My point is that the best way to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons is not to create more intrusive methods to stop them but to end our interventionist foreign policy. That’s what’s driving the paranoia of a lot of these countries to pursue nuclear weapons. Having a nuke is simply a way for them to limit foreign involvement in their internal affairs because it’s the ultimate in home defense. And frankly, it’s hypocritical to demand that other nations of the world adhere to a standard that we ourselves aren’t willing to adhere to and that they have no ability to hold us to (not that we’d want them to). Let them have their nukes…they’re not going to be a threat to attack us with them so long as we aren’t backing them into a corner by interfering with their internal affairs.

I’m not arguing in favor of retaining the NPT — at this point, I think we should acknowledge its failure under our breath and try to keep it useful long enough to slow down Iran

Ok, but if we do it under our breath, what do we do about our leader who thinks we still want to enforce it militarily?

and give us some breathing space to put together a new regime.

Please tell me you’re referring to Iraq or USA.

Of course, right now it’s almost impossible to put together a decent sanctions regime. I think that the threat of nuclear attack will concentrate minds and permit the establishment of a truly effective system for applying economic sanctions, with well-defined degrees of sanctions and standard legal systems for implementation. Right now, it’s a mess, but I think that we can develop such systems to work much more smoothly.

BTW, Jeff, I’m not arguing in favor of retaining the NPT — at this point, I think we should acknowledge its failure under our breath and try to keep it useful long enough to slow down Iran, and give us some breathing space to put together a new regime.

Lastly, why do you think that prevention would be expensive? Are you assuming really, really expensive ink for signing the treaty? ;-)

Yes, I hear they’re leaning towards HP.

Seriously though, your hypothetical treaty wouldn’t be expensive, but it probably wouldn’t be effective either. It lacks the necessary incentives or disincentives to persuade a country that would otherwise pursue a nuke.

The fangs necessary to truly prevent proliferation are unavoidably expensive.

Moreover, I think you’re mistaken about the difficulty of handling nuclear weapons. Once the thing is built, it’s just like any other bomb. You use a forklift to move it around (although you have to be gentler because the triggers are fragile.) But the exposure you get standing next to one of these bombs isn’t so great as to constitute a serious threat.

Lastly, why do you think that prevention would be expensive? Are you assuming really, really expensive ink for signing the treaty? ;-)

As for your “crime against humanity” plan, the international judicial system is too much of a sick, ineffectual joke for that to happen. Why do you think George W. Bush is still walking around free despite the fact that he provoked a war with and invaded a country that didn’t attack us? Because the countries who are powerful enough to do something like drop a nuclear bomb are way too powerful to spend a minute worrying about whether or not the U.N. is going to be invading their country and sticking their leaders in front of a kangaroo court like the ICC. A country’s ownership of nuclear weapons negates the ability of the rest of the world to dictate terms to that country.

I understand what you’re trying to say, but your proposal is absolutely unenforceable under any realistic circumstance.

Didn’t happen in Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed and they had a lot more nukes to be accountable for than Iran could realistically develop. If Iran’s government experienced a total anarchic breakdown there’s nothing to prevent us, or the Russians, or Europe monitoring the situation or stepping in…in fact, the Iranian government would probably request it because they don’t want the weapons falling into the hands of people who are hostile to their interests (like al-Qaeda). And the fact of the matter is, despite all the scaremongering, nuclear weapons are the most inconvenient things in the world to move without being noticed and it’s impossible to do so without extensive expertise. It’s not like a terrorist can just run into a nuclear facility, grab some fuel rods or go into a missile silo and unscrew a warhead and run back out without anyone noticing or without following some containment protocols or having some expertise in what they’re doing. They’d get themselves killed in the process.

