----- Original Message ----- From: "Bryon Daly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 8:29 PM Subject: Re: Request for Proposals
> >From: Richard Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > >Perhaps owning nukes forces governments to grow up a bit because > >countries with nuclear weapons are forced to enter the highly rational > >world of mutual deterrence or else face total disaster. (They may not > >have to enter into an arrangement of mutual deterrence with the big, > >powerful states but in a highly proliferated world they would certainly > >have to enter into such relationships with at least some other states.) > > Unfortunately, I don't see any mechanism that actually *does* force a > government to "grow up" if/when it gains nukes. Certainly I don't think it > happened for North Korea. If anything, I think nukes could foster a "you > can't touch us" feeling of invulnerablility amongst the world's tyrannies. > > >On the other hand, I'm not sure how well the idea of MAD would work > >regionally because there's not so much time to retaliate before the > >enemy warheads land, which may in turn lead to an unstable situation in > >which each side can "win" by pre-empting the other. > > I don't think MAD can work on this scale, with this amount of nuclear > propagation. > It would be too easy to avoid accountability by handing a nuke over to a > terrorist > group to do the dirtywork, or even use their own agents to smuggle one in a > truck/freighter over the border to the target. No easily traceable ICBMs. > > Lets say Iran has nukes, and two years later, in the midst of some ongoing > US-Iraq strife, Baghdad blows up. Who to blame? We know who Al Jazeera > and the conspiracy buffs would blame. What if it's Tel-Aviv that blows up, > or > Los Angeles? - without absolute proof of guilt, it's problematic to > retailiate. > Either way, the "Assured" part of MAD flops. > > -bryon > > _________________________________________________________________ > Watch the online reality show Mixed Messages with a friend and enter to win > a trip to NY > http://www.msnmessenger-download.click-url.com/go/onm00200497ave/direct/01/ > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l you do what you have done now, pick the best target(s) and blow it/them up! nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
