I Shot the Nonproliferation Regime

Charles Krauthammer says non-proliferation is dead because the multilateral non-proliferation process has failed in Iran and North Korea. One problem with this is that though North Korea is hanging by a thread and we're arguably in the neighborhood of failure in Iran, we haven't quite definitively failed yet. The other problem is that, as Robert Farley points out, the reason we've had problems in Iran and North Korea is that the Bush administration, on the recommendation of the Krauthammers of the world, "decided to reject any and all multilateral efforts at nonproliferation in favor of... well, it's not even clear that what the US tried can be referred to as a coherent strategy."

The logical response isn't to get more invested in the kind of unilateralism and doomed bigs for hegemony that got us into this mess. Rather, everyone needs to first read Heads in the Sand and second return to the kind of internationalism that was working pretty well as non-proliferation policy before Bush came along.

Comments

"doomed bigs for hegemony"

I normally don't bother pointing out Matt's strange homonym selection, but lately we've moved on from homonyms to related, but completely different words. I have a theory: Matt's posting from his iPhone. This is exactly the kind of autocorrect I'm used to--- "could you please send me some pics" becomes "could you please send me some pigs" (hilarity ensues).

Posted by SomeYoungGuy | April 18, 2008 9:40 AM

It failed in South Africa too, then it unfailed.

Posted by Njorl | April 18, 2008 9:40 AM

So when is Matthew going to put up the big KICK ME sign? I.e, open up a thread for comments on HITS?

I'm still reading it --and my free time for the next few days is tied up in the Obama campaign here in PA -- but some day starting with next Thursday (April 26) would be good.

Posted by Don Williams | April 18, 2008 9:51 AM

Wasn't one of the sticking points in regards to North Korea the U.S. insistence on multilteralism, as opposed to bilateralism?

Posted by Will Allen | April 18, 2008 9:51 AM

So when is Matthew going to put up the big KICK ME sign? I.e, open up a thread for comments on HITS?

I'm still reading it --and my free time for the next few days is tied up in the Obama campaign here in PA -- but some day starting with next Thursday (April 26) would be good.

Posted by Don Williams | April 18, 2008 9:52 AM

Given that a targetable atomic weapon is a wonderful force/threat multiplier available at a relatively low cost (as opposed to feeding, clothing, and politically preserving a million man army over many years), it should be hard for any rational country to unilaterally forswear them. OTH it is nuts to have them but only if everyone else is rational.

I think vast proliferation would be great (though a 3-day waiting period at purchase would be a nice touch). Getting everyone up to the same level of lethality somehow takes away some of the threat (but not the sting) of unilateralism.

Posted by mike c | April 18, 2008 9:59 AM

If the government outlaws nukes then only outlaws will have nukes.

Posted by Don Williams | April 18, 2008 10:07 AM

Krauthammer is also the guy who lauded the super-ultra-awesome bestest ever most manly coalition that Bush Sr put together for Gulf War 1, and then shortly afterwards derided it as an annoying "fig leaf" (his words) which got in the way of our even more manly super-ultra-awesomer bestester unilateral completely correct hegemony.

Posted by El Cid | April 18, 2008 10:08 AM

I thought we were just supposed to buy it.

Posted by Alan | April 18, 2008 10:15 AM

return to the kind of internationalism that was working pretty well as non-proliferation policy before Bush came along

Huh? Non-proliferation was crap before Bush came along. North Korea was working on its nuclear weapons behind the faulty Jimmy Carter-negotiated treaty, and Iran was working on its own nuclear weapons program.

Maybe Matthew should have done a little research for HITS to find out exactly what was happening in the world prior to 2001.

Moreover, as Will Allen points out above, the North Korea problem persists precisely because we are insisting on multilateralism, rather than North Korea's preference for strict bilateralism.

Can Matthew make any more substantive mistakes in one post?

Posted by Al | April 18, 2008 10:30 AM

Matt, are you just illiterate, or do you only read things that agree with you? With Iran, we have teamed with the EU. Please explain how an attempt to talk to Iran through the offices of the EU isn't multi-lateral.

With North Korea, we have the 6 power talks, which include Russia and China.

When you try to make a point about supposed unilateralism, try and pick a topic it makes sense for. On this, you just look stupid.

Posted by James Robertson | April 18, 2008 10:55 AM

Bush made the strange policy choice of actually awarding those countries that did not sign previous treaties regarding nuclear weapons, like India, by helping them develop nuclear weapons. This policy of... blatant hypocrisy makes it extremely hard to reproach Iran for developing a nuclear energy program, since the message from the U.S. seems to be - we don't mind any of our friends developing nuclear weapons, and we want to make that the international standard.

