Frence Makeing sence.....What?!?!

[Spriggan]

Could it be...France comming around and actualy makeing sence for once....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,62477,00.html

[Lord_of_Me]

it doesn't surprise me that france supports military action, they're just repressed bullies

[Entropy in Exile]

har har har. have a look at this.

The old order endeth

William Safire gets it. The loud squeaks emanating from France and Germany are likely to be the final straw for the Atlantic alliance. Safire writes particularly about Schroder:


What this final victory [actually not a victory, because the Mail on Sunday stood up to his bullying -- ISM] shows is that Schröder — with all his illusory conquests, triumphs, glories, spoils — does not share the free-speech values of the West. Though cannily manipulative, he lacks a sense of the absurd, which is why his war on the press is making him "der Gegenstand des Gelächters" — the laughingstock.

But his political switching and diplomatic maneuvering are no laughing matter. The German design is apparently to saw off the Atlantic part of the Atlantic Alliance, separating Britain and the U.S. from a federal Europe dominated by Germany and France (with France destined to become the junior partner).

No wonder the British press catches a whiff of the old Berlin imperiousness. No wonder the idle French threat to veto a resolution — which Chirac knows will not be offered — reminds populous and powerful nations like India and Japan of the inequity of mid-sized France having the veto power, and of the need to prevent Germany from getting it.

France is not aiming its barbs purely at America, though. She too recognizes the Anglosphere, and is basically playing the Great Game again, trying to make the various despots of Africa her clients. Witness this invitation to Robert Mugabe despite British protests:


Mr Mugabe is currently banned from entering the European Union because of doubts about the legitimacy of his re-election last year.

But French President Jacques Chirac was convinced that the Zimbabwean leader's presence at the summit would help promote justice, human rights and democracy in his country, foreign ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau told journalists.

The real reason is stated later in the report:


Correspondents say that France sees itself as Africa's best friend on the international stage. It recently extended a $3m grant to help some eight million people in need of food aid in Zimbabwe.

As relations between the UK and Zimbabwe have deteriorated, France has been moving closer to Mr Mugabe's government.

Mr Rivasseau said France understand the "emotion and indignation" of the British over the visit, but said that no sanctions would be broken.

Tony Blair is coming close to the moment when he will have to choose between Europe and the Anglosphere. I find it exemplary of continental arrogance that they are forcing this issue, which will almost certainly leave them poorer and weaker.

Posted 9:26 AM by Iain Murray

i say we let em stew in their own juices.
this comes, incidentially, from The Edge of Englands Sword

[Nicadymus]

Agreed!!

[House of Mustard]

As long as Spriggan has brought up the old question of possible invasion of Iraq, I thought you might find this little tidbit interesting:

There are several international relations scholars lately who have been saying that the best method for ensuring peace is through extensive, if not universal, nuclear proliferation.

The major proponent of this idea, John Mearsheimer, takes a lot of his ideas from another structural realist, John Gaddis.  Gaddis' main thesis is that the Cold War should be more accurately defined as the "Long Peace."  Looking at the last several centuries, there has never been a more peaceful time in Europe than the fifty or so years of the Cold War.

Anyway, Mearsheimer believes that, among other reasons, one driving force behind this peace was the concept of mutually assured destruction.  Both the U.S. and the USSR were involved in conflicts, but never directly against each other because the threat of nuclear war was too high.

Therefore, Mearsheimer says, we should carefully proliferate nukes to everybody, because then, while conflict will still occur, large scale war will ultimately stop since no one wants to run the risk of getting nuked.

For a real life example, look at India and Pakistan.  They hate each other and have been at war forever, but, since they both aquired nuclear weapons a decade ago, large scale military action has stopped.  They still don't get along, but their not at war.

So, maybe the answer isn't to make sure Iraq doesn't have nukes, but to make sure that it's neighbors do.

That ought to tick a few people off.

