On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 16:31:38 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > > >On Fri, 11 Feb 2005, Steve Brust wrote: > >> On Fri, 2005-02-11 at 11:46, Howard Brazee wrote: >> >> > There's a real difference between fission bombs and fusion bombs as far as >> > physicists are concerned - but the social-political difference is >> > neglible. We treat them the same when found in a third world country. >> >> I think that's the heart of the matter. Everyone gets nervous when >> weapons of terror are in the hands of "backward" nations, just because >> of the obvious conflict between the nation being backward in so many >> ways, and the weapon being advanced. > >Everybody gets nervous when weapons of terror are in the hands of >unstable or loosely-governed nations. Everybody should be nervous >if nuclear weapons are controlled by countries insufficiently >technologically sophisticated to safeguard and maintain them. > > >> What constitutes a "backward" nation? That's harder to say. Here are a >> few general guidelines, however: >> >> 1. Backward nations have not yet abandoned the barbaric practice of >> capital punishment. > >This is more or less a religious argument - I happen to oppose capital >punishment, but experience shows that such nations are capable of >responsible possesion of nukes. > But capital punishment is still a barbaric practise. > >> 2. Backward nations are still unable to provide their own citizens with >> health care. > >We are able to provide our citizens with health care. Maybe not free, >universal, cutting-edge health care, but this seems like an irrelevancy >in context. > If it's not universal, we're not providing health care. Isn't the welfare of one's citizens pretty much the whole purpose of a government? > >> 3. Backward nations usually have an enormous percentage of the wealth >> concentrated in the hands of very few, which few exercise more and more >> direct political power in defense of that wealth (usually under the >> cover some sort of religious doctrine combined with blatant militarism). > >The Soviet Union managed under these conditions to behave responsibly. > Because of the threat of the US (M.A.D. actually seemed to work). But now we have a completely different world, something certain people in power right now don't seem to understand. > >> 4. Backward nations generally keep an unreasonable number of their own >> citizens in prison. > >Ditto. > > >> There are others, of course. But I think most people would agree that a >> nation that displays those characteristics ought not to trusted with >> weapons of terror. > >Most people are of course more interested about when the next episode of >Desperate Housewives is than the FSU's loose nukes, or Pakistan's >technology export policy, or how to deal with a nuclear-armed Iran. > >I for one am glad my racist, fearful, imperfect country developed nuclear >weapons in the face of the USSR's expansionism and development of nukes. >I'd like to see us continue nuclear disarmament, perhaps to 0; but the >extent to which our arsenal has restrained China from annexing its >neighbors and North Korea from waging war on South Korea and so forth >would have to be considered, and that is a question for another day. We could eventually get to zero, but it would take a lot of political and economic capital from a lot of nations.