Reasons Not to Be Uncheerful, Part Three
Something occurred to me last week with all the news and speculation about Pakistan. (See the latest from American Footprints and the BBC.)
Almost five years ago I argued that Pakistan was the real object of Al Qaeda’s strategy, because Pakistan had nuclear weapons and an unstable government with a powerful radical-Islamist faction. Here’s what took until now to sink in:
Pakistan successfully tested its first nuclear weapon in 1998.
Pakistan’s ISI supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda right up until Colin Powell made the famous threats.
Depending on whom you believe, elements of the Pakistani intelligence services may still be supporting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. (Don’t be fooled by pious talk of “ex”-intelligence officials. That’s for the children.)
Forget anti-American groups - Pakistan has supported Muslim terror groups for decades as part of its cold war with India.
So we have an undemocratic, officially Islamist government, supporting terror groups, particularly hostile to an infidel enemy state, possessing nuclear weapons. A country that has taken on a superpower in the name of Islam.
It was clear to me that Bin Laden’s grand strategy was to get Musharraf’s government to fall so he could get his hands on the country’s nukes. It even occurred to me that Pakistan already fits the profile of country likely to pass nuclear weapons to terrorists better than Iraq or Iran, who, after all, have no nuclear weapons to pass.
What finally occurred to me is that they’re such a good candidate to do this that it’s very suggestive that they haven’t already done so. Never gave a nuke to Lashkar-e-Taiba. Never gave a nuke to Al Qaeda. Even in the bad old days when they were up to their plausible deniabilities in both groups’ business. Even now when they are still, some of them you can just bet, deeply enmeshed with Kashmiri and Ladenite jihadists.
It’s not hard to come up with reasons why they haven’t done so, but they’re reasons that apply to a greater or lesser degree to almost any hypothetical case of a state giving nuclear weapons to terrorists. Fear of loss of control. Fear of having the weapon traced back to you. Doubt that a nuclear terror strike actually helps you achieve your political objectives. Maybe even revulsion at being the first ones to cross that line since the world drew it on the convenient side of Nagasaki.
The above is the standard list skeptics give every time hawks try to gin up a war in the name of preventing nuclear terror. The point is, we already have a test case that tends to bear the skeptics out.
That doesn’t mean No country would ever share nuclear weapons with terror groups. But it’s an object lesson in just how unlikely such an act would be.
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
October 9, 2006 @ 10:31 pm
Nice. Really nice.
Comment by the talking dog —
October 9, 2006 @ 11:02 pm
True enough. However, I’m sure if one were to get close enough to ask Kim Jong Il about recent events in a sort of “You’ve just become the 8th nation-state to officially possess a working atomic weapon; what are you going to do now?”
Rather than suggest a sojourn to a Disney theme park, I’m sure Kim’s answer would be something like “Show me the money, sucka.”
While Kim, like his Pakistani nuke-salesmen, isn’t likely to turn over his weapons to terrorists or others outside of his control, he may find the blackmail value of threatening to do so to be quite enticing.
Comment by Jonathan Goff —
October 9, 2006 @ 11:29 pm
Jim,
That’s a rather interesting point. Kind of similar to a realization of my own from a few weeks back. I was talking with a friend of mine who happens to be a frothing at the mouth neolibertarian about Iran. He was absolutely convinced that the mullahs were stark raving mad, and that if they ever got nukes, they would use them on Israel, even if they couldn’t actually do enough damage to destroy the Israelis, and even if it would result in their country being turned into a glowing sea of radioactive glass by the Israelis. I didn’t realize this until immediately after the conversation, but both Syria and Iran have had WmD’s (Weapons of moderate Destruction) in the form of at least chemical warfare agents for years now (or at least so we’re told by our everso trustworthy friends in the government). But in spite of that fact, they haven’t tried to wipe Israel off the map, or even kill as many Jews as they can on their way out. They were deterred because unlike current claims, the “Mad Mullahs” of Iran and the dimwits in Syria aren’t quite as stupid or suicidal as the current talking points claim. If they were such suicidal madmen as to risk certain death and destruction just to attack Israel, why haven’t they tried yet? They’ve supposedly had the tools to do the job for longer than I’ve been on this planet. If they were deterrable there (and didn’t try to use their weapons to take over the rest of the Middle East), why is it any different if they happen to get their hands on a few crappy low-yield nukes?