[Prometheus]

It didn't tick me off, but I consider the idea a pure form of idiocy. The Cold War was based off the idea of mutual destruction, but the players who possessed the weapons weren't specifically raving lunatics. Extensive proliferation would give weapons of mass destruction into the hands of the madmen we all know are out there, and their usage would surely follow. Even if you aren't willing to call them madmen, many would be given toward using those weapons at the expense of their own country or a neighboring region, and it wouldn't take much for a fanatic to start a nuclear war in such an environment. We aren't even taking care of the weapons we have properly...I don't know what possesses the 'intellectuals' you mentioned to think that extensively proliferated nukes would be sufficiently secure from abuse.

Besides, the Cold War was in no way a 'Long Peace'. War and death between the US-led and USSR-led factions was common and rampant during those years. The only peaceful parts of the world were the developed nations. Sometimes. Both the US and USSR fought costly wars against factions supported by the opposing regime. Nor does peace exist between Pakistan and India. They haven't annihliated each other yet with their biggest guns, but people still die in their conflict.

[Nicadymus]

Speaking from a military perspective I would have to agree with Prometheus on this one.  There are several countries in this world that I know would abuse the weapons were they provided with them.  I could not bring myself to trust the fate of the world into the hands of such people as Saddam.

I guess this is as good a time as any to break the news.  I will have to be leaving the forum for about five months, starting Feb. 11, due to such incidents as those we are discussing.  I am headed in for training with the National Guard and will not have access to a computer for recreational purposes during that time period.  It has been great getting to know all of you, and I will try to keep in touch as best as I can.  My training is scheduled to be over in July, and I will try to catch up with everything then.  Thanks for all the fun times.

[Entropy in Exile]

give em hell mate. not anybody in particular, just somebody  

[House of Mustard]

Prometheus -
The reason that the Cold War was called the "Long Peace" is because, while there was conflict, there was no war between superpowers.  The fear of nuclear war led to the total avoidance of direct conflict.  We knew that the Soviets were aiding our enemies in Vietnam (both directly through sale of weapons and indirectly through support of China) but we never called them on it.  Because of the fear of nuclear war, we never wanted to get into an all out fight.  Likewise, the USSR knew we were supporting the mujahadeen (or however you spell that) in Afghanistan, but they never called us on it.  True, the presence of nuclear weapons was not the end of conflict, but it was the end of direct, superpower conflict.  Once again, I point you toward Europe in the 20th century.

To paraphrase Mearsheimer, after World War One, everybody got together, insisting that this must never happen again, and laid down several international rules and laws which led to another extremely devastaing war twenty years later.  After that war, everybody got together and insisted that it must never happen again, except this time they all quarrelled and didn't make any ground rules.  Instead, the world became a bipolarity of intense enemies and Europe existed in unprecedented peace for fifty years.  It was only after the fall of the USSR that Europe (Bosnia, Kosovo, etc...) started fighting again.

As far as the idea that a wacky leader would just hate everybody enough to start nuclear war, I think that is far fetched.  Saddam, the wackiest leader out there right now, is not a gun toting idealogue.  He is a power hungry ideologue.  It is inconcievable that he would nuke somebody, knowing that he would get nuked right back.  He wants to control territory, not get himself killed.

And look at India and Pakistan.  They still shoot each other in Kashmir, but they've stopped invading each other.  Conflict continues, but it is not as extreme.

Nicadymus--
Congratulations!  Although I'm a theory loving Political Science fanatic who likes to argue, deep down I totally support the United States military.  I don't think there are many better things a person could do than join, whether actively or reserve.  Good luck!

[Saint Ehlers]

I should probably try to remember my account username/pass before I start posting (I've never been a big one) but I'm too lazy, so I'll just dive in. But I'll preface this by saying by current standards of support for Bush and war in Iraq, I'm a peace-nik hippy boy.

Soviet indirect support for Vietnam through China. I'd like to see sources on that. My understanding is that the Soviet Union never got along well with PRC. Especially at that stage. But that's just a side note.

As far as the idea that a wacky leader would just hate everybody enough to start nuclear war, I think that is far fetched.  Saddam, the wackiest leader out there right now, is not a gun toting idealogue.  He is a power hungry ideologue.  It is inconcievable that he would nuke somebody, knowing that he would get nuked right back.  He wants to control territory, not get himself killed.

