First Strike Capabilities

I agree with Matthew Yglesias' general tenor here, but I find this part strange:

Simply put, a scenario in which the United States possesses an effective ability to shoot down a Russian or Chinese ICBM threat would be completely intolerable in Moscow or Beijing. It would, in effect, give the United States a viable a threat of a nuclear first strike. Neither Russia nor China is going to let that happen. Instead, they'll spend money on building up their nuclear arsenals in order to maintain their deterrent capacity. Thus, at great cost to the Unites States, to Russia, and to China we'll be back at the status quo. But beyond the monetary cost, the large buildup in Chinese nuclear capabilities that would result from this situation would force India to engage in a nuclear build-up of its own. And that, in turn, would force Pakistan to follow suit. This large increase in the global stock of nuclear weapons would, of course, imply an increase in the odds of a nuclear accident or the loss or theft of nuclear material. At the same time, a nuclear buildup of this sort might create incentives for Iran to reinitiate its nuclear weapons research program.

In truth, the U.S. already has massive first strike capabilities against China or Russia (or anybody else), and the U.S. already has started building up and modernizing its nuclear arsenal. Neither Russia nor China responded to this by starting a news arms race; those countries still have too many domestic problems which take priority to spend untold billions on weaponry which would still be decades behind the U.S.

Second, India and Pakistan have their own reasons for building and maintaining a nuclear arsenal which have nothing to do with the U.S. or China, and they will continue to stand-off against each other no matter what we do.

Third, N. Korea and Iran weren't persuaded by calls to nonproliferation in the past, nor were they encouraged to pursue nuclear weaponry because of American expansion of arms. Indeed, their programs were begun and expanded during the period of time when the U.S. was dis-arming.

The Nonproliferation Treaty is essentially dead in the water, and that's a shame. Resuscitating it is possible, with the U.S. and Russia on board, but there's no guarantee that the NPT will have any serious deterrent effect in any case. McCain's policy is overly simplistic and uninspired -- as usual -- but it's not as disastrous as Yglesias is claiming it is.

One Positive Achievement by Bush

Bush's blunderings are always noted, but he has does a few things right, especially in the area of non-proliferation. During Bush's tenure, and because of his actions, Libya has abandoned its nuke program, Pakistan has deposed A.Q. Khan and closed off his weapons running operations, and N. Korea is disabling its program beginning tomorrow. These are real accomplishments, and not to be forgotten.

Did Syria Get Nukes from N. Korea?

Umm... maybe. Kevin Drum notices some weird press coverage:

I don't know how closely you've all been following the story of the Israeli air strike in Syria a couple of weeks ago, but in one of the initial accounts of the raid the New York Times slipped in a suggestion that it was actually aimed at a nuclear installation that had been imported from North Korea. It was kind of weird because this allegation popped up casually in about the seventh paragraph of the story and then popped back out without a trace.

Since then the nuclear story has continued to putter along in the background, but most observers have discounted it. The consensus seemed to be that it was just some garden variety saber rattling, maybe from Cheney's shop, and in fact the raid was actually a test of Syrian air defenses or perhaps a dry run for attacking Iran. Or a raid against a Hezbollah weapons dump. Or something.

Well, maybe so. But today the Washington Post has a long front-page story that puts the nuclear scenario front and center again. The whole thing is still murky, since everyone seems to agree that it doesn't really make sense, but it's now pretty hard to ignore. Either someone is dead serious about planting some disinformation about a Syria-North Korea nuclear connection in the press, or else there really is such a connection. I don't know what to think about it myself, but it's now officially a story to follow.

Indeed.