Originally Posted by
Skroe
How's it controversial? It's pragmatic.
Do you recall what I wrote about two years ago in the early Russia threads about the INF Treaty? I said at the time that as grave as Russia's illegal actions in Ukraine are, the INF Treaty violation is much worse. It was the only treaty to ban an entire class of nuclear weapons, period. No exceptions. If Global Zero - global abolition of nuclear weapons - is to be a thing, it would look very much like the INF Treaty.
The Russians had us live the Global Zero counter argument, it's worst nightmare. What happens if ONE country, 20 years after the treaty is signed, has a change in government and decides the treaty no longer suits its interest. What happens if it cheats? What then? Global Zero would fail, just like that. It assumes a kind of timelessness, a kind of honesty, that no treaty can possibly ensure. ANd it's not like the US has been reckless in trying to keep INF in force. It's tried to carrot-stick and cajole the Russians, since 2007, and has been super discrete about it, only really going public in the last year.
The INF Treaty violation makes Global Zero, conceptually, look delusional.
Whats my point about this? Because the path to world peac... the evolotuon of human society as you put it... can happen two ways. Way one is by international agreement. Way too is by, essentially, having one party controlling or demolishing the variables that could upset its vision for that. I subscribe to the latter. I think the former, the INF Treaty path, will only hold until, 20 years later, a powerful country decides that the agreements are no longer in it's interests, and the rest of the world is slow react, trying to keep the peace rather than acting decisively to bring about compliance. In the latter model, there is no competition. There is no system based on hope of compliance, rather those who would break the world order are too weak, too isolated, and too surrounded, to do it. It's more sustainable. It counts on the worst of human nature, not the best.
It's the same argument about arms sales really. Whats the best way to control the spread of arms? Ban them? Or become the dominant seller, put everyone else out of business, and control who you sell them to? I think it's the latter.
I don't trust Russia. Nobody should. Nobody should trust America either. But I do trust self-interest, and also "fear" it. If we, like we are in East Asia, play to everyone's self interest, and make alliance with the US tantalizing beyond belief, then we'll create a peace-enforcement framework that will be far more enduring and stronger than one in which we come halfway with China, until 20 years later China decides it wants the entire pie, which has been, by the way, the story of the rise of China up to this point.