Sigh - yet another visiting American politician saying that we should "re-evaluate" (meaning drop) our anti-nuclear policy. Why? Because
"[a]s of now, North Korea has the capability of launching missiles with nuclear warheads which can reach many cities along the West Coast of the United States. If these missiles can ... target San Francisco and Los Angeles, they can just as easily reach the cities of Auckland and Wellington."
Which is entirely true - but its difficult to see how having other people's nukes here would help one iota in stopping them.
6 comments:
It’s the old deterrence argument he's using. The deterrence argument relies on the principle that countries in possession of nuclear weapons are sane enough to understand the concept of MAD (Mutually assured destruction). This is a flawed position as the decision to posses Nukes in the first place is not a sane one.
Posted by Anonymous : 4/05/2005 05:25:00 PM
I fail to see how nth koreas ability to nuke us has any relevance in regard to us having nukes here. any retaliation would come from the US as opposed to from NZ. And the US will retaliate on our behalf in response to a nuclear strike from nth korea anyway.
However MAD is not flawed - MAD is just a famous case of the "war is not worth it" vs "war is worth it" analysis.
Now at any moment in time for a dictator somwhere war might or might not be "worth it" from his perspective. If both countries have nukes the odds of it being "worth it" from his perspective are considerably reduced since trading one green paradise for two burnt out radioactive wastelands is generally not considered a good deal.
If we make it so that war is worth it then it will happen, now the solution for making war NOT worth it is to have barriers to that one is nukes the other is a strong retaliation for example the gulf war (the kuwait one) you just need enough of such things.
Posted by Genius : 4/05/2005 07:01:00 PM
Anon: the desire to posses nuclear weapons is a perfectly sane one - if you feel threatened by (and wish to deter) other nuclear-armed powers. But we're not such a power, and don't really feel threatened by anyone in that way.
As for the Americans, if they want to claim we're under their nuclear umbrella, then that's their own lookout. To claim that we are thereby obligated to them "in return" is applying the blind invoicing scam on a global scale.
Posted by Idiot/Savant : 4/05/2005 11:15:00 PM
We have the "free rider effect". We can be unbelievably obnoxious and selfish and still get all the benefits.
Posted by Genius : 4/06/2005 01:41:00 AM
I can't see why they would want to fire their scarce missiles at a small and unagressive country.
They could also attack Switzerland, or Iceland, or the Faroe Islands - do they need nukes too?
Or are the yanks suggesting that we need to make our own nukes to defend ourselves from a future, feral, USA.
Posted by Rich : 4/06/2005 09:09:00 AM
Rich... but you DO!
Posted by Genius : 4/06/2005 12:54:00 PM
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