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Preventing a Nuclear Exchange
My view is that arguments about whether this is “a good deal” are missing the point; the point is that everyone within the time zone of sanity understands that, even in the best-case scenario, we’ve done no more than buy time. What do we plan to do with that time?
For the sake of argument, let’s take Fred Cole’s position as “the most optimistic that can be held while remaining in the time-zone of sanity.” Fred Cole asked, “And how long before they’re tired of having an Islamic republic and turn to liberal democracy?” My answer, Fred — and would you agree? — is, “We don’t know.” The assumption that everyone sooner or later wants a liberal democracy has been tested and found wanting. No one can count on this happening, no less make a confident prediction that it will happen within a given time frame.
I agree with Adam Garfinkle that this is the key point:
We have to assume, if we err on the prophylactic side of safety, that there is going to be a nuclear exchange in the region — perhaps spilling over into South Asia and even elsewhere — unless something fairly novel is done to prevent it.
He continues by suggesting that our policy should, in effect, be something we can scarcely even debate among ourselves:
Could we through a combination of conventional precision-strike munitions and cyber-ops — accompanied of course by space- and land-based intelligence assets for purposes of target acquisition — abort the attempt of 3rd and 4th parties, so to speak, from launching nuclear weapons against each other and/or their other neighbors? Might rapidly deployable forms of missile defense augment such a capability?
We cannot reliably do any such thing right now, but there is no scenario for which such a capability is fully relevant right now. Looking to the future, yes we can do this, if we try. We should therefore begin now quietly [my emphasis] developing the means to unilaterally sterilize, or suppress to the extent possible, the prospects for nuclear weapons exchanges within the Middle East, and do some serious thinking about how to integrate such a capability into U.S. military doctrine.
I don’t know whether he is correct to say that we can, if we try. We can’t if we don’t, obviously. And we do have to try. “What really matters looking out ahead is very scary,” he concludes, “but it is not something we are powerless to affect. And we really need to affect it.”
By definition, this is not a policy we can announce, and it is thus not one we can truly debate. We are, democratically speaking, stuck. It’s a genuine dilemma: We can’t advocate the policy we most need. We can’t rationally debate how much funding should be allocated to this “serious thinking,” because all such proposals would necessarily and properly be classified. We can’t meaningfully decide which ideas are worth the research budget and which are pure technological folly.
But the debate is no longer about this deal. It’s about recognizing that a proliferation nightmare without historic precedent is a perfectly plausible outcome, one that we have at best postponed by a few years. Stopping this deal won’t stop that nightmare. Voting against the deal simply to register one’s objection to the past 20 years of American foreign policy is moral preening; it amounts to saying, “Alas, too bad, nuclear war is at hand. Let history note my stance: I was against it.”
History’s not going to note — or thank — anyone for that. The question is, “What now?”
Published in Foreign Policy, General
By extension, would that not imply that the goal of stopping nuclear proliferation can only be accomplished with Russia’s (and perhaps China’s) cooperation?
If Russia is the only country which could conceivably retaliate against the US for nuking an Iranian site, does that not mean the US must secure a guarantee from Russia to never retaliate before issuing a nuclear ultimatum of the sort you suggest? How does the US know that Russia wouldn’t nuke the US in response to the US nuking Iran?
Furthermore, doesn’t this fact that Russia’s nuclear capabilities are the only real deterrent against American military action simply prove to non-nuclear countries that they need nuclear weapons, especially as an insurance policy in case Russia either loses its own nuclear capabilities or some day decides to side with the US?
This would not have zero nuclear implications, because it would mean risking a nuclear response from Russia.
The Outer Space Treaty prohibits the deployment of “weapons of mass destruction” in space. Do kinetic weapons qualify as WMD? Reasonable people can disagree, and when some of ’em have nukes you really gotta take their opinion into consideration.
A nuclear ultimatum to the world (don’t nuke anybody) only makes sense if it is issued by all the nuclear powers together.
But in that case, it would have to be a very narrow ultimatum (don’t nuke anybody), rather than one that achieves broader objectives (don’t invade anybody, don’t fund militias or non-State actors/terrorists, etc.).
As other have mentioned, we’re already fairly good at intercepting the sort of mid-range ballistic missile that would be involved in an exchange contained within the Middle East. The technology isn’t perfect and it’s terribly expensive, but if it’s a nuke headed your way (or headed anyone’s way, assuming Garfinkle’s unilateral defense model) you’re going to be willing to expend three or four interceptors just to be sure.
The problem is that theater-range missiles just aren’t prohibitively expensive the way ICBMs (and interceptors) are. If the aggressor knows you’ll try to intercept, they can fire a dozen conventional missiles as decoys and the economics get ugly pretty quick. Still, since having a first-strike intercepted would be the worst possible outcome for a theoretical aggressor, I think the existing technology is a creditable deterrent. Unfortunately, I think that just makes a smuggled bomb the likelier scenario.
That is a factually incorrect assumption. We have radiation detection devices that are so sensitive that ships 10 miles off the coast giving off a small amount of radiation from their cargo are flagged and bordered by the U.S. Coast Guard. Don’t ever get a MIR and walk into a cargo port area right afterword. You will be detained in a heart beat.
There might be Canada border areas that are have weak to no sensors but I am not privy to that information so I don’t know if there are sensor gaps there. Since I know we have the technology and it is very good, only a moron would not have complete sensor coverage on our southern border.
Put it this way Anti-terrorist specialist are not afraid of dirty bomb or rouge nukes inside the U.S. They are terrified about biological and chemical attacks, anthrax being the chief among them. A suitcase anthrax attack in a major city is what keeps them up at night. Now rouge missiles from outside our borders with nukes or other agents yes we should be afraid of those.
The Russian nuke payloads leave the missiles in the upper atmosphere. If you don’t don’t intercept before that, then you are screwed. If I remember the numbers correctly about half the nukes are dummies on each missiles the other half are real (there are multiple nukes loaded in ICBM).
Perhaps there is something I am unaware of, but MRI’s neither use nor induce ionizing radiation nor gamma radiation. They merely induce very transient electromagnet alignment of molecules in biologic tissues. What is it that the sensors you speak of would be detecting? Surely not radiation.
According to the NRDC, enriched uranium or plutonium can be made undetectable with less than 1/4 inch thick lead shielding and concluded that the only way to prevent smuggling is to control all fissile materials at the source.
Perhaps you can refer me to more reliable sources to persuade me I am wrong.
I wasn’t going to correct this, but Gort stood by the spaceship for most of the movie after destroying the random jeeps and tanks. He had plenty of time to destroy humanity if that actually had been his mission. He was not after humanity, although it was sort of implied that he and whatever people he came from had a pretty dim view of humanity.
I would advise some leniency throwing around the phrase ‘bad actors’ in this situation. My mom loved Michael Rennie, who played Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Yeah, Helen Benson had to say “klaatu barada nikto” for absolutely no reason.
I believe you’re correct regarding ICBMs. I had in mind a scenario involving something like Iran’s current medium-range missiles such as the Shahab and Sejjil, which are exactly the sort of thing systems like Patriot, THAAD and Israel’s Arrow are designed to counter. An intercontinental missile, which is a major but not implausible step for Iran within the next decade, does make interception much, much harder. I wish I could say we were better at it, but we’re not. Space is hard.