[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]Bismark wrote:
If Iran gets the bomb, then Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine (none of whom reside in Southwest Asia) will soon follow suit? That is the definition of magical thinking - analysis and prescriptions based on unrealistic assumptions, unspecified causal relationships, inapt analogies, and a dearth of supporting evidence. Even Saudia Arabia, the most likely candidate for nuclear proliferation, has more reasons to abstain from the bomb than to seek it. [/quote]
If the Russians & Chinese want to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, why is the Russian nuclear energy firm Rosatom building more nuclear power reactors in Iran? Why is China helping them also?
Just saw your response…above this post, smh_23.
edited…
Ok, point taken smh…but what’s your opinion of the article I posted and why North Korea has been allowed to produce nuclear weapons even though no sane nation would want that to happen either.
I understand how my threat stated above would be received as hollow. I get that, but on the other hand you’ve got Putin running around with his military threatening a nuclear World War III and that’s perfectly fine. So my reasoning would be to negotiate in the same tone right back at them.
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I certainly wouldn’t deny that Russian and China have been less-than-positive influences here, as in many other places. But the “taste of their own medicine” response, while tempting (and especially tempting in light of the fact that we are the greatest power on the planet), is the kind of thing a country like ours has the luxury to resist.
First there is tone/appearance. You mention correctly that loud and indiscreet shouts can be heard from the Kremlin. Contrary to the suspicions of people who don’t follow these things closely, this is a sign of deep and structural weakness. Throughout most of the cold war, when the USSR was a true superpower and military rival of the U.S., Soviet rhetoric tended to be sober and measured. In reality of course the whole world was being run by wolves, and we came appallingly close to nuclear war on more than one occasion. But the word “peace” figured prominently into public Soviet language, and the US was more likely to be accused of warmongering than threatened with endtime. Compare and contrast this with the present day, in which Putin and his inner circle are hysterically yammering about World War 3 every couple of weeks. Not coincidentally, Russia is a thin shadow of the power it was at the height of the cold war. Its military is decrepit, its nuclear arsenal is no longer capable of granting it even the appearance of parity, and its economy is comparable to that of the State of California rather than to that of the country to which California belongs. Put simply, we don’t talk about our dick in public because everybody knows we’ve got a third forearm knocking around our knees.
Beyond tone/appearance, and much more importantly, the above paragraph entails some actual and serious danger. The Russians and their leaders are fixated on restoration and former glory. What if Putin chooses to compensate for his country’s deficiencies by being willing to play carelessly along the brink? “I can’t out-muscle you, but I can sure as hell out-crazy you.” These are the kinds of things nightmare scenarios are made of: a paranoid (whereas conservatives see Obama the Appeaser, Putin believes he’s being surrounded by an enemy with cruel intentions) and status-obsessed governing class with relatively little to lose…a series of calculated risks plotted and taken by prideful, saber-rattling buffoons, etc. It isn’t all that difficult to imagine how things can get out of hand very quickly.
Which brings me, at long last, to the thing about nuclear proliferation in Asia and E. Europe. Take the state of affairs described above and introduce a bunch of small, American-backed cold wars in some of the least stable geopolitical regions on the planet. It almost couldn’t end well for anyone, and certainly not for us. The present status quo is actually pretty great on this side of the world – we are rich, powerful, relatively happy. Enormously increased nuclear tension is not going to have a positive effect on that status quo, and, in fact, it could have a catastrophically negative one. As in the sky lights up white one day.
TLDR: There has got to be an adult in the room. Speak softly and carry a big dick, etc.