It is the usual Bush two step: inability to recognize the legitimacy of any other nation's interests, and consequently supplanting that interest with what is of narrow interest to a small, entrenched group of conservatives in D.C. It makes U.S. foreign policy both parochial and absurd - for nobody listening in Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Indonesia, etc., etc. will have any doubt about both the malignity and hypocrisy of U.S. pronouncements about any issue of international concern. The right is just as pleased as punch about the erosion of U.S. stature, since the right has adopted a curiously pathological sadism about the rest of the world - they want them to hurt. It is the sort of foreign policy one imagines the Confederate states would have adopted, if they had survived the Civil War.

Posted by roger | April 18, 2008 11:14 AM

Yeah, before that idiot Bush came along, nonproliferation was working so well that states teetering on the edge of theocratic despotism, like Pakistan, would never have been able to obtain a nuclear devi...what?.....oh....

.....never mind....

Posted by Will Allen | April 18, 2008 11:28 AM

the Bush administration, on the recommendation of the Krauthammers of the world, "decided to reject any and all multilateral efforts at nonproliferation in favor of... well, it's not even clear that what the US tried can be referred to as a coherent strategy."

Let's not forget that John Bolton was busily killing multilateral bio, chem and small arms treaties in the early years of BushCo misrule.

I bet that Krapphammer thought that was totally cool.

Non-proliferation was crap before Bush came along.

Uh huh. Because scuttling non-proliferation treaties for fear that the US might be subjected to the same terms as the rest of the world is somehow not crap. You fucktard.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 18, 2008 11:29 AM

Yeah, before that idiot Bush came along, nonproliferation was working so well that states teetering on the edge of theocratic despotism, like Pakistan, would never have been able to obtain a nuclear devi...what?.....oh....

.....never mind....

And some people die from measles so immunization programs are stupid. We're all going to die anyway, so any cautionary acts are foolish. Etc. Etc.

Send me all your money, now, because, after all, you're eventually going to die. Put your indifference to consequences where your pocketbook is, chum.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 18, 2008 11:40 AM

One problem with this is that though North Korea is hanging by a thread and we're arguably in the neighborhood of failure in Iran, we haven't quite definitively failed yet.

Matt you don't say this forcefully enough. Firstly Iran is not as far as we know breeching any of its NPT obligations. The only way that non-proliferation can work is if the nuclear powers refrain from menacing the non-nuclear powers. The power that represents a mortal threat to the non-proliferation framework is the neocon-led US (so that they can use non-proliferation as a pretext for building a nuclear hegemomny). It is entirely inkeeping that they should declare the non-proliferation regime dead: they have been working tirelessly to kill it since seizing power.

Posted by Chris Dornan | April 18, 2008 12:52 PM

this blog demonstrates some weird inconsistencies particularly WRT haves vs have-nots. On the one hand there is a consistent redistributionalist pitch for universal health care and more taxes "for more generous services" (my new personal favorite) followed incoherently by non-proliferation dogma ("we can have 'em but not you" precedence elitism).

Why shouldn't North Korea have the means to defend itself? If they can develop or buy it, why not? The nuclear cow has left the barn. What moral authority do we have to the deprive a nation its right to arm itself? I don't think I'm a fool -- clearly there are idiots with their fingers on the "button" (we elected one twice and there is one in North Korea) but let's not cover this debate in false morality.

To discuss non-proliferation means one power can create a loser of another -- it is purely a power play (see the power to tax - disadvantage - is the power to destroy).

If you don't want North Korea to have nukes, convince them it isn't in their best interests to have 'em (followed by "mission accomplished"). Bilateralism/multilateralism is just a smokescreen for what needs to be done.

Posted by mike c | April 18, 2008 1:04 PM

Jeffrey, chum, you have the same problem with the language that is often displayed in this forum. I was merely referring to the falsehood that anything was working "pretty well" before the Bush Administration arrived, unless one means to say that a politically unstable country with a powerful Islamic extremist movement obtaining a nuclear device, to the complete surprise of the U.S., and the unstable country's chief nuclear scientist starting a black market in the technology, is an example of something working "pretty well".

Posted by Will Allen | April 18, 2008 1:28 PM

i'm currently reading "daydream believers" by fred kaplan and chapter two shows how bush's decision to bluster at north korea rather than try and continue diplomacy led directly to
north korea going nuclear while the administration did nothing to stop it.

by the way, al and james robinson are wrong as usual.

