing military and intelligence page Debka, which favors attacking Iran on the matter:
It seems that Debka gives Moscow and Washington credit for more sense than most of the rest of us would.September 30, 2009 2:33 AM | Reply | Permalink