~Jon
Comment by Azael —
October 10, 2006 @ 12:04 am
The point is, we already have a test case that tends to bear the skeptics out.
Considering how much nuclear material has been floating around since the break up of the Soviet Union, not to mention starving and critically unemployed nuclear scientists and engineers, I’d say we have multiple test cases. And not just for nukes but for dirty bombs and biological weapons as well.
Comment by ajay —
October 10, 2006 @ 5:31 am
It is also worth reminding worried people that, in fact, no country has ever given a nuclear weapon to any other country, let alone any non-state group. The US, when the UK was its closest ally in the Cold War, and a stable, secure democratic nation, never supplied it with nuclear weapons. There were sharing arrangements and technology transfers and missile leases, but the UK made its own bombs. So did France. Russia didn’t hand China any bombs before the 1961 split. China never passed any on to North Korea to ward off the South, or to Pakistan when it was fighting India.
There is no trade in nuclear weapons, nor has there ever been. Why are people so sure that it will start now?
Comment by thoreau —
October 10, 2006 @ 7:37 am
I think Jim makes good points. One reassuring point is that there has probably never been such a thing as a country ruled by a single man. Every dictator has to rely on key henchmen to help him get stuff done. This means that if the guy at the top wants to do something suicidal, there will probably be a few people around him to talk him out of it, or else mount a coup.
However, the problem with having more and more nuclear powers is that it makes plausible denial a little easier. One thing holding them back from selling to terrorists is that they don’t want to face retaliation for what terrorists might do. However, as the number of nuclear powers grows it becomes easier to maintain plausible deniability. “Us? Oh, no, not us. You might want to see what Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and (insert others here) were up to. Not to mention all those corrupt Russian generals who love bribes.”
I’m not saying that many dictators (or their trusted henchmen) are likely to risk a 1 in 5 chance of being wiped out in exchange for a little bit of money, I’m just saying that every time the odds change, well, the odds change. And that is not a comforting thought.
What to do? Beats the hell out of me.
Comment by adam s —
October 10, 2006 @ 8:04 am
well, duh. why would I want to give you my nukes? know how hard those things are to come by? even if the regime or whathaveyou is unstable, they’re still likely to to value themselves more than they’d value Osama and his *cause*. even if it’s the worst regime in the world: they got that way by overstating and overextending their self interest to begin with. the stakes would have to be really high on the part of the Pakistani government to share a weapon that powerful. having them gets you to the table. using them will likely get you turned into a pile of rubble and flesh. and you can’t forget that the Pakistani government is still in power. no desperation at all.
we need a futures market, seriously.
Comment by Barry —
October 10, 2006 @ 8:13 am
1 in 5 chance? What do you think that the US would do if a nuclear weapon were detonated in their borders? NK would be first to go, probably with Iran soon following. Pakistan would be tricky, since they’ve got enough bombs that they might have a hold-out outside of their territory.
Comment by DonBoy —
October 10, 2006 @ 10:43 am
In the case of Pakistan, there may be more than threats, explicit and implicit, involved. There’s a lot of maybes in this early 2002 American Prospect piece, and it’s of course from a while ago, but it suggests that US and/or Israeli(!) forces might be actively guarding the Pakistani nukes.
Comment by sean —
October 10, 2006 @ 1:19 pm
Yeah, but the problem is that in this game, you have to be lucky every day to keep even, and, if you have one bad day, you really really lose. But another cheerful thought for most of you is that any nuclear device will probably be exploded in either Jerusalem or New York, where most of you don’t live or want to live.
