Hype's 3rd Anniversary

[Gunslinger]

New Year's is steadily approaching and, as always, there comes the opportunity to ponder the end of the world.

Just three years ago, the country was in a funk due to the transition to three zero digits. That's right folks, the Y2k scare. As I remember it, most of the uncertain population was getting prepared for the apocalypse. Almost a reversion into the late forties and early fifties: bombshelters in the middle of the Nevada deserts, canned food with +10 year expiration date, and the ever useful Geiger counter. "Survival" books, hastily written considering that the rumors were flying about in September, were flying onto shelves and I'm more of a fool for actually buying one. Hell, I guess I was also caught up in the frenzy myself. And I think I must have heard a collective relieved sigh released across the country as we entered into the new millenium with our electric lights still humming.

And now its time for 2003's apocalypse scare. A buzz of unease is once again rising, but more attributed to terrorist scares rather than technological failures. I'm more than a bit concerned that UN specialists are still uncertain of Iraq's state of compliance to nuclear disarming. And I'm frankly scared with the fact that North Korea is rearming a nuclear reactor, a reactor that just happens to be able to process plutonium for nuclear weapons. But unlike 2000's year, we're not frantically going about to horde food and close banking accounts. The media isn't having as much of a field day this year. But if you think of it, whats more horrifying? The possible loss of computer technology world-wide? Or the fact that there is a possibility that some nations are harboring weapons capable of continental destruction one ocean across from us?

I'd say its time to open up those bombshelters, blow off the dust from those canned goods, and hunker down with your Geiger counter across your knees. But if this all just blows over, I'm sure that all of the world will collectively sigh with relief.

Until the next apocalyptical scare.

"Credo Ut Intelligam"- I believe so that I may understand.

 

[APTYP]

US-wide computer failure would've been more scary, although with its economical impact and certainly not an accidental nuke launch (why would anyone have calendars in warhead's computers?).

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[Guest]

Me myself don't believe Iraq got any Nuclear Warhead. Even my friend in Israel told me: "hell! We've destroyed everything they got in 80's. And during Gulf the rest were bomber by Coalition.". And about reports Nukes send to Syria and Libya, hell no! How they could smuggled things like that? Saddam is not insane! And about those Al Qaeda mambo jambo, the US and Australia warned us about bomb attack in christmas eve and placed travel band to us, but what happened? No bomb explodes!! What is this? Wrong Intelligence? Or just another paranoid?
Lets see, i think Iraq is not a threat. Even US can't prove they got NBC bombs! What about North Korean? They got nukes! Pakistan and India also got nukes! They are more potential become a Flashpoints.
Then one thing, if US got NBC why we can't? I think if someone not allowed to got it everybody not allowed! If one got rights to own one i think everyone also got rights to own one! And it have been proved that Nukes had preserved the World Peace during Cold War. Both US and USSR realized that any war will ended in Nuclear Strike between them. And it keeps them at bay.

 

[welsh]

[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Dec-28-02 AT 12:18PM (GMT)[p]I have to admit being a bit concerned about the nuclear weapons that the weapons inspectors seem to have problems finding in Iraq and the ones the North Koreans seem to be hiding in their tunnels. It worries me that in his rush to finish the Gulf War, Bush might have missed the real threat in North Korea.

Its not time to go back into the bomb shelters and expect the end of the world. It might be a cliche, but the greatest fear is still fear itself. When one lives with the fatalism that the world will end, when chances are it won't, than you spend to much time with your fear and not enough with your life. Your life becomes wasted worrying about phantoms that might never arise. If the current fear is that terror will bring about the end, than perhaps the terrorist win by leaving us terrorized. Fuck that, man, life is too short already.

It's not surprising that we had these fears in 2000. The Y2k, but also the Milleniumists who believed in the beginning of the Apocalypse was God's will, seemed to come out of every cabinet. Many of those with bomb shelters, who looked to the "end times" were probably the same people who build bomb shelters and were surivivalists in the 1980s. The end is near!

And why not? Fear is dramatic and exciting while life is often kind of boring for most people. Think of the many things people do to make their lives more interesting- infidelity, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, etc. Someone once said, sins are all efforts to fill voids in our lives. Fear, an often irrational effort at self-perservation, sometimes belongs with the seven deadly sins (anger, envy, sloth, vanity, greed, gluttony, pride).

Before 9-11 the average american had more chance of getting killed by a bee sting than a terrorist. And terrorists have always been operating. Go back to the beginning of the century and you find a laundry list of political leaders assassinated by anarchists. Yes, it's different when you factor in chemical and biological weapons or nuclear bombs. But this stuff has been with us for awhile.

