M.A.D. R.I.P. Part 2

(this is a continuation of M.A.D. R.I.P.)

I really want to be wrong about this. I'm looking for holes in the argument, but I don't see any. It seems a safe bet that Israel was in possession of 200 nukes before 1985. I think it is also a safe bet that Israel would seek to acquire the means of retaliating against a nuclear strike before 1985 too.

Those two contentions alone make it reasonable to believe that Israel has forward deployed nuclear devices throughout the world.

(if Israel would like to dispute this reasoning, all they need do is open up Dimona to the IAEA and produce records that convincingly demonstrate that they've produced X number of bombs, and then show us all that each and every one of these bombs are still located in Israel.)

So, the reason I am writing a sequel to M.A.D. R.I.P. is because I failed to consider an obvious consequence of Israel's nuclear policy.

Nation A attacks nation B. Nation B retaliates. The way I've been brought up to think about this is in terms of America vs. the U.S.S.R. That is, the Soviet Union launches all of its missiles, and so, America retaliates by launching all of ours. This is why we have submarines deployed in unknown places and bomber squadrons ready to go at a moment's notice, so that if they attacked massively we could respond massively.

But what happens if nation A attacks nation B, but only just a little? I'm not necessarily talking about the scenario in the movie Fail-Safe, it could be an intentional attack as well. What matters here is that we're only talking about the attack of a single city. The response of course to such an attack is to retaliate, against a single city.

So if hypothetically nation A launches a single nuke against nation B, nation B could respond with a single nuke. Each side loses a city, and life goes on for everybody else. But this can only work if each side is composed of many such cities, if each side is left with enough of a population to carry on.

Israel isn't in this position. You can't launch a single nuke against Israel and expect it to retaliate using a single nuke in return. That single nuke you send against it pretty much wipes out their entire state. So their thinking is that they're going to wipe out your entire state in response. This is not their fault, again, this is their deterrent; it is what passes for sanity in the context of nuclear war.

However, Israel is no longer using its nuclear arsenal solely as a deterrent. It appears to be actively engaged in blackmailing the entire world into doing its bidding. You do what Israel says, or you risk losing a city.

Here's the thing... how does a country like America retaliate against such an event? If Moscow were to launch a nuke against New York, our response is clear cut: we launch (at least) one nuke against Moscow. This shows Russia they can't get away with this nonsense, and hopefully the show ends there. But with Israel, given the manner in which they have almost certainly have deployed their nuclear arsenal, we do not have this option. If Israel were to take out New York, our retaliating against Tel Aviv or Jerusalem is akin to retaliating against the entire state of Israel... the codes are lost, and so we face losing each of the cities within which Israel has positioned a nuclear weapon.

How many nukes does Israel have forward deployed in America? They had 200 of them in total by 1985, but it's been more than twenty years now. They've had time to build many, many more of these devices, and they enjoy greater access to no other nation. Their nuclear policy practically demands that they do this: their deterrent obviously grows stronger as the number of bombs they can set off goes higher, and there is no other nation that can give Israel so much by way of blackmail.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to conclude therefore that Israel may have up to a hundred nukes or more sitting on American soil, perpetually counting down to an oblivion that can only be forestalled by application of codes that only exist in Israel.

So the bottom line here is that Israel can deliberately set off a nuke in any American city it chooses and be reasonably sure it won't see any retaliation by us, simply because the consequences would be too severe. The loss of a single American city of course is catastrophic in the extreme, but simple math tells us it isn't anywhere nearly as catastrophic as the loss of a hundred such cities. As the American President you're in an impossible situation. You have to think of lives you've sworn to protect.

And so you submit to the will of Israel.

It is a nightmare scenario that makes M.A.D. by comparison look like a Norman Rockwell painting.

And it is the very definition of asymmetric warfare, the very kind of nuclear terrorism we supposedly went to war in Iraq (and now soon Iran) to confront and defeat. It now turns out that in reality, we are waging these wars not to eliminate the prospect of nuclear blackmail, but because we were already victim to it.

It explains why Israel gets everything it wants. Our money, our weapons, positions of power within our government and our media, and whatever land it happens to covet. Yesterday it was the Tigris, today the Strait of Hormuz; power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely; and so I ask, what will those with absolute power demand tomorrow?