Comment by roger —
October 10, 2006 @ 2:34 pm
The problem isn’t the official policy of a nation, but the unofficial policies pursued by government officials who have access to nuclear material.
And counter-case to that of Pakistan is the case of Israel. It was official U.S. policy not to supply Israel, of all places, with nuclear material. So where did they get it? From the CIA. From, more specifically, James Angleton, who operated to help the Israelis illegally bypass U.S. law. For which he is commemorated in Israel. The story is told at length in Leslie and Andrew Cockburn’s Dangerous Liason.
Is it possible that an ISI equivalent of Angleton might think it in the best interests of Pakistan and/or some variety of Islamicism to help in an equivalent way? I don’t see why not. But that help will probably be to a more state-grounded organization — say, some group that captures the government of Bangladesh or something.
Comment by Walt —
October 10, 2006 @ 4:16 pm
Sean, do you derive some sort of sexual pleasure out of stupid arguments?
Comment by James —
October 10, 2006 @ 6:49 pm
On the other hand, since the Saudis did a big part of the financing of the Pakistani nuclear program, it would be surprising if there wasn’t some sort of quid pro quo. Whether or not that translates as actual possession of a nuke by either Saudi Arabia or one of the royals is a question I’d rather see go unanswered.
Comment by sean —
October 11, 2006 @ 1:57 pm
Walt, I regret to say that I am too old to be threatened by sexually-themed insults. Maybe you can get a rise out of Michelle Malkin.
Comment by Johnathan Pearce —
October 12, 2006 @ 11:34 am
The problem with the argument that “no state is gonna give nukes to terrorists” is, as Sean said, one that has to be right every time. Sooner or later some nutjob is going to do it. The whole libertarian/isolationist foreign policy tune that Jim has played these last few years is based on the essential idea that the likes of Kim, the Mullahs, etc, are rational and deterrable, just like the Soviets were.
That is betting quite a big wager. I hope you are right Jim, I really do.
Comment by Jim Henley —
October 12, 2006 @ 11:58 am
Sean’s just another cowardly conservative, Jonathan. But the specter of an avowed libertarian demanding that guaranteed safety be the standard by which a policy be judged would sadden me if it weren’t all too familiar by now. By now you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Jonathan. You’re still in the grip of a transatlantic mania that long since subsided in GENUINELY “critically rational” people.
There’s more to politics than figuring that if the EU is against it, it must be bitchin’!
Comment by Johnathan Pearce —
October 13, 2006 @ 7:38 am
Jim, I dunno what Sean is, Jim. And spare the lectures, please. It is hardly a “trnsatlantic mania” to be worried about a nutcase NK dictator with his hands on nuclear weapons.
And I am hardly arguing for perfect safety, if that is what you are getting at. It is one thing to be skeptical about the ability of states to in fact pass over WMDs to terror groups, and quite another to assume that it is very unlikely, as you do.
Given NK’s probable involvement in selling munitions to places like Iran, it is entirely reasonable to get worried about Kim’s intentions. Worried yes, panicked, no.
Hope that clears that one up.
Comment by Johnathan Pearce —
October 13, 2006 @ 8:45 am
Oh and Jim, I certainly do think that is it is pretty unlikely that a state, even a very unpleasant one, would pass on WMD munitions to terror groups if there was even the slightest chance of such handover being traced back. (The old plausible deniability argument applies).
My worry is that as nuclear weaponry proliferates, then the statistical probability surely increases that at some point, the leakeage of WMDs to terror groups increases. That is where the worries about N.Korea et al kick in.
I have my regrets about supporting the war to topple Saddam but I am certainly not “deeply ashamed” of doing so, given the lousiness of the available alternative courses of action in 2002/3. I am a chastened “libertarian hawk”, if you you like.
rgds