People love the conspiracy theory. The danger of a conspiracy led americans to persecute catholics, suspected communists, the japanese. The Japanese killed thousands of Koreans after an Earthquake at the beginning of the 20th century. How many sikhs were killed after the assassination of Indira Ghandi? You still hear talk of the evil Jewish conspiracy. And hutu's and tutsi's went into genocide in part because they feared a conspiracy and loss of power. Conspiracy built on fear. This shit is dangerous.

Mr. Bhass, get used to these kinds of warnings. We have gotten so used to them in the US they are becoming ignored. After 9-11 and the anthrax scare, people got scared to fly or open their mail, but you can't stop living.

Should everyone have a nuke, or just because the US, Russian, France, Britain, China and a growing list of others have it, should everyone have the right? Just because the nuclear genie has slipped out of the bottle should everyone get a whiff?

What made the world strategically stable between the US and the Russians was that both countries had an assurred second strike capacity and high levels of infrastructure to safeguard against an accidental launch. This meant that you could not launch an attack without the assurance that a counter-strike would nuke you into the stone-age. Even so, these systems broke down and there were numerous cases of 'false alerts' during the Cold War. On at least two occassions the US and Russia came frightfully close to 'going nuclear' - the Cuban missile crisis and the 1973 Middle East War. What stopped both countries both times was that no one was assured of victory.

Nuclear weapons do a number of things. They are a prestige item- if you got it you are one of the big boys and you can show it off to your people as a sign of national greatness (in lieu of things like education, public health, infra-structure, poverty reduction, development, etc.). It can also be thought of as "insurance." This is the "If you fuck with me, I'll nuke your ass" meaning that if a country starts a war with you, you can nuke a city and the costs are so high, no one will start the fight. That's deterrence. But that leads to the security dilemma, which is basically, if my neighbor has the bomb and threatens me (compellence) than I need a bomb to threaten him back (deterrence). The problem is that you can't often tell deterrence from compellence, and if your strategic assets are vulnerable (and they are always vulnerable to some strike) than you can't have enough deterrence (which the other side sees as compellence).

ANd the thing is that inter-state war is fairly rare these days. You don't need nukes, so why have them.

Now take India and Pakistan. The BJP tests a nuclear weapon as a bid to gain greater nationalism and party support (domestic political issues) because their are afraid of their political control of the country. But the effect on Pakistan is to see the launch as a threat- India's saying "don't fuck with our Kashmir policy cause we got the bomb." Pakistan has been trying to build the bomb for years and finally has it, so they test it out. Pakistan is saying, "Hey India, Fuck you, we got it too." But neither country has second strike capacity which means that if you can take out the other's nuke first, you win, essentially giving the party "first draw advantage."

Thus the next time that Pakistan and India get into a tiff over Kashmir there will be greater incentive to 'shoot first" and take out the other side's strategic capability (a counter force strategy). This makes war more likely and more dangerous. Not only is there more incentive to strike first or preempt, but the stakes are higher. If the airbase when India keeps its nukes is near a city, that city is history if Pakistan hits first. India can safe guard by building more and spreading them out. But then Pakistan will have to do the same. Thus arms race. ANd these things are exactly cheap.

SO Mr. Bhass, lets say that Indonesia decides to build a nuke becuase its a big country and it needs to feel proud and defend itself from someone (like who?) The Malaysians (who fought with Indonesia before during confrontosi) and the Australians will see this as a threat, and they will be forced to build. WIthin a short while you will have a lot of countries looking like gunslingers in a Western bar, each with a pistol pointed at the other and no one able to put the guns down.

Do you want that? Do you want to waste the money on nuclear weapons? Do you want your more freaky neighbors to have them, even if you are wiser to avoid them?

The current nuclear weapon derives from his parent the atomic bomb, a war-time creation built because the US feared that the Germans were building one. It was used to terrorize the Japanese into surrender and perhaps to warn the Russians not to get greedy in Europe. It was kept because it was created and it was used to shield Europe because the Russians had more conventional weapons than we did and because they could have done to Europe the stuff of Hitler's dreams.

But nuclear weapons are an evil genie that once let out of the bottle of man's imagination is difficult to control or stop.

Since that time, they have sat in silos, submarines and in the belly of bombers collecting dust but reminding us that the end is very near should we lose control of ourselves, through fear or panic.

The more you give to fear, the more it controls, the more it fucks up your life. And life is short enough.

Sorry for the awfully long message