I don't think Hussein is interested in first strike Nuke (or chemical weapons or whatever) either. However, this doesn't mean it's a good idea for him to have them. For one, he's a genocidal maniac. For another, he supports terrorism, and I don't think he's beyond loaning out a WMD. For a third, we're almost definitely going to attack Iraq first. I don't think he's so sane that he won't lauch a WMD once he sees that he's not going to have any power at all ("If I can't have her NO ONE WILL!" sort of thing).

And look at India and Pakistan.  They still shoot each other in Kashmir, but they've stopped invading each other.  Conflict continues, but it is not as extreme.

I also don't condone the idea of nuclear proliferation. I'd be interested in seeing numbers of war-related deaths since the advent of the big bomb. But mostly, as has been said, we've got way too many governments and leaders willing to abuse nukes and use them as bargaining chips.

When you say "not as extreme," I'll concur that it's not as evident as full scale continental invasion. But it is more drawn out, and many, many people still suffer. To support a premise that the repetitious and continuous small conflict is less (or, for that matter is more) deadly than the occasional major war, you're going to have to show me numbers for world wide deaths from conflict (including the poverty and incidental damage from such conflicts). Keep in mind that during the Cold War there were no full multi-national long-term conflicts, there were still dozens and dozens of rebellions, "peace keeping" actions, and other violent conflicts AT ANY GIVEN TIME between the 1940s and late 80s. Many of them directly related to the two superpowers. I don't have those numbers on hand, so I can't say which resulted in the loss of more human life, but I don't think the difference is sufficient to justify the hate, fear, and shear potential disaster that results from so many WMDs floating around.

It seems to me that the approach of mass proliferation in order to avoid a few wars is akin to sticking your finger in the hole in the dyke. Eventually, it's going to fall apart on you.

[House of Mustard]

("If I can't have her NO ONE WILL!" sort of thing).

I would challenge anyone to tell me of a world leader that has ever done anything so suicidal.  I will concede that governments have taken suicidal tactics (the Kamikazis from WWII, or the Palestinian suicide bombers), but in no situation ever (unless I am grossly mistaken) has a leader taken deliberate action that he knows will destroy his own country and his own power.

You (Saint Ehlers, as well as many people around the world) talk about the insanity of Saddam.  You claim that he's crazy enough that 'he just might do it!'  What is that based on?  Sure, he's a ruthless dictator.  So what.

We know that he has WMDs because he used them twice, once against the Kurds and once again in the Iran Iraq War.  But why didn't he use them against the US?  Things looked, to him, during the gulf war, as though he was done for, but he never used his chemical or biological weapons once.  He hated Israel to no end, but even when he was hucking scuds at them he never attached a WMD warhead.  Why not?

Simply because he wanted to maintain his control.  He knew that using a WMD could only be answered by turning Iraq into giant sheet of glass.  He didn't use them then, when everything seemed against him, why would he use them today?

Look, as far as widespread proliferation goes, nuclear technology is here and there's no getting rid of it.  There are only three possible scenarios:  
1)  Only states that currently have nukes can have nukes.  This won't work because it already hasn't worked (look at N. Korea getting them against everyones wishes, or India/Pakistan.)
2)  Everybody gets rid of them.  The technology is here and people know how to make them.  If everybody got rid of them, think of how much advantage one country would have if they got them back and were the only nuclear power.  It would nag at every nuke-less nation until somebody finally built one again.
3)  Nuclear Proliferation.  They're going to proliferate.  The only question is how, and whether it is going to be regulated by an international body, or whether rogue states are going to get them, destabilizing a region and using them against a non-nuke owning foe.

As far as terrorism goes, since everyone is scared to death that Saddam is going to be handing out whatever his scientists have come up with, I don't see the basis for the fears.  Saddam, as we've already said, has WMDs and yet he hasn't ever given them to a terrorist ("yes, I know he might of and we don't know it yet," Mustard said, wondering what that strange smell coming through the heating duct was.)

It goes back to Mutually Assured Destruction.  The only way that a government would hand out nukes is if it was 100% sure that nobody would ever ever know, because if anyone found out, then it would be the end of them.

