An interesting newsbite this week. Normally the media focuses on the headline grabbing soundbites, such as Clinton's 'warning' of the Revolutionary Guards supplanting civilian control of the Iranian government.
What's most striking about this article is that Russia has suggested it may support further sanctions in light of Iran's increasing of uranium enrichment from 2%ish to 20%. It seems that Russia may yet be frustrated and tired of Iran, and does not want to see the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) die. If Iran does become a nuclear armed power then the NPT will stand a good chance of becoming obsolete and a failure.
Or is it because Russia is afraid of the instability of the Iranian regime, and the nuclear equation makes any instability an immediate and important concern. Look at Pakistan.
Russia and China had always consistently played against Western sanctions on Iran. With Russia now tentatively agreeing with the West, will China follow suit? China has to learn eventually that it has great responsibility in global security as long as it continues to meddle in other countries' affairs. The situation will have to be resolved soon, as at 20%, Iran will have enough stockpiled enriched uranium to develop a few bombs.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Friday, 5 February 2010
Nuclear weapons saved us from ourselves, therefore Barack Obama is wrong.
An essay I wrote last semester for my course was a counter-factual exercise musing on what the Cold War would have been like without nuclear weapons. It got published on www.e-ir.info yesterday for all to see.
To get the full effect of this blog post, I recommend reading it. However, in a nutshell, I explain and speculate how nuclear weapons prevented a conventional Third World War. The logic of mutually assured destruction (MAD) and the pressures caused by the nuclear revolution made wars too costly, even suicidal for states to contemplate and the two opposing superpowers were forced to coexist peacefully or not exist at all.
MAD and both sides' guaranteed second strike capabilities kept the Soviet Union and the USA at bay. Were nuclear weapons and the psychological effect of them taken away, war between them would have remained a means to an end, as opposed to the end of civilisation. War would have been winnable, and a conventional WWIII would have benen ultimately more destructive than the previous one. Either way, Europe would have been reduced to rubble. Again.
By no means do I denigrate the severity of the atomic bombings on Japan in 1945. However, it seems without a nuclear standoff another more destructive war would have taken its place, and as far as academic debate goes, Japan could have faced a much worse conventional land invasion if the US had not used its atomic arsenal.
My point here is to relate this to Obama's foolhardy nuclear idealism. He's said, as I'm sure you know, that he wants to get rid of nuclear weapons off the face of the Earth. Given that I trust in MAD to prevent any conflict between the USA/NATO, Russia, China, India and Pakistan I dread the day if nukes were abolished. If Iran were to acquire nukes, I wouldn't be surprised if things would stabilise in the long term between it and Israel. Deterrence and MAD are universal, and Israel and Iran could be forced into an uneasy coexistence, or both sides face eradication.
Obama got a peace prize for his rhetoric. Illogic rhetoric for any calculating statesman. However in the ignorant public's eyes it's an easy card to play. Were the US to get rid of nukes it would enjoy countries without a trump card to match it's clear conventional military advantage. Nuclear zero would make small states or large ones with old technology and hardware feel very insecure and trigger arms races. And who's to say that other states won't renege on past promises to disarm their nukes?
I refuse to believe that Obama or any serious minded politican can really believe in eradicating nuclear weapons. It would make a major interstate war too likely.
To get the full effect of this blog post, I recommend reading it. However, in a nutshell, I explain and speculate how nuclear weapons prevented a conventional Third World War. The logic of mutually assured destruction (MAD) and the pressures caused by the nuclear revolution made wars too costly, even suicidal for states to contemplate and the two opposing superpowers were forced to coexist peacefully or not exist at all.
MAD and both sides' guaranteed second strike capabilities kept the Soviet Union and the USA at bay. Were nuclear weapons and the psychological effect of them taken away, war between them would have remained a means to an end, as opposed to the end of civilisation. War would have been winnable, and a conventional WWIII would have benen ultimately more destructive than the previous one. Either way, Europe would have been reduced to rubble. Again.
By no means do I denigrate the severity of the atomic bombings on Japan in 1945. However, it seems without a nuclear standoff another more destructive war would have taken its place, and as far as academic debate goes, Japan could have faced a much worse conventional land invasion if the US had not used its atomic arsenal.
My point here is to relate this to Obama's foolhardy nuclear idealism. He's said, as I'm sure you know, that he wants to get rid of nuclear weapons off the face of the Earth. Given that I trust in MAD to prevent any conflict between the USA/NATO, Russia, China, India and Pakistan I dread the day if nukes were abolished. If Iran were to acquire nukes, I wouldn't be surprised if things would stabilise in the long term between it and Israel. Deterrence and MAD are universal, and Israel and Iran could be forced into an uneasy coexistence, or both sides face eradication.
