Four-Eight-Four [dot org]

Quite predictably, most of the United States is currently in an uproar over North Korea’s maybe-it-was-a-success-or-maybe-not nuclear weapon test a few days ago. Newsweek has a story about “[t]he weird and scary saga of how an isolated, bankrupt nation went nuclear—and how the United States failed to stop it.” CNN reports that the UN has sent a “clear, strong” message to North Korea by voting to enact sanctions (given the UN’s history, the “clear, strong” message is probably something like “Stop! Or we’ll say stop again!”). MSNBC is a little more realistic in reporting that the sanctions will probably be pretty difficult to enforce.

By the way, the Newsweek article is a good read, even if I don’t agree with all the conclusions.
Now, let’s get a few things straight here:

1. North Korea is not anywhere my list of “Top 150 Nations I’d Like To See With Nuclear Weapons.”
2. The UN, being the useless, anemic waste of effort that it is, is not going to solve this problem.
3. The United States didn’t “fail to stop” North Korea from getting to this point.
4. It’s not the responsibility of the UN or the US to tell country X “you can’t have that”, as much as we’d like for it to be.
5. Matter of fact, nobody is probably going to come up with a way to separate North Korea from its nuclear weapons, shy of a all-out invasion.
6. The nuclear cat is out of the proverbial bag.

Nuclear weapons are nasty, nasty things … but then again, most weapons are hardly something you’d consider to be nice. Weapons are intended to kill people, and we can’t overlook that crucial fact. Given that, while the policy of trying to prevent other countries from obtaining or manufacturing nuclear weapons is flawed, and will ultimately fail, though the intention is admirable.

Think about it … would the US (or any other country or group of countries) have been able to prevent the spread of the technology necessary to produce military aircraft, or even jet-powered military aircraft? What about ironclads and armored naval ships? Missiles? Bombs? Cannons? Machine guns?

Heck no. Each of those concepts mentioned above represented a quantum leap, so to speak, in military technology, and made it possible to kill more people faster … and initially gave a significant advantage to the countries who had the technology. Eventually, though, everybody (in a general sense) got that technology, and the playing field became a bit more level. It will be the same with nuclear weapons. The idea that we can enforce peace by restricting new military technology to the US and a few other world powers is stupid, stupid, stupid. It will not will not work.

It wouldn’t have worked in the late 1940s with jet aircraft, and it certainly isn’t going to work in the internet age.

Make no mistake … as I said earlier, the nuclear cat is out of the proverbial bag. The playing field is being leveled as we speak.

The fact of the matter was, when Pakistan conducted successful nuclear tests in 1998, the cat was out of the bag. Now that North Korea appears to have done the same (and if they haven’t, then they are most certainly close), along with Iran’s continued pursuit of the same goal demonstrates that the cat isn’t just out of the bag, he’s exited the building.

It is time to switch strategies. We’re not going to deter North Korea with sanctions. Even if we bomb the living daylights out of everything contained within its miserable borders, the knowledge will escape and head somewhere else. Even if country X doesn’t get the technology from North Korea or Iran, it will come from somewhere. The knowledge is out there.

It is time to recognize that we live in a world where the risk of having nuclear weapons of some variety being used against us is getting higher every day, and take that knowledge and begin to plan how we will deal with it. We need to take measures to mitigate the threat. It’s a scary thought, and a scary world, but hiding from the truth will do nothing to change it. We must face it, and keep on living.

Long-range jet aircraft capable of delivering bombs long distances made the world a scarier place. So did long-range ballistic missiles. But, we lived on. It’s not a lot of fun to think that Kim Jong Il could pass on some sort of nuclear device to terrorists, who might detonate it in Chicago or Atlanta. It’s a far-fetched idea, but it could happen. But one way or the other, we will continue to live.

Read More:

• Newsweek: ‘We Are a Nuclear Power’ (Be sure to check out the slideshow. Just not in Safari … it won’t work very well.)
• CNN: U.N. slaps trade, travel sanctions on North Korea (Um, just who travels to N. Korea, anyway?)
• MSNBC: Enforcement of U.N. sanctions could be difficult (Thank you for chiming in, Mr. Obvious …)