[Prometheus]

After watching coverage of Iraqi leaders on C-Span, (some of it non-translated in straight English) I personally choose not to place any irrational action beyond their reach. They simply don't see the world straight on. They really do believe they are still getting away with their game of hide-and-seek with their weapons of mass destruction. They really do think that the rest of the world will still dance their little game along with them. It seems they have no real comprehension of what was handed to them in UN Resolution 1441 last November. All these impressions were solidly reinforced. Yesterday.

While you do make a moderately good case despite that for not believing that Saddam Hussein would directly attack us, you didn't say anything to refute the other points I made. There are plenty of non-governmental officials out there who are very interested in the destructive potential of nuclear capabilities, and who are not bound by the rules of mutually assured destruction. In a world of nuclear proliferation, the already weak safeguards on nuclear weapons would slack considerably, and their use would be virtually guaranteed. There is no peace down that road. I also don't see the point of calling the Cold War a Long Peace just because the superpowers used proxy nations to wage their battles. People still died. Perhaps more seriously, both factions aided brutal dictators in gaining control of minor nations, (including our favorite Iraqi tyrant) which led to decades of worldwide oppression, poverty, and death in parts of the world ill-equipped to recover from those calamities. In a very real way, the Cold War is directly responsible for every source of international instability (see terrorism and war) we see in the world today. Without the Cold War (had there been a way to avert it) would we see similar things in the world? Probably. I don't see it as having aided anything in the realm of world progress, however.

[Saint Ehlers]

Note that the US has yet to have fought seriously ON Iraq soil, so I contend the fact that it looked like he was "done for." The Gulf War took place on Kuwaiti soil. You appear to have still missed my point. I wasn't simply saying "he just might" (although I'm scared as hell he will under the right circumstances). I'm saying that if he feels he will be out of control anyway. And let's face it, W. is fighting this war because his Daddy did, and he wants to be like his daddy -- yes a gross simplification, but you'll get my meaning -- and the way to turn this into a presidential "victory" is to take Hussein from power. This man is murderous. OK, let's not use nancy terms like "ruthless dictator." This man has killed hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people, and not out of national defense, but out of personal vindictiveness.  You are far from convincing me that he is not capable of throwing a final punch once he's reached the point where he'll no longer be a player in his own fate.

As for world leaders destroying their own basis of power, I'd say yes, we've seen that. We've seen that in the 20th century. Hitler and Lennin and Stalin all did it. The Chinese do it. Not in such a dramatic way as getting themselves nuked right away, but by killing off their nations best resources: their own people. In a wholesale fashion. Several of these people have invited disaster to their own door as well by refusing to see reason. Remember Stalin's deal with the Third Reich? I don't see why you think it so impossible for a leader to act against his nation's interest when we have so many examples of it in history.

We've also seen real situations where we were | | that close to nuclear devestation. For a famous example, "Cuban Missle Crisis" anyone? I think that the situation with North Korea is perfectly frightening. All these situations take is for one player to improvise instead of reading from the expected script and you have one big mess. Remember we're dealing with human nature here, which is more unpredictable than most of the hard sciences. Full scale nuclear war is not an unrealistic scenario in the near future (though I don't find it highly likely soon)

As for the inevitability of proliferation, I again refer to the thumb in the dyke. But I also would like to add that nuclear weapons are like sin. Just because it's impossible to eliminate doesn't mean that we're morally obligated to embrace it. I still feel obligated to attempt to remove WMDs from the world. If that means starting by preventing new entries into the nuclear arms possessing club, so be it. (on the other hand, I'm extremely anti-war -- I fear more that these will be used in the case of challenging new developers of WMD than otherwise).

The only way that a government would hand out nukes is if it was 100% sure that nobody would ever ever know, because if anyone found out, then it would be the end of them.

I don't think the percentage is quite 100%. Probably confident of secrecy, but not perfectly predictable secrecy. I also think that this scenario has a higher probability than your comment implies it would be.

I think there's really two issues here being discussed. One is the value of nuclear proliferation. I cannot see that as a "good" thing. The second (actually the first issue mentioned) is the value of attacking Iraq. I also cannot see that as a "good" thing. This may seem contradictory, but it is how I feel and interpret events. You can't make a person listen to you by violence or threatened violence, and therefore true peace does not lie down that road.