My political persuasion right now can best be described as libertarian leaning towards anarchist. That is, minimal government is best, but I'm beginning to think that if the goal is to do whatever it takes to keep the body count to the absolute minimum, perhaps no government is best. Governments are by far responsible for the bulk of the killing in this world. Democracy too has failed; the greatest atrocity of our time, the war on drugs, was effectively sanctioned all these years by Ms. Voter, and I don't see that changing any time soon. I can confess to being a zealot when it comes to drug policy, but not about politics. We're in such an impossible situation. We all want to believe we're right, but we can't know that we are. We can only hope that we are.

I so want to be right. So, I can't say I know for certain whether it's minimal government, or no government, or a fully democratic government, that is the answer. But I think I do know this: that whatever it is we do, the underlying goal must be to prevent the aggregation of power wherever and whenever possible. This is after all the underlying principle of American government. And for maybe a hundred years the system of checks and balances designed to prevent the aggregation of power worked, well enough. But at some point, it stopped working.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can fix government. My thinking tends to run along the lines of replacing lawyers in government with computer scientists. I can't exactly explain it, but the design principles that go into writing sophisticated server software smell exactly like the sort of treatment we should be giving to the creation of a enduring system of government. We actively work at making such a system deny the aggregation of power in the same way we might work at ensuring server software never allocates too many resources. We work to anticipate what can go wrong before it does, and once that's achieved, we work at making it so that the system itself anticipates what can go wrong before it does.

Today, political science is just a term that describes one of many avenues of propaganda. I would like to see us work towards the day when political science means what it should mean: the science of politics.

I admit, this is mostly my fantasizing, because after replacing the supreme Court with Supreme Juries or multiplying the size of the House of Representatives by a thousand or making it mandatory that all departing Presidents surrender to the Hague to stand trial, at the end of the day one institution is left standing that I dare not consider touching: the United State Military. It isn't that I don't want to somehow divide or parcel out the power its commanders hold over all of us, it's just that all of the obvious ways of doing this fail that most very important of all tests: what to do with our strategic arsenal?

We have umpteen-thousand nukes out there, in holes in the ground, in airplanes, on submarines and God knows where else. The only good news with respect to our nuclear arsenal is that it is commanded by only one person (for the moment please do try to forget who that is right now.)

Which is to say, there is only one button. And that's a good thing. The fewer buttons there are, the less likely one gets pushed, yes?

Well... now I'm not so sure. As I posted before, I am not opposed to Iran acquiring the bomb, even though it means the world has yet another button that can send it to its doom. I am willing to tolerate that extra button because I see the imbalance of power caused by not having that button as being a bigger threat to world peace.

And now after considering what the reality is with respect to Israel — which I now regard as easily the most dangerous adversary this country has ever faced — I'm beginning to think that maybe dividing up our military, including all of our strategic assets, might actually be the safer option today.

I do not like the idea that Israel can nuke an American city and we have no recourse. The reason we have no recourse is because the person who controls our arsenal dare not respond in such a way that sees yet another city he is responsible for be nuked in retaliation.

Now consider if we divided up our assets amongst multiple authorities. I do not know exactly along what lines these divisions should occur, all I know is that what we want to see is a restoration of M.A.D. That if you attack one of our cities, you can expect a response. That we're not going to be handicapped by the fact that we have more targets than you do.

The most precise response to Israeli nuclear terrorism as I can see it is to fashion a nuclear device with as devastating a yield as we can create, and which we somehow deploy within Israel. This device, like the Israeli devices located in America, would perpetually count down to oblivion. Periodically, we reset the timer, so that the countdown starts anew, using encryption codes. But the codes aren't located in Washington. The codes are distributed across the nation. Every conceivable blast zone in fact has its own series of codes, with the effect that if any one of these codes went missing, the timer could not be reset.

So if we lose Tallahassee, baby, you better believe Tel Aviv is going bye bye too.

This response would restore M.A.D. Either side is still capable of destroying the other. The only difference is that one side (Israel) can no longer employ asymmetric strategies against the other (U.S), i.e., there is no profit in setting off only one bomb. The hope is that this more effective deterrence dissuades the Israeli government from using terrorism as its nuclear policy.

And maybe, in the process, America can get its country back.

Perhaps Israel's new nuclear policy is a blessing in disguise. I can only imagine that convincing the Pentagon that it is time to consider embracing a more biomorphic structure is (laugh) a challenging endeavor. But I do believe they respond to arguments that enhance national security, and that, given the changing nature of the battlefield, and how quickly allies can become enemies, such adaptations have to at least be gamed out.

The U.S. government appears to have been subverted by a foreign power and extraordinary measures may be required if ever this country is to be seen as sovereign again.

And in the bargain we may gain a military that is easier to trust?

Nah. We're doomed.

[2007-02-04: Continued here.]