Also governments that possess these weapons take the utmost precautions in securing them, mainly because they understand the damage nuclear weapons can cause and just how destructive they can be to their own interest if proper respect isn’t paid. Countries who have developed the capability to build nuclear arms aren’t frivolous about their usage…they realize exactly how much responsibility it entails. That’s also why countries run by irrational or incompetent leaders like the Taliban don’t develop nuclear weapons, because they don’t understand the realities of how difficult it is to possess nuclear arms, they rarely have the discipline and focus necessary to obtain them, and their countries rarely have the economic resources necessary to pull it off. Why do you think Qaddafi and Kim Jong-il gave up their nuclear programs, despite getting all the necessary technical information from Pakistan? It wasn’t because they were scared of the United States or they wanted us to like them, it was because they lacked the resources or the ability to go any further with their programs. Their nuclear programs were simply more of a burden than they were worth. Frankly, I think Iran’s going to end up discovering the same thing if we just back off and let them run with their program. They’re only pursuing it now because they see us a threat to them and because we’re perched on their borders…not because they want to commit suicide by having a nuclear war with the West.

And Jeff’s right…prevention would likely be even more expensive than even the worst of worst case scenarios involving Iranian nukes.

This half-baked idea I came up with would have a stronger incentive: if you sign the deal and a weapon goes off in your territory, then it’s a crime against humanity. If you refuse to sign the deal and a weapon goes off in your territory, it’s a damn shame — nothing more. How’s that for incentive?

So, if you agree that interventionism is counter-productive, you might as well drop the pretense and put all your efforts into defense and containment.

My concern is that such an attack could do up to a trillion dollars worth of damage. That’s a lot of money to go up in smoke. We’d really like to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

Check the ledger. It looks to me like our prevention efforts are likely to cost even more.

UCrawford, I agree that it’s unlikely that Iran would give Hamas a nuke, but in an open nuclear world, there are just too many possible leaks. What if there’s a revolution in Iran? During the chaos, might not somebody be able to steal a nuke? What if there’s a small-group conspiracy within the government that permits a group to steal a weapon? As I say, there are just too many possible leaks to allow us to rest easy in an open nuclear world.

On shipping a weapon undetected: this is not really very difficult. The case you invoke had polonium powder being used without containment protocols. That’s like spraying the stuff all over the place. A weapon is entirely different: it doesn’t spill anything. The giveaway is the radiation profile. Bombs emit lots of stuff, including neutrons and gamma rays, which penetrate most shielding and hence are detectable at a distance of up to 100 meters (depending heavily on the amount of fissile material, the shielding around it, and the sensitivity of the detectors.)Nevertheless, a good sized bomb could easily fit onto the back of a pickup truck, and if you shielded it carefully you could probably sneak it into the country. They’re busily installing radiation detectors at all the ports and customs installations, but I’m dubious that they can get a good seal.

I’d rank the odds of Hamas getting a nuke from Iran somewhere between infinitesimal and none. If they did it or even tried it, actually, it would be impossible to smuggle a nuclear warhead undetected (since that would mean skimping on containment protocols) without leaving evidence after the fact. People who think this is possible are buying into a movie myth. Just look at what happened with the ex-KGB guy who got assassinated in London…the British authorities and Interpol immediately tracked the polonium trail right back to Russia. The Israelis would know exactly where it came from and they’d hit Iran with their nukes in addition to attacks from their conventional forces. The move would certainly turn world opinion against Iran. Europe would likely get involved, since it’s their neighborhood, as would the Sunni states (who have no love for Iran). It would spell the end of the Iranian regime, and their leadership has given no indication that they’re either stupid or suicidal enough to ignore that reality.

The NPT is crumbling because it was always destined to fail. It was designed to keep a nuclear monopoly only among the superpowers and to deprive smaller countries of the ability to resist. It’s failing because the rest of the world finally caught up to the U.S., as is their right. As Akston pointed out, the nuclear cat’s out of the bag and we can either continue to live in denial about it and create a whole list of enemies when we try to impose our will to futilely stop them from developing nuclear power, or we can accept it, deal with them as relative equals (as we should have done all along) and accept that the rest of the world is no longer incapable of defending itself whenever they do things that we dislike or that are inconvenient for us.

As Heinlein said, “An armed society is a polite society”. That concept works for the rest of the world the same as it does for us.