[Fellfrosch]

Modern nuclear proliferation is a slightly different topic than "The Long Peace," and I come down on different sides of each issue. Sort of. For starters, calling the Cold War a Long Peace is a completely valid label, because I guarantee you that it kept us out of World War 3. I don't see how we would have avoided it, if not for the two enormous superpowers staring each other down with fingers on the nuclear trigger. Yes, America fought in Vietnam and Korea, so Americans were not completely free of war, but the Cold War kept those mini-wars contained.

The thing is, the Cold War worked because it involved two, and only two, nuclear powers. It was balanced. MAD applied. As Prometheus pointed out, there are a lot of people for whom it doesn't apply any more. With too many nukes, you lose the balance.

So my thoughts are these:
1. Giving every nation in the world a nuke is not a good idea.  
2. That doesn't mean that the Cold War was not a time of peace (not for everybody, I admit, but for the people actually involved in the Cold War it was pretty dang peaceful).

[House of Mustard]

Ok.  The problem with Mearsheimer is that he is a theorist and, as such, he doesn't like to be bothered with the real world.  Structural realists, and all realists, believe that the only actors in world affairs are soveriegn nations and little things like terrorists with nukes don't fit in.  So I will grant that the idea is bad because of a lack of security, and that nukes could get out of the hands of leaders and into someone who might do something really bad.

That said, Mearsheimer refers to all terrorist activity, be it suicide bombing, or 9/11 or a stray nuke that got into the wrong hands, as a sideshow.  Terrorists by their very nature are weak and ineffectual - that is what leads them to terrorist tactics.  In the grand scheme of things, a large terrorist threat wouldn't shut down a country, even if, dare I say, a nuke went off in Washington.  It might kill a lot of politicians and infrastructure, but the government would continue because that is how the government is designed.  So, I agree that a nuke might get into the wrong hands and we might have a lot of people die, but the international system would continue.

Now on to other issues:

As for world leaders destroying their own basis of power, I'd say yes, we've seen that. We've seen that in the 20th century. Hitler and Lennin and Stalin all did it. The Chinese do it. Not in such a dramatic way as getting themselves nuked right away, but by killing off their nations best resources: their own people.

You miss the whole point.  What I'm saying is that no leader would take an action knowing full well that it would be the end of him, his people, and his nation.  None of those examples come anywhere near that.  I have no idea where you got China from - they're still around.  How can they be an example of a nation that killed themselves?

The thing is, the Cold War worked because it involved two, and only two, nuclear powers. It was balanced. MAD applied. As Prometheus pointed out, there are a lot of people for whom it doesn't apply any more. With too many nukes, you lose the balance.

The balance was, in the bipolar world, that everybody had nukes.  The US and it's allies had nukes, and the USSR and it's allies had nukes, so MAD applied.  And it is true that right now there are a lot of people for whom it doesn't apply now.  But if everybody had nukes again, it would apply again.

Take our friendly Takriti Saddam again.  He was more than willing to use WMDs against a non-WMD owning enemy.  But he wouldn't use them against the US or Israel because it is a general rule of international politics that WMDs are responded to with WMDs.  Both Israel and the US were nuclear, so he didn't want to cause any problems with them.  Even Saddam understands MAD.

But I also would like to add that nuclear weapons are like sin. Just because it's impossible to eliminate doesn't mean that we're morally obligated to embrace it. I still feel obligated to attempt to remove WMDs from the world.

You're looking at this awfully ideologically.  Illogically ideologically, I might say.  You say that I am wrong about nuclear proliferation because 'in the real world' the human element counteracts the theory of the balancing factors of nuclear proliferation.  Yet you are morally obliged to do something that 'in the real world' is impossible because of those same human elements.

As far as my personal, non-arguing-for-the-fun of-it views:
I think that nuclear proliferation might work if there was an international body in place that had much more rigid control than the UN now has (in other words, it's not going to happen in the real world.)
I think that we have yet to see any good reason to go to war in Iraq.  Well, let me change that.  There are a lot of good reasons to go to war in Iraq, but I have yet to see any good reason for the US to make a preemptive strike in Iraq.  There may very well be evidence out there that the gov't can't release because of protecting methods and means, but so far I'm not convinced of anything.