Obama got a peace prize for his rhetoric. Illogic rhetoric for any calculating statesman. However in the ignorant public's eyes it's an easy card to play. Were the US to get rid of nukes it would enjoy countries without a trump card to match it's clear conventional military advantage. Nuclear zero would make small states or large ones with old technology and hardware feel very insecure and trigger arms races. And who's to say that other states won't renege on past promises to disarm their nukes?
I refuse to believe that Obama or any serious minded politican can really believe in eradicating nuclear weapons. It would make a major interstate war too likely.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Commercialisation of LEO launch systems is about to 'take off'
Please excuse the cheap pun in the title.
News has reached me today of preliminary reports of Obama's decision on how to solve a problem like NASA's. In a nutshell, it seems that Obama is keen on cutting the inspirational tasks of getting humans back to the Moon, or to the asteroid belt or Mars. Instead he hopes to get more bang for his buck by providing incentives to commercial space companies to develop and deploy their own launchers. These commercial launchers will be able to launch satellites, humans and other cargoes to low-Earth orbit (LEO). This course of action has great potential. Commercial entities have greater incentives to cut costs and increase performance in a competitive market, and can possibly avoid the political wrangling that has become endemic within NASA. This could do to LEO access what commercialisation of aviation did to the US in the 1920s.
This is all well and good. I welcome more participants in space, and in the interests of balance, non-governmental entities are required to keep some degree of shared common interests alive in outer space. This has great implications to the American military-industrial complex. Will traditionally non-military companies get a footing in this market as opposed to military-industrial complex giants, such as Boeing? Since the 1980s, American goverments have consistently intertwined what were once recognised as purely civil space operations with military interests. Watch this space.
I am worried, however. The Augustine report (Autumn 2009) points out that there will be a lack of human heavy-lift launch capability for the US. If the commercial ventures fail to deliver, the US has yet a means to fall back on a safety net. Obama intends to cancel the Ares rocket plan, and this will only further delay a new American launcher. In the worst case scenario, the US might have to turn to Europe's venerable Ariane rocket or Russia's Soyuz for ALL it's heavy human launch needs. How embarrassing would that be for the country that got humans to the Moon and back again?
Obama must, of course, stay within what is financially possible. Perhaps it is wiser in the long run to develop more efficient means of getting humans and materiel into LEO before venturing further to the Moon and beyond. I wouldn't mind seeing greater expansion on the International Space Station or a construction of humanity's first orbital shipyard. Britain's R&D into the Skylon spaceplane is certainly interesting and promising. A single stage flyer, taking off and landing at conventional airports, could go into LEO, dock in space with proposed space stations, go from London to Sydney in two hours.
Certainly plenty of analysis and evidence to come yet. I've got plenty of things to add to my dissertation...
News has reached me today of preliminary reports of Obama's decision on how to solve a problem like NASA's. In a nutshell, it seems that Obama is keen on cutting the inspirational tasks of getting humans back to the Moon, or to the asteroid belt or Mars. Instead he hopes to get more bang for his buck by providing incentives to commercial space companies to develop and deploy their own launchers. These commercial launchers will be able to launch satellites, humans and other cargoes to low-Earth orbit (LEO). This course of action has great potential. Commercial entities have greater incentives to cut costs and increase performance in a competitive market, and can possibly avoid the political wrangling that has become endemic within NASA. This could do to LEO access what commercialisation of aviation did to the US in the 1920s.
This is all well and good. I welcome more participants in space, and in the interests of balance, non-governmental entities are required to keep some degree of shared common interests alive in outer space. This has great implications to the American military-industrial complex. Will traditionally non-military companies get a footing in this market as opposed to military-industrial complex giants, such as Boeing? Since the 1980s, American goverments have consistently intertwined what were once recognised as purely civil space operations with military interests. Watch this space.
I am worried, however. The Augustine report (Autumn 2009) points out that there will be a lack of human heavy-lift launch capability for the US. If the commercial ventures fail to deliver, the US has yet a means to fall back on a safety net. Obama intends to cancel the Ares rocket plan, and this will only further delay a new American launcher. In the worst case scenario, the US might have to turn to Europe's venerable Ariane rocket or Russia's Soyuz for ALL it's heavy human launch needs. How embarrassing would that be for the country that got humans to the Moon and back again?
Obama must, of course, stay within what is financially possible. Perhaps it is wiser in the long run to develop more efficient means of getting humans and materiel into LEO before venturing further to the Moon and beyond. I wouldn't mind seeing greater expansion on the International Space Station or a construction of humanity's first orbital shipyard. Britain's R&D into the Skylon spaceplane is certainly interesting and promising. A single stage flyer, taking off and landing at conventional airports, could go into LEO, dock in space with proposed space stations, go from London to Sydney in two hours.
Certainly plenty of analysis and evidence to come yet. I've got plenty of things to add to my dissertation...
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