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Originally Posted by irateplatypus
good post jb.
though bush doctrine may not stop proliferation... i'm not sure that we have found an effective way to curb it at all. clinton seemed to be more in favor of diplomatic channels, yet there is a clear failure on his part to sate NK's desire for a nuke. too often i think "diplomatic efforts" translates into concessions. not always, but certainly often. if we start giving nations like iran and NK economic breaks and/or relieve pressure in exchange for a supposed reduction in nuclear activities... then we are only encouraging other nations to start their own programs so they can receive he same treatment.
i think a hard-line (and perhaps military) response is the only real workable solution. if we can assure any country that develops nukes that they are going to get harsh economic and military treatment from the U.S. that will do more than anything else to curb development. i think we've either got to find a standard and put our national credibility on the line to stick to it, or we've got to accept that the Irans and the NKs of the world will get nukes. anything in between seems to be folly.
edit: within the context of the discussion cthulu's post can very well be interpreted to mean what some of the other poster's understood it to mean. i don't mean to insult you, but comments like those (or how we understood them originally) are quite commonplace... i've seen more juvenile things posted about bush before. i really think you're taking it too hard. either way, we're all clear on what you mean now... so let's move on.
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Irate, I did take it too hard, point taken.
As for the progress of non-proliferation, I wouldn't expect Bush or any president to single-handedly solve the problem during one term. What I do expect is continued steps towards that ultimate goal, and at the very least a maintnance of the tenuous situation. Unfortunately, the situation is such that Bush indeed done just that, take a step backwards. I'm not saying he wanted to, or that he didn't think he was doing the right thing, but the end result was negative progress for non-proliferation. There have been a series of events that have led to this conclusion.
1) North Korea: Clinton had not reached a final solution in Korea, but neither had any President. What he did achieve was a halting of the NK nuclear program. There was still development of delivery systems, and the reactors had not been destroyed, but it was a start. Negotiations were underway for delivery of a replacement reactor that would allow destruction of the existing ones, but in the meantime, existing reactors were under full observation by IAEA. The carrot was food and energy shipments to the starving nation. Enter Bush. Unhappy with shipping these items and having to build (pay for) the new reactor, he took a harder line. Result was NK dismantling of IAEA observation, restart of the reactor and full progress resumed on the nuclear program. This may have happened under Gore if certain events had happened, but it didn't. It happened under Bush, and they have to take responsibility for the failure.
2) NMD: Clinton's continuance of NMD research was an error, as it turns out. His 'open options' plan was to not make a full deployment of NMD, but instead keep it on the back burner if needed. When Bush got in he of course took it and put it on the front burner (fulfilling a campaign promise). Since then, the result has been a renewed interest in modernizing and increasing capabilities of nuclear arsenals in China and Russia. In concrete terms, China has decided to abandon its age-old 20 missiles and replace them with a larger number of modern missiles. Additionally, they will be capable of delivering MIRV warheads, something which we thought we were finally rid of, not to mention unprecedented in Chinese service.
3) Test Ban Treaty: Adherance to the test ban had ended nuclear testing among the signees (notably not signed by Pak and India). A French blast marked the last test. This gave several advantages. Diplomatically, it gave us increased leverage to make sure Pak/Indian tests did not continue once capability was demonstrated. Strategically, it allowed us to use our capable computer simulations to continue our research where those nations without such capability were left without that capacity, yet unable to do actual tests. Environmentally, well obviously I think you can see the benefits to ending nuking of the planet. Bush withdrew from the test ban treaty. This has sent the message to the world that the US wants to be able to test nuclear weapons again. Can we possibly expect this to be a positive sign to anyone in the world?
Even in a world where attempts to proliferate are universally condemned, where active work towards stopping and dismantling nuclear programs is underway, and where the nuclear powers work towards reductions, there will be rogues who try and go against this. Non-proliferation is not an over-night story of sucess, but is measured in stepts. Those who seek to proliferate are brought to bear against and dealt with in a variety of ways, but the focus is always on stopping the programs.
Now that we've changed the ground rules to say that testing is okay, disrupting the nuclear balance is okay, and pre-emptive strike by whatever means deemed needed is okay, it becomes more difficult to use persuasion or negotiation and we are left with just hanging the US Military over their heads. I don't like to limit our options, and I don't feel its fair to our troops to do that to them, making them our first resort, not last.
The basic questions are what tools are in our box, and how can we add some tools, to deal with proliferation effectively?