speech bit

[Occhidiangela]

;)

"You may get what you seek: another nuclear arms race."

Perhaps I missed the part where you need more nuclear weapons once you have enough, making generous allowance for duds and whatnot, to blow the world to rubble several times over.

Note I said "may." That possibility is based on some of the factors of the last nuclear arms race, and my belief that Santayana is being ignored by all and sundry.

Yes, to answer your question, you completely missed the point, but I can't fault you for not understanding what I have had a lifelong interest in. The "Silver Bullet" crowd who seek ever increasing "efficiency" and "cost effectiveness" in the age of the War of Machines, which we are still in, all Information War innovations considered, saved a lot of force structure in the 1950's and 1960's by using nuclear weapons, particularly tactical nuclear weapons, as a "force multiplier." If the Silver Bullet crowd continue to use cost metrics as the driver in creating a "leaner" security apparatus, which I smell in light of the move afoot now to make "small yield nuclear bunker buster bombs" after some hundreds and millions in RND are spent (NO!, blast it, NO! but another time for that topic) then the cost per bullet foolishness of fifty years ago risks being repeated.

What, exactly or generally, do you need to race for? You've already got anything that could ever be useful, even if your goal is to saturate your opponent with gigatons of explosive power. Increasing the crater depth isn't a very useful goal. Is there some risk of losing your global apocalypse capability? Is the nuclear stockpile somehow in danger by not funding whatever nutty scheme the NeoCons are cooking up this week? Did MAD cease to exist as a concept at the same time it ceased to be a reality? Any nuclear power who arose to challenge the US would face exactly the same dagger-at-each-other's-throats scenario that existed with the Soviets, yes? And, even if they were crazy enough to trade, is there some level of defense spending that protects you from nuclear annhilation?

You don't need a race, you end up in one. Ask Kaiser Wilhelm, turn of the century, about an arms race in re the German High Seas Fleet. You are confusing Mutually Assured Destruction(MAD, and well named), the intercontinental missiles and bombers, with tactical nukes -- which can of course lead to escalation to MAD if used, under the rubric of "Hey, he used it first!"

Now, what *would* start another race (albeit not a nuclear arms race) is some defense against nuclear weaponry. But that seems unlikely for the time being. Delivery vehicles might change, but there isn't much that's going to stop several megatons of force that I can think of.

your cause and effect relationship is based on a defunct model. You seem to be in the dark on the details. The arms race, be it nuclear or conventional, to make it faster, funnier, lighter, more lethal, cheaper, what have you, is still going on. It started about the day someone first developed a bow and arrow and used it against another human.

Why are we still in it? Besides the natural human drive to "build a better mousetrap" (see the French invention of the millitreuse (Gatling Gun,) war is still with us. War is not still with us due to weapons, weapons are still with us thanks to humans conducting war. Read the news from Sudan, India, and the Caucusus please.

Your assertion that creating missile defense would create another arms race is based on a false premise.

Since the bilateral relationship that allowed the MAD posture to allow the ABM limitations to make some sense is gone, your cause and effect relationship is skewed. Nuclear weapons exist. Relatively easy to make and launch Ballistic Missiles exist. There is no longer a bilateral structure that allows both sides to risk losing the same thing, the situation the US and USSR were in. Absent that sort of grudging understanding, the need to defend against nuclear weapons is very real if you don't want to be liable to nuclear blackmail or significant destruction. THAT is why the missile defense scheme is being pursued. (Not cheap, NO!)Japan feels better if their Aegis cruisers, and ours, can knock down North Korean missiles, if they are launched.

In case you forgot, about 20 months ago, President Bush and Putin signed the accord that will see both powers reduce their nuke arsenals by 70 percent over the next 10 years. Were you "no blood for oil" to loudly to notice? :o

Jester, you do not appear to understand the essentials of the multi-polar relationships that drive these decisions. Or, were going for a short reply.

Being a pacifist is alright, go for it. Please don't add to that principled stance an ignorance of how power is manipulated, and how threat is used and will continue to be used in geopolitics. Geopolitics is played by jungle rules. The UN is a nice facade over a very dirty and below the belt game.

It aint pretty, I'll grant you, but it is very real.

Occhi