Nuclear Futures Poll
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References -
In addition to the questions on taxonomy below the orig diary says "with 18 being the likeliest". I assume the fact that we've added "th" to the numbers here means we're reversing that?
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)Is al-Queda considered "a Muslim client political entity" or "a nation or entity not on this list"?
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)enough of a threat to list, but yes, they are a client--certainly of Pakistan and the Taliban, as well as financed by Saudi Arabia, and sometimes supplied by Iran. Iran, however, won't be donating nukes to Wahabis.
As for radioactive 'dirty bombs'--which don't even have to be bombs at all, but could be ventilated out of an urban hotel window or leaked into a city's water supply--I didn't include them in this survey, which was in response to JayC's post.
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| parent )Saudi Arabia? I'm sure they'd deny it and the Taliban as Muslim political entity would probably define AQ as equals rather than a subservient arm of their movement.
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| parent )They're far more significant a threat to use nukes than several entries on the list (like the neutral European nations and Latin America), meaning that "none of the above" isn't really a good category for them. You correctly point out the problem with categorizing them as a Muslim client entity (though I put them there when I voted as the closest fit). Perhaps a "extranational terrorist group" category should be added.
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| parent )such as Hamas or Hezbollah being likely to attack next because the client is well known and it's the client who will get it in the neck if they do. Which is why I put a nation or entity not on this list ie. an organization like AQ, as the likeliest to use a 'dirty bomb' or loose nuke should the opportunity arise.
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| parent ). . .but AQ getting a bomb and using it is a widely discussed scenario, and it seems to me that they don't fit well in a category that seems designed for "possibilities we haven't even considered yet." They should have their own category, to which other organizations--if necessary--would be added if they fit the approximate MO of AQ.
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| parent )Non state entity would be better category to have on the list, perhaps displacing 'A nation or entity not on this list'.
Just goes to show how polls can be misleading because as in this case the pre-determined categories can be leading. I didn't like 'A Muslim nation, such as Pakistan or Iran' or 'A Muslim client political entity, such as Hamas or Hezbollah' either. No reason to group Muslim nations or their prospective clients in such a way unless you have a motive for doing so that will be reflected in the results. India and Pakistan are a flash point as are Israel and potentially Iran, but not because of their faiths.
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| parent )Now come on. Who voted for this? We're the same species that produced Genghis Khan, Vikings & Achaeans, the cult of Molech, the 30 Years' War, the Thugees, strategic bombing.
It's dangerous to use the N-word.
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)Since the votes were weighted from 1 to 18. And I'd say the chances of a nuclear bomb never being used in war again are certainly not negligible. After all, we've survived for over a half-century on the brink of using them--without using them. IMHO, nukes will be made obsolete by other weapons--genetically tailored biological epidemics and viruses aimed at both hardware and software. Nano-tech is in its infancy but will revolutionize weaponry concepts by the end of this century. Nukes will eventually become nothing more than geopolitical fireworks.
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| parent )Tailored for assassination or genocide. Scary stuff. But all those nuclear warheads sitting around -- there are simply too many boogiemen haunting the nationalist imagination, too many chances for global war, and too many terrorist success stories to say nobody will ever set one off again. Especially as the once tightly-controlled technology dissipates around the world.
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| parent )I said that the chance of it not happening is not negligible, ie 0 or 1 %. I think the current rating of about 10 - 14% is a fairly realistic one. In fact, that's exactly how I had it handicapped.
So far the group opinion is very close to my own, though with a few exceptions. I would rate Iran and Pakistan a bit higher than the US, and Russia, India, and China lower than us but higher than the other voters have them.
There's an easy rule in policing about weapons use. Where the most exist are the places where they will most likely be used. The US, Russia, and China, therefore are still the major suspects from that standpoint, but we are constrained as a nation both by democracy and prior guilt. France and the UK are also being overlooked here--they have large numbers of weapons (greater than Israel's), and who knows what new mutations of government will become empowered in future there. Or anywhere else.
However, the voters have wisely weighted the 'aniticipatory' states--Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, the Ukraine--who might be forced to employ them in advance against attack from a specific enemy. South Korea and Taiwan, of course do not 'officially' possess them, but like South Africa and Israel, really do. South Africa is a player here, as well, out of instability and incompetence, if its government alters, though they have no geopolitical enemies at present. But they may well turn to sponsoring terror in the future, out of ideology, either white fascist or black nationalist Marxist. Afrikaaner secession is never an impossibility, and they still control the nation's armed forces.
However, the world's hottest nuclear armed standoff for the past decade has been between Pakistan and India--these two countries came very close to war (much closer than most people realized), just before and during our invasion of Afghanistan.
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| parent )cutting through the layers of BS usually associated between our two nations.
A lot of people don't get that war between India and Pakistan is sort of like the Arab-Persian war - it has gone on for millennia. More accurately, it s a war between the hillmen and plainsmen of the northwestern subcontinent which has gone on for millennia. Both entities need each other. Essentially, there has never been a desire for one to exterminate the other.
The possession of nuclear weapons is more a case of one-upmanship, than actually going to nuclear war.
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| parent )here in Washington, when Pakistan expelled its Indian residents and both nations went on military alert. It's always easy to dismiss such crises in hindsight as mere sabre-rattling.
As for MAD--that only works with the sane...;)
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| parent )than us residents. We are fairly sane, K.
Also, its quite fun to expel and retaliate. I believe the US and the USSR did it all the time some time back.
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| parent )They had no one else to expel. However, the Punjab region, as you of course know, has strong economic connections that reach across the border, as well as families who share members on both sides of it.
I mean no offense to you in terms of 'sanity'--I was referring to regimes like those of North Korea, Iran, and Libya. However, no one can pretend the political history of either Pakistan nor India has been free from corruption, cronyism, nepotism, outright militarism, and deferring to exremism--nor is there anything 'sane' about the personal fates of several of the Bhuttos and Gandhis. By contrast to Pakistan, the history of the USSR after Stalin was positively orderly.
In short, MAD requires, like diplomatic negotiation, a relatively stable and reliable partner. No one will be happier than I if Pakistan proves itself to be such; but the events of the past few years give the rest of the world great cause for trepidation--and, sadly, there is no way to sugar-coat that.
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| parent )Worst part about picking "never" is that you can never be right.
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| parent )on my browser the results screen comes up with
A Muslim client political entity, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, Israel
lumped together in one category. Programming error? Moral equivalence? Prediction that Israel will turn Muslim majority?
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)On mine too. Just started though.
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| parent )I would have gone with having folks allocate 100 percentage points across the likelihood (probability) for each, then averaging for each, but that's me, Mr. Vegas*.
* John Candy, during card game in Stripes
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)to write a custom polling module, have at it. I just use what comes out of the box - binary or ranking.
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| parent )Me? Write a costume Polish wajahoozits?
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| parent )