Nuclear: The power. The weapon. The lack of self-esteem?
Nuclear energy and weapons are the dreams of most every third world country while most industrialized countries are trying to flee. When the US and Russia were bilaterally agreeing to enormous nuclear arm reductions; North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and India were seeking nuclear weapons as a means to achieve influence. All of the good guys are trying to be rid of the nuisance and all the bad guys want it. Those countries with poor self esteem, e.g. North Korea, and Iran, seem particularly attracted.
Perhaps they learned by watching China. It was a third world country by any definition of the term in the 1950s and 60s until it fashioned a homemade nuclear weapon and its influence in world politics grew immensely. Although China was already a member of the UN security council before it wielded the nuclear option, it was now a key player to be engaged or contained. Iran is a more modern example of a country not lacking for energy resources yet willing to expend its scarce political capital to build and operate “civilian” nuclear power plants for electricity under the threat of UN sanctions which starved its Iraqi neighbor. It is doubtful that Iran is unaware that a byproduct of these civilian reactors are weapons-grade uranium. Rogue countries have an insatiable lust for nuclear capabilities. How concerned should we be of rogue nations obtaining nuclear weapons?
It is widely speculated that Israel has a nuclear weapon. The government’s official response to the question is not to comment on the issue.
It seems like all of the bad guys (everyone but Saddam) have nuclear power. Everyone knows how to make a nuclear bomb. Recipe: 2 to 3 lbs of enriched uranium or plutonium and a triggering device.
The US has not commissioned a nuclear power plant since 1979. America’s nuclear phobia is driving fossil fuel consumption.
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March 8th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
Here is a link on a cnn article. The last few paragraphs discussed north korea’s nuclear capability and it nuclear reactors producing enough plutonium for a few nuclear weapons.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/08/nkorea.missiles/index.html
March 8th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
My question is this: who’s to say which countries can have nuclear capabilities and which ones cannot? Why do we allow some countries to produce them, and others we restrict? Obviously, it’s to look out for our interest, but is that justified? What are the sanity or ethical requirements for a country to be able to hold nuclear capabilities?
March 9th, 2006 at 12:31 am
Good questions. After WWII we decided that only 5 countries could have nuclear weapons. Since then the non-proliferation treaty was signed and agreed upon and we have been openly violating our treaty obligations by not reducing our numbers of weapons and by actively trying to create new weapons.
It is not really speculation that Israel has nuclear weapons, it is a well known fact and it is the reason that many nations in the middle east call for a Nuclear weapon free zone in the middle east in order to bridle Israel. Israel is purported to have some 200 nuclear warheads. You can read up on Mordecai Vanunu, the famous whistle blower in Israel who was jailed for years for spilling Israel’s nuclear secrets. Israel is not a signator to the NPT and it would be really nice to have them sign on so the IAEA could inspect them.
The deal with Nuclear weapons is that those who have them have tremendous deterrence. Will we ever attack China? or Russia? or North Korea for that matter? No, because they could hurt us while we are killing them. On the other hand, countries like Iraq or Yugoslavia or any of the other places we’ve made military interventions in the last 50 years, where there are no nuclear weapons, get plastered. It is only reasonable for a country like Iran to desire nuclear weapons as a deterrence to an attack from either of its avowed enemies, the USA and Israel. The threat against Iran is very real right now, they are surrounded. We’re in Iraq and Afganistan and in the northern historical soviet satellite states. Israel is training Iraqi troops on the Iranian border! We have breathed out all kinds of threatenings against Iran and they are seeking to enrich uranium (which they are entirely allowed to do under the non-proliferation treaty) and each side is upping the ante.
You’ve got to agree that a nuclear bomb serves as quite a deterrence factor. I think that if we want Iran to be nuclear free, we should also require Israel to be nuclear free and we should begin to live up to our NPT requirements as well. We currently have a very hippocritical nuclear policy.