thomas malloy wrote:
What planet are you living on Jed? Did you hear the news? Pakistan (100 nukes) is being over run by Al Queda, Iran has enough material to build one, and they just launched a satellite.
Parts of Pakistan have been taken over by the Taliban, but I think it is highly unlikely that the whole country will be taken over by Al Queda or the Taliban, or even if it is that they will acquire or use nuclear weapons. The Pakistani military is not run by fools. They would disable the weapons before handing them over to lunatics.
I think there is no chance North Korea or Iran will use a weapon. They know they would be annihilated if they did. They may seem kind of crazy to us, but in their own context they are perfectly sane. Kim Jung Il is the despot king of a medieval nation, not a modern leader. His aggression toward us has nothing to do with us. He does not fear invasion. He uses other countries and threats against them as a form of political theater within North Korea, as a way to gain advantage and crush his internal enemies.
This resembles what some far right U.S. leaders did during the latter stages of the cold war. I doubt that many of them actually feared Russia or worried that Russia might invade Western Europe. They used this scenario to frighten people and consolidate their own power & influence. By the same token, I doubt many Republican leaders today seriously believe that Obama is a socialist, but some of their followers believe this, and it is politically useful for them to say this.
The threat of nuclear terrorism by non-government organizations is low, in my opinion. See:
http://polisci.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/APSACHGO.PDF - Jed
