Dissing Arms Control

More Signs That Arms Control is Dead and Buried

Wall Street Journal article entitled, "An Atomic Bargain Hampers the Hunt For Illicit Weapons: Top Watchdog Agency Has Strictly Limited PowersóAnd Conflicting Missions," by Carla Anne Robbins, 8 Apr, p. A1.

All you need to know from this article is stated in the first paragraph (as it is in most WSJ articles, which are the best written in the business):

"The International Atomic Energy Agency is the world's nuclear watchdog, charged with stopping the spread of nuclear weaponry. But it's a watchdog with a split personality: The IAEA is also charged with promoting the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy."

The IAEA's rule set on this is clear: if you foreswear nuclear weapons, it will help you build nuclear power plants. Sound a bit crazy? It's not. It just shows the incredible dis-utility of trying to control the spread of technology from the Core to the Gap. I, myself, don't want to see that technology spread controlled, but turned wide open, because I think that flow is important for shrinking the Gap, and because I believe such flows are virtually impossible to control.

The answer is not stopping the technology, but replacing the leadership of any country that uses it for the generation of WMD. Yes, this is a matter of telling them to "do as we say and not as we do," just like when parents tell kids that even though they "experimented" with drugs way back then, it's a bad idea for their kids to do the same today. If we can't get any smarter as we get older, then it is hopeless.

The same is true for countries. America is "old" when it comes to nukes, and frankly, it knows better, otherwise we would have used them again and again after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So we are empowered to enforce this rule set, because it's good for everyone and not just ourselves. Sometimes Dad just has to be the dad.

And when non-state actors make any motion toward acquiring such technology, there should be no preliminaries whatsoever. Those people you take down without even asking them to surrender, because you know they will be up to no good.

Bottom line: the Core never does any good trying to control the flow of dangerous technologies to the Gap. We should abandon these efforts and focus on the bad guys there who will do harm the first chance they get. Since they're devoted to breaking the rules, they will always find ways around the sanctions, decrees, etc. that we throw at them. Moreover, these sanctions always end up hurting the masses while making the corrupt elites rich inside the Gap. They are a complete waste of timeóa choice barely above complete inaction.