Valerie Plame, famous for being outed when her husband criticized the GWB administration's Iraq War intelligence, has up a new piece on CNN.Com calling for a new initiative called "Global Zero" which would seek to push all nations to eliminate their nuclear weapons permanently. The idea is that as long as a single nuke is in the hands of a nation, it could fall into the hands of a nuclear terrorist.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/08/plame.wilson.nuclear.danger/index.html?hpt=T2
There are two factors that quickly discredit any sort of "Global Zero" initiative:
1. It rewards cheaters. Whatever nation holds onto its nukes, when all others ditch theirs, suddenly is the only remaining nuclear power - able to dictate their terms at the point of a nuclear bayonet. Thus, every nation will want to cheat, if only as a deterrent to other cheaters.
2. It ignores advances in technology. Not long ago, publishing a book required an army of scribes. Now it can be done by anyone with a computer and printer. Not long ago, international communication was expensive and relegated to the rich. Now, anyone with a call phone can call any country in the world. Every year the costs of creating a nuclear weapon go down, and it is inevitable that eventually a nuke will be built in someone's garage. Reactors already have. Thus, disarmament does little to keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
Am I missing something here? I am eager to be proven wrong by other Mod-Bloggers.
2 comments:
Point 1 is what economists call a "Nash Equilibrium". The Beautiful Mind guy came up with it.
And I think you are correct.
These ideas are the type that come from people who assume all peoples and cultures of the world think like themselves. These people assume because "we" are trustworthy, "others" must be trustworthy too.
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