Posted by dj spellchecka | April 18, 2008 1:43 PM

So, Will, deah, you didn't use that as an example to ridicule the efficacy of non-proliferation? And you actually endorse non-proliferation? Or have I gone as awry in interpreting your clarification as I did in your original remark?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 18, 2008 1:44 PM

Jeffrey, I oppose describing things as going pretty well, when they in fact did not go pretty well.

Posted by Will Allen | April 18, 2008 2:10 PM

Your Honor, will you instruct the witness that his answer was non-responsive?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 18, 2008 2:14 PM

Your honor, will you instruct the delusional person that he isn't in a courtroom, and that if he wants to know what the point was, I just told him?

Posted by Will Allen | April 18, 2008 2:17 PM

So, the point is that you're not going to be sending me any money.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 18, 2008 3:01 PM

Re Don Williams

"I'm still reading it --and my free time for the next few days is tied up in the Obama campaign here in PA "

What better reason could there be for not voting for Senator Obama then his support by Mr. Don Williams, this boards' favorite peckerwood.

Posted by SLC | April 18, 2008 3:05 PM

How am I wrong? We have been pursuing a multi-lateral strategy with both Iran and N.K. We would likely be in the exact same position with both countries had Gore or Kerry been elected, since neither is being pressured in a way that makes an impact (which is not to say that such pressure would work either - with those two states, it's very hard to say).

If Matt - or anyone here - has some brilliant policy prescription for these cases, I'd love to hear it. Matt's amounts to "I'm going to lie through my teeth because I hate Bush. Never mind those ugly facts that refute my point"

Posted by James Robertson | April 18, 2008 4:13 PM

HEY EVERYONE!

I hear that you can get books for FREE at your local LIBRARY! Check it out!

Posted by converse | April 18, 2008 5:42 PM

Neocons on nonproliferation. "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas."

Posted by Kyle | April 18, 2008 8:29 PM

Neocons on nonproliferation. "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas."

Posted by Kyle | April 18, 2008 8:33 PM

Kyle - the current policy vis-a-vis North Korea and Iran is exactly the kind that Matt says he favors - multilateral with numerous countries (in the case of N.K., including Russia and China).

What really pisses Matt off - and what causes him to issue fact free rants like this post - is that his preferred policy has failed just as badly as any other approach that didn't involve force.

Force isn't an answer either, unless we want a war across the middle east (Iran) or the leveling of Seoul (N.K.). Basically, there are no good answers.

Posted by James Robertson | April 18, 2008 10:14 PM

Matt, when the fuck are you going to get your head out of your ass?

IRAN DOES NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM.

What part of that don't you get, Matt?

How many times have I asked him for answers to two simple, straightforward, yes-or-no questions?

And he sits there and babbles this inane nonsense about how we're "failing at nonproliferation in Iran".

Get your head out of your ass, Matt. Or so help me, I will see to it that when Bush starts the Iran war, YOUR ass will be touted as a supporter of it whether you say any more about it or not.

You WILL get the same goddamn rep you have about Iraq - namely you were totally fucking WRONG because you were CLUELESS - over Iran if you can't answer those two questions. I will tag you DAILY, like Petey, proclaiming you to be an Iran war supporter from day one.

If you had the nerve to answer my two questions as "yes" and "yes", it would at least show some balls, if no brains.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 19, 2008 3:57 AM

"Matt, when the fuck are you going to get your head out of your ass?

IRAN DOES NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM."

What part of that don't you get, Matt?"

What part don't you get, Hack? Iran has a program to enrich uranium (which it doesn't need for a peaceful nuclear energy program, because other countries have offered to provide it with fuel for nuclear power plants). Iran also has a ballistic missile program. Iran has also threatened to wipe a certain other country in the region off of the map. Can you connect these dots yet, or do you need to wait until nanotechnology gives you the necessary transhuman brainpower?

Posted by Fred | April 19, 2008 4:13 AM

Part of what failed in North Korea was our failure to live up to our commitments set out in the 1994 framework (such as good shipments that we eventually stopped). Our sabre-rattling and hyping of cherry-picked intelligence that NK was building nukes (which it turns out was an unpopular idea at the CIA and the CIA turned out to be right) led to NK to re-start its nuclear weapons program again. According to the CIA, Iran is currently just pursuing a civilian nuclear energy program. They are probably trying to get to the Japan stage where they could go nuclear if they want rather quickly (which will be much harder with the sanctions and Iran's technological inferiority) as a deterrent.

