Saturday, October 27, 2012

Spinning Nukes

I find it amazing that every leftist seems to defend the desire of nutball regimes to get nukes because they are understandably worried about an American invasion. Yet Israel would be wise to abandon their nukes in exchange for a promise that the Middle East will remain without nukes?

When someone cheats to quietly go nuclear, will the world rally to stop them the way the world is rallying to stop Iran and North Korea? Or the way Pakistan was stopped?

But let me address the author's basic argument rather than just mock what I hope is self evident idiocy

The author bases his suggestion on the notion that Israel originally wanted nukes because they worried their conventional capabilities would fall below the hostile Arab world's conventional capabilities, and so needed nukes. Israeli conventional military capabilities are far superior to the Arab world's, as it turns out. Ergo, ipso facto, and lah dee dah, nukes are irrelevant to Israel's security.

So, he asks, why not negotiate the useless things away since apparently the nutballs of the region are worried that after decades of Israel possessing nuclear weapons without using them that the Israelis will nuke Arab states (or the Persian one)?

Let me point out that Israel's military superiority is a bit fragile. Over the short term, Israeli military capabilities are dominant. But the Israelis can't afford to stay mobilized for a lengthy period of time. Should hostile Arab states figure out how to launch and maintain an effective war of attrition at levels high enough to compel Israel to remain mobilized to a significant degree, Israel's conventional superiority won't hold. Nor will Israel's economy survive that level of military effort for long.

And let me point out that Egypt shows that any peace treaty is one musical chairs change of president from being at risk of being nullified.

Oh, the article is in Foreign Affairs. Little original thinking appears in the pages of this prestige journal, as I've sadly related. It is little more than the publishing house of center-left elite conventional wisdom.

Were I in charge of Israel, I'd keep my nukes rather than relying on learned BS that claims nukes are counter-productive.

God, some people with lots of education are just credentialed idiots.