![]() Posted by blahblahblah at 8:47 AM on May 2, 2006 The articles argue that the deniability argument is now hurting everyone's interests in dealing with other powers that want to acquire nukes. Israel built its weapons in the 1960s, largely with French support, it has had them for 20 years, the only odd thing is the quasi-deniability stance used by Israel and the rest of the word when discussing them. I don't know why you would expect that just because a country in a region has weapons, it is logical that the international community should allow all countries to have them. I think the whole point of the stories in the FPP is to explain why Israel has evolved its particular conditions for its nuclear weapons. South Africa, Libya, and Brazil gave up theirs for political or strategic reasons. Pakistan and India currently have nuclear weapons, and are members of the international community with no sanctions. ![]() There are different policies for every nation with weapons, once the genie is out of the bottle, it is very hard to put back. Are there different treatments and conditions for Israel than for other countries? Nofundy: Take tiamat's statements and replace Israel with Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India, Libya, South Africa, Brazil, etc., it reads the same. ![]() Posted by tiamat at 7:46 AM on May 2, 2006Īrtw: Iran, on the other hand, has recently lost vast swathes of it's population to an attack by a US ally using WMDs provided by the US.ĭo you mean the US's support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war? There is debate over the degree of US support for Iraq, there was certainly intelligence sharing and other sorts of indirect help (like removing Iraq from the list of countries supporting terrorism), but there were no direct transfers of weapons, and certainly no WMDs. If there wasn't a limit on comment length I'd paste in a few good articles on how the NPT has never stopped anyone from proliferating who actually wanted to, but that's another debate as well. It is, after all, not a very safe part of the world to have a country in. In any case, some countries may wish to acquire nuclear weapons for themselves, since there is no denying that having nuclear weapons is a rational goal for any state in a security dilemma.Īll of these possible choices have pros and cons, but respectfully, if I were Israeli I would hope to hell my gov't was doing exactly what the Israeli gov't is doing, develop the bomb in the least aggressive way possible, because by the time you know you need it it's too late. There's little long term viability in this course of action, as insuring that enemies at least suspect you have the weapons is necessary for deterrence to succeed, but it's a lot better than the first two choices. Hostile nations can deny their enemies technological superiority, and are not faced with extreme public pressure to acquire nuclear weapons. Result: Ability to defend Israel (remember, as they see it) is confirmed. Deny testing, and make only very veiled statements as to their existence. Possible course of action: Secretly acquire nuclear weapons. Best case scenario is establishment of a normative MAD regime between two nuclear armed countries, worse case scenario has wide scale proliferation by hostile nations among themselves, leading to a non-normative discourse on the use of nuclear weapons and a possible weapons exchange (nuclear war). Hostile nations with hostile populations cannot deny Israel has the bomb, and are faced with admitting their technology is inferior, or acquiring the bomb themselves, which at least some of them would do. Possible course of action: Openly acquire nuclear weapons, test them, and publish doctrines of use either officially or through statements by senior officials (like the USSR, USA, France and UK do). Possible course of action: Do not acquire or maintain a nuclear arsenal. Posit: The gov't of Israel believes nuclear weapons are necessary for the defense of Israel against invasion. Actually, Israel's nuclear posture of total secrecy is completely consistent with the security dilemma they face, and with the legal structures of the Israeli state and international norms.
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