As long as you don't vote another Bush into office.
Here's something that may have you waking up and screaming in the night: the next one might be worse.
One is all it takes. Why have nukes, if nobody dares use them? Strike that, why have nukes if the good guys don't dare use them, but the bad guys might very well?
The deterrent bit worked for a while, but the multipolar balance (imbalance) of power has raced ahead of the international protocols on non proliferation, which are an abject failure.
No, not "blah". We can't just dismiss the risk.
Right, we can mitigate it. Since the cautious trust relationship with USSR is not available, missile defense is a path to mitigating the risk. NATO recently funded the ballistic missile defense program, or parts of it, that I worked on (in small parts) ten years ago. The risk is NOT being dismissed, and is NOT being ignored.
Improbable just isn't good enough, when we are talking about nukes.
OK, Claus, do you expect a zero defects policy that is implementable to arise
ex nihilo from "concern" and rational analysis? Politics is not a wholly rational activity. Nothing is not what is being done, and the slow progress is not primarily the US's fault.
That's not good enough. You can't just shut your eyes to the possibility of millions of people evaporated.
Sure it is. What I can do is limited, and I do what my limited means allow. I am not fool enough to think that I can control what 150 million Pakistanis will, or won't, collectively do. If they start a nuclear war with India, or someone else, things are sure going to suck. I live in the real world, not an Ivory Tower. I spent my career in the business of global stability, at the pointy end of American Foreign policy, which includes the preparation to visit violence and death on the enemies of my country, but was most effective when deterrence (thanks to presence of credible force) was successful.
I've done a bit, thanks so much, for world stability.
Which proves that you can't trust the military to do the "right thing", at all times.
At all times. Once again, I ask you, how do you expect zero defects from any human endeavor. That is beyond fallacious, it is irresponsible expectation. You are a skeptic, and you make a declarative statement of that gross futility? I am dying to know why?
How will you tell if Bush has snapped?
Since I am no longer on active duty, and not on the J-staff, Operations, I won't. The folks there will. So will his physician, his wife, the speaker of the House, the Secretary of State, and a whole host of others.
Perhaps. But that means that the answer - the solution - is just left hanging. "Playing ostrich" is perhaps the answer?
My solution, personally, is to write my elected representatives on topics where I have some competence, to vote my conscience, and to send in articles to journals and papers (I get a lot of rejection slips back, blah!) on topics I find of merit. What ostrich?
No, it won't. But you can elect someone who is less likely to snap. And, of course, work to rid the world of nukes.
Who gives up theirs first? Isn't that always the problem? Trust? It's the old chicken and egg. If you trust them, you don't need nukes, but then, if there is trust, nukes weren't necessary in the first place. If you don't trust them, you can't let go of your nukes if they have them. The genii is out of the bottle.
I prefer to solve problems instead of ignoring them.
What have you
solved in the matter of nuclear non-proliferation in your life time? I am waiting for your evidence. I suspect I may be dealing with an admitted Danish Ostrich. I would most enjoy being shown the error in that presumption. Hell, I'd buy you a bear. No, wait, I'd buy you a beer.
DR
