Subject:
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Who the devil are we to lecture on 'nucular' non-proliferation? (careful, long rant)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 5 May 2005 07:39:52 GMT
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1076 times
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I see the non-proliferation talks got off to a happy start, demanding that the Iranians
and North Koreans give up or do differently their nuclear programmes for
peaceful power generation/weapons research/weapons production (as the case may
be).
Even as a non-nuclear country, our (Australian) foreign affairs boys have
weighed in on the side of peace and stability (read “no-one else can have the
bomb or anything in its general direction”). We did all we could to get the
bomb in the 50’s and 60’s, with the British changing their mind and not giving
it to us, before accepting US/UK promises that they would defend us if nuclear
fun and games were required (something which helps explain our no mercy,
whatever it takes approach to the American alliance).
By what right do we demand this limitation on Iranian and North Korean
aspirations, limitations that the nuclear powers obviously did not/do not feel
the need to apply to themselves? Our national interest might be a compelling
motivation for us, but one can understand how it might not appeal to them so
much.
And while we joke and smirk about what these poor countries really mean when
they talk about ‘peaceful’ uses and ‘defensive’ weapons its probably well to
remind ourselves that none of the nuclear powers bothered with such sophistry at
the time they were developing their own nuclear arsenals. The sophistry is only
inspired by the nuclear powers’ demands as to what other weaker countries should
and shouldn’t do.
And and before we complain that they are in breach of guidelines, we might think
about how the nuclear disarmament programmes that were to dramatically reduce
the numbers of offensive weapons to negligible levels have really just not, and
how the prohibitions designed to halt nuclear weapons research in the developed
world have just not.
In the meantime, Israel bulks
up its American supplied offensive capability to go into Iran and sort out
Iranian nuclear facilities as it did in Iraq in 1981
(Indeed,
‘81 was a big year for American support for Israel too). It might prove a
little more problematic this time with the Iranians having had the good sense to
have learned from the Americans (and not from the Iraqis) to put much of its
stuff underground, and to build an entirely serviceable mid range missile
capability. The Israeli F16s and F15s will get back ok, but landing strips
could be harder to find. Interestingly, Sharon says Israel won’t attack, but
Cheney says they might. What is it with that?
Its a tricky thing.
There’s no doubt that the world is more stable with less nuclear weapons.
And there is a good argument that (Western) countries with much to lose are less
likely to use these weapons. Its only places or people with not much to lose or
the real prospect of losing everything that find these weapons attractive.
So we can try (and very very likely fail as we have before) to address the
capability side, or we can try to address the motivation side.
North Korea is on the US’s publicly announced hit list and feels, with some
historical support, that the only thing the American administration respects is
might, and so they are scrabbling to get some. If I was them, so would I.
Iran is bordered by one country with nuclear weapons which is in a state of
undeclared war with one of its (also nuclear armed) neighbours (much as this
might be starting to come good in the last three months), and two countries that
have been invaded and occupied by the West in the last 10 years, the latter of
which was invaded under false pretenses and is currently in a state of
occupation and insurgency, if not in fact civil war. If I was them, I’d be
looking for something that would make a difference to folks’ strategic thinking
too.
It all reminds me of the
kerfuffle in the UK over the Whinash wind farm project, the clean power it
could generate for for 47,000 homes, and how we wax and wane over balancing the
environment, the local amenity, and the profitability of green power generation,
while no one seems interested that the savings in carbon emissions amount to
less than what a single 747 creates on its daily run from London to Miami and
back - we’re looking at the wrong end of the problem.
What it wants is for these ‘rogue’ nations to not be hungry. But for them to
get wealthier fast enough to make a diffference, the rest of us would need to
take a lifestyle hit, and that’s just not in our national interest. Aid (that
is not linked to ideology), trade (that allows them to build up their own
industries), respect (including an end to pre-emption), an economic price for
oil (supply and demand for extracive industries is a tricky thing, but hardly a
new science, and hardly how it works now), investment (without debilitating and
destabilising capital markets deregulation), a currency exchange system defended
from speculators who produce nothing of any use to anyone other than themselves,
access to first world medicines (without the royalty premium) - opportunities to
actually advance the situation abound, but they all cost.
Sometimes, just jumping up and down on the suitcase will simply never get it
closed. Either you have a think about what’s really important and leave out
some of the less important things, or the suitcase breaks. Then what have you
achieved?
Richard
(Who suffers recurrent realisations of
Monbiot’s vision of
humanity on Earth, as so much yeast in a barrel, obliviously feeding and farting
itself to death)
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