The problem with things like the NPT was that the gap between civilian and military nuclear research doesn't really exist because one can eventually lead to the other (which is how India got its nukes). I personally think a framework for controlled proliferation (allowing countries like Israel that are democracies with enemies in the neighborhood to build nukes under certain safeguards and international watch) that is rather transparent while keeping areas like Latin America and Africa nuclear-free and not having any more European countries go nuclear is ideal and having the current nuclear states moving towards reducing their stockpiles now and eventual disarmament in the far future. This is just one possibility.

However, the Bush administration's ad hoc approach is simply not going to work in the long run and hasn't worked in the short run. For instance, although there was an element of multilateralism to the NK talks, many of the involved parties found them rather silly. After all, NK's problems and desire for nukes didn't have that much to do with Russia. The set-up seemed to be a distraction from the administration's failures in NK and using the likes of Russia to hide behind how we fucked up. Russia and Japan, for instance, are not likely to invade NK anytime soon and aren't the reason NK wants nukes, so they couldn't really do anything to persuade NK to give up or freeze its nuclear program.

Posted by Reality Man | April 19, 2008 4:19 AM

"Iran has also threatened to wipe a certain other country in the region off of the map. Can you connect these dots yet, or do you need to wait until nanotechnology gives you the necessary transhuman brainpower?

Posted by Fred | April 19, 2008 4:13 AM"

"Iran" didn't threaten to wipe Israel off the map. The figurehead president of Iran who has no control of military strategy and has been forced out of having any connection to nuclear research may or may not have said something akin to this (it depends on which translation you trust). You have had it pointed out to you that the mullahs, which does not include A-jad, control the military. A-jad was elected as the anti-mullah candidate. His responsibilities lie more in determining whether or not women can attend soccer games. Similarly, while A-jad is a Holocaust denier, in response the mullahs allowed state TV to film and air a documentary on the Holocaust that talked about how horrible it was and how any good person should sympathize with its Jewish victims. The people who would have their finger on the button in Iran if Iran ever goes nuclear absolutely hate the guy who may or may not have talked about wiping Israel off the map.

Posted by Reality Man | April 19, 2008 4:30 AM

Reality Man,

I am familiar with the nature of the political system in Iran, probably more familiar than you. Just because Iran's president (who isn't a "figurehead") doesn't control its armed forces doesn't mean that he doesn't speak for the Supreme Leader, who does. In fact, that would be the most plausible assumption, considering the influence that the Supreme Leader has in deciding who gets to run for president (via the Council of Guardians, half of whom are appointed by the Supreme Leader). To use an analogy that might help you grasp this, imagine if an American Secretary of State gave speeches about wiping Iran off of the map. Even though the Secretary of State has no power to carry out this threat, Iranians would have good reason to be nervous, because their plausible assumption would be that the Secretary of State is speaking on behalf of the President, who does have that power.

Posted by Fred | April 19, 2008 5:08 AM

"I am familiar with the nature of the political system in Iran, probably more familiar than you. Just because Iran's president (who isn't a "figurehead") doesn't control its armed forces doesn't mean that he doesn't speak for the Supreme Leader, who does. In fact, that would be the most plausible assumption, considering the influence that the Supreme Leader has in deciding who gets to run for president (via the Council of Guardians, half of whom are appointed by the Supreme Leader). To use an analogy that might help you grasp this, imagine if an American Secretary of State gave speeches about wiping Iran off of the map. Even though the Secretary of State has no power to carry out this threat, Iranians would have good reason to be nervous, because their plausible assumption would be that the Secretary of State is speaking on behalf of the President, who does have that power.

Posted by Fred | April 19, 2008 5:08 AM"

While the Supreme Leader does have to give official approval to anyone allowed to run, pragmatism and saving face requires someone who is not exactly his best buddy in the world but still supports the regime to be allowed to run. Iran may not be a liberal democracy, but it's not the USSR either where there was only one person on the ballot. A-jad won on an anti-mullah slogan about putting Iran's oil wealth on the dinner table of the average Iranian, which was a direct attack on the mullahs for having failed to do so and instead have enriched themselves. Since Iran isn't a totalitarian regime like Stalinist Russia, Maoist China or North Korea, there are competing centers of power that all have to have their backs scratched in order for things to function. Such considerations play into who is allowed to run for president. It's also been pretty clear that the mullahs and A-jad hate each other and have been rather publicly squabbling. The mullahs were embarrassed by the Holocaust denial conference, which is why they had that Holocaust documentary made. On these bases, your analogy falls apart. The Iranian government as a whole isn't analogous to the executive branch of the US government. A-jad's power is somewhat below that relatively of the Speaker of the House because the Speaker still has a lot of control over military appropriations bills, while A-jad has no control over military strategy.

Posted by Reality Man | April 19, 2008 10:10 AM