I depart here from Cheryl. In my view, the degree of uncertainty is too high given the length of the time frame and the systemic instability (current and potential) of a number of nuclear armed states. Moreover, proliferation ( and sequence/timing of proliferation) changes the dynamic by altering the nuclear postures of interested states. A nuclear Iran changes Saudi Arabia’s attitude toward non-proliferation while a nuclear armed Japan does not. Each additional new nuclear weapons state increases the probability of accident, loss, covert sale or use. I would rate the danger as rising toward “moderate” the further you go in terms of out-years.
A great post by Cheryl.
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Anonymous:
May 30th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Thanks for the kind words, Mark.
I’m running low on time, so just a couple of comments.
My threat assessment is strictly confined to nuclear weapons. Radiological weapons, like chemical and biological weapons, are not even in that ballpark, despite the lumping term “WMD.” That lumping is part of what is clouding our thinking.
It’s true that the further out you go, the more uncertain the “findings” become. A more thorough threat assessment would work through several scenarios. A point that I hope to make clearer in future posts is that the United States, as the sole remaining superpower, has big-time leverage in this issue.
How to deal with uncertainty is a problem in this area. Overreacting to uncertainty may well make the problem worse. (Seems like that fits in other areas, too.)
Meanwhile, the take-out conclusion (that I think you mostly agree with) is that the nuclear threat is much, much less than most discussions in “24,” George Bush’s speeches, and the commentariat’s columns would lead us to believe.
I hope to get another post in this series out next week.
CKR
mark:
June 2nd, 2007 at 4:22 am
Hi Cheryl,
Sorry for the delay in responding. It was a hellish week on my end.
“That lumping is part of what is clouding our thinking “
I see your point in terms of scale; however, in terms of politics, a WMD attack could provoke, in the heat of the moment, a nuclear response on our part. Imagine if you will, a CNN newsflash of “30,000 feared dead in al Qaida attack…”
“How to deal with uncertainty is a problem in this area. Overreacting to uncertainty may well make the problem worse”
It could. Very true. Even open discussion of some possibilities can set a self-fulfilling prophecy in motion.
Also the nuclear incident could very well be a ” black swan” we don’t expect. We’re looking hard for a mushroom cloud over Manhattan. How about plutonium in a water supply ? Or a takeover of a nuclear plant which is then ” held hostage”. W
hat is most likely to succeed against us is the thing no one ever thought to prepare against.
Anonymous:
June 2nd, 2007 at 5:56 am
I’ll agree that what is most likely to succeed (whatever success means in this context) is what we don’t expect. But I think that your other comments are just the sort of overreaction my analysis is intended to rebut.
The argument that we must not talk about such bad things has been extinguished by such media events as “24”, the overuse of mushroom metaphors in 2003, and, just to mention the most recent, the hysteria CNN seems to be trying to whip up about tuberculosis for everyone.
“30,000 feared dead in Al Qaida attack”? And what would be the use of nuclear weapons there? I’m asking the question in the context of serious foreign policy options, not just the need to “smack some small country up against the wall.”
CKR
mark:
June 2nd, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Hi Cheryl,
“I’m asking the question in the context of serious foreign policy options, not just the need to “smack some small country up against the wall.”
I understand that. Wargaming hypothetical scenarios allows the coolheaded consideration of options in a way that does not occur in the pressure of real-ilfe crisis decision making. It’s a good thing to do.
If you consider the ExComm transcripts, for example, there was tremendous bureaucratic pressure to run with the two preferred military options in regard to attacking Russian missile sites. Getting to ( the far less dangerous) out of the box thinking was only possible because the public was unaware of the crisis until after the Kennedy administration had settled on a strategy.
Any American president in the wake of a mass casualty WMD terror attack will not have JFK’s luxury of time. I’m simply being realistic here that the political pressure to retaliate with nuclear weapons will be immense. It can’t be dismissed out of hand, only prepared for so that the president will have better alternatives in place to satisfy that political pressure than reacting with nukes.
Anonymous:
June 5th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Hi again Mark –
Sorry I’m slow to respond, but I was traveling over the weekend.
This is exactly what I’m trying to get beyond in my threat assessment:
“I’m simply being realistic here that the political pressure to retaliate with nuclear weapons will be immense.”
Fareed Zakharia has some things to say about that; it’s similar to what I was getting at in my comment about slamming a small country against the wall. We have to return to rationality as a basis for foreign policy, particularly the making of war.
As you said, “It can’t be dismissed out of hand, only prepared for so that the president will have better alternatives in place to satisfy that political pressure than reacting with nukes.”
We’ve all got to start that preparation now.
CKR