Stardate 20030918.1559

(On Screen): Tom sends a link to a story which claims that the Saudis are seriously considering trying to acquire nuclear weapons. (The Saudis immediately denied it, but that doesn't mean the story was wrong.) Tom asks:

I should expect that we will be seeing a lot more of this in the next few years as the current thinking is that holding a few nukes is the only thing that can blunt the America's overwhelming conventional force.

You've also made mention of this, I believe. I'm not sure of exactly why this would be true. In the 50's we trained around fission bombs like this, even going as far as marching troops to ground zero hours after they went boom. The way we fight today in general the enemy doesn't have a clue where are troops are once we start moving and we don't have to use large troop concentrations anymore either. Some fixed sites like airbases and seaports could be targeted but we also have improving theater defenses. I'm sure it would be a costlier conflict than what we have grown use to in recent history but a small number of nukes doesn't seem like it would be decisive.

If we found the need to take out a small time nuclear power could we do it without overwhelming losses? Would our theater defenses limit the enemy to using their nukes as essentially large mines? What would the concept of deterrence mean if our troops were nuked and we didn't respond in kind?

Those in the third world who are trying to acquire nukes are not thinking of them as battlefield weapons. They're thinking of them as strategic weapons.

If the record of the last fifteen years has taught the world anything, it's that once the US decides to mass troops on the border of some nation and to invade it, the result is not in doubt. The only safety for the leaders of such a nation lies in preventing us from reaching that point.

But they don't really have very many ways of doing that. About the best means available now is to try to use international institutions such as the UN to tie our hands, which seems to have been the wager Saddam made, and it clearly didn't work. Now that the US has demonstrated that it will "unilaterally" make such attacks even despite condemnation from the majority of the nations of the world (including such steadfast and highly important allies as France), then short of political capitulation to us there seems to be no hope. That's why publicly or secretly most of them want nukes; it changes their situation, and makes them much less vulnerable.

But not because they could use those nukes against our field formations. Rather, it's because they would threaten to nuke one of our cities. And yes, they all could do so. I am not going to go into details, but if someone is determined to do so and not in a hurry, there are ways such a weapon could be delivered reliably which cannot be prevented by American wizard technology or by any other technical means available to us. Such an attack can only be avoided either by dissuading the enemy from launching it, or by having sufficient knowledge of the specific details of the particular attack plan to be able to intercept it.

During the Cold War we primarily relied on nuclear deterrence. Unfortunately, a threat of nuclear retaliation doesn't help us in this case.

If a nuclear-armed pipsqueak nation saw indications that we were seriously contemplating such an attack, or saw us actually begin such a buildup, they'd either privately or publicly threaten us with massive consequences unless we backed down. They wouldn't threaten our troops; they'd threaten our cities.

Let's be clear that in many of these nations, the primary concern of the rulers is their own survival and their retention of power. Their concern for the welfare of the people of their nation can vary all the way down to "none" or indeed go even lower than that, as the stories coming out of Iraq now prove, let alone the situation in North Korea. That's particularly true in nations made up of several ethnic groups or tribes who hate one another, where leaders from one such group will sometimes see members of those other groups as vermin to be made miserable or even to be exterminated.

It is better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. (Or be exiled there.)

And that's why our threat of nuclear retaliation would not serve as a deterrent. If the only thing that concerns the leader of such a nation is whether they stay in power, then it matters little to them whether they perish in a conventional military invasion or end up in hiding or exile, or are vaporized by our nuclear retaliation. All of those represent infinite doom, and they're all equally unacceptable fates, amounting to a choice between drowning or hanging.

Nor do many of them care how many of their people die or in what way. History is full of leaders who were willing to sacrifice hordes of the people from their own nation simply to keep the leaders in power, and who dragged their nations into catastrophe.

If the leader does care at least somewhat about the fate of the people, then he might accept his own doom and select a doom which would spare his countrymen. But there have been many leaders who didn't give a damn about that, and in some cases even actively wished that as many of their countrymen as possible follow them to hell.

A choice between drowning