Old McDonald Wants the Bomb, E-I-E-I-O – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

“With a nuke-nuke here and a nuke-nuke there, here a nuke, there a nuke, everywhere a nuke-nuke….”

I know, I know — I shouldn’t use a nursery rhyme in commenting on something as serious as nuclear proliferation. After all, one shouldn’t even appear to make light of what might be the most existential of all existential threats to mankind. But almost every day I encounter fresh indications that the longstanding taboo against acquiring nuclear weapons is breaking down, and with it the threat of a nuclear exchange, if not tomorrow, then even within the lifetime of us older folks. So I’ll use any device, even a nursery rhyme, to try to get people’s attention. The world of nuclear non-proliferation is changing every day, and we need to start thinking — and thinking hard — about what this means.

Take Japan, for example. No other country in history has been on the receiving end of a nuclear strike, and, given that history, the very idea of acquiring nuclear weapons has been treated, not simply with disdain, but with outright horror. But earlier this week I read only the latest in an accumulation of news stories drawing attention to changing Japanese attitudes. The same article mentions in passing how, in similar fashion, attitudes are changing in nearby South Korea.

Perhaps more to the point, Japan is at the forefront of nuclear “latency,” that is, the ability to acquire a significant nuclear deterrent quickly, once the political decision is made. The popular phrase is that the Japanese are “only a screwdriver’s turn away” from having nukes, an observation based on the country’s substantial stockpiles of plutonium and its impressive nuclear technology infrastructure. The path to a South Korean bomb might be longer, but a path exists just the same.

The very fact that this conversation not only persists, but becomes louder and more insistent, should remind us that the old verities of nuclear non-proliferation have broken down, largely as a result of the Ukraine war. Vladimir Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling, combined with the increasingly tattered U.S. nuclear “umbrella,” have persuaded countries once though immune to nuclear desires to take a fresh look.

Only recently Polish leaders have again raised the possibility. In the words of Polish President Donald Tusk, “purchases of conventional weapons, the most traditional ones, are not enough.” At present, the discussion comes in the context of French President Macron’s latest — -and frankly not very credible — offers to extend the French nuclear deterrent to cover other European countries. Still, the very fact that this has now become a serious topic of conversation suggests that the ground is shifting when it comes to nuclear weapons.

There’s no end of argument that most countries, even those with significant nuclear technical capabilities, have a very long path to creating their own independent nuclear deterrent. The barriers include the acquisition of sufficient weapons-grade nuclear material and the development of appropriate means of weaponizing a nuclear device. These barriers are not trivial, and, by current estimates, the only other country within the “screwdriver’s turn” of nuclear latency is Iran.

Surely, for example, Ukraine would very much like to have its nuclear weapons back. It’s no secret that they now bitterly regret yielding to U.S. and U.K. pressure to give up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal back in 1994. One suspects that Taiwan now regrets yielding to U.S. pressure to shut down what was once a very highly developed nuclear weapons precursor program. And one further suspects that the Israelis thank their stars every day that they pursued and acquired a credible independent nuclear deterrent, and that, unlike so many others, they did so without encountering barriers from the U.S.

The real difference today is not that acquiring nuclear weapons has become easier from a technical standpoint, but instead that their desirability has changed beyond recognition. Once upon a time, the fact of British, French, and Chinese nuclear weapons seemed merely a sideshow. The “balance of terror” between the U.S. and the Soviet Union defined the nuclear weapons landscape, and for almost everyone else — again, the obvious exception being Israel — the rest of the world oriented itself to the two great nuclear powers rather than earning their displeasure by acquiring nuclear weapons of their own. The only wild cards were India and Pakistan, whose bitter rivalry — and, in India’s case, concomitant fear of China — drove successful nuclear weapons programs in the 1970s and early 1980s.

But in the last several decades, the bad guys seemingly have decided to become “more bad.” Iran’s nuclear program threatens not only Israel, but also Saudi Arabia. Not so very long ago, China seemed content to acquire only a few hundred nuclear weapons, a capability viewed as purely defensive. Now China is actively seeking thousands of warheads, and delivery capabilities that put the entire U.S. at risk. North Korea now has missiles capable of striking much of the U.S., and this based on estimates made before Kim Jong Un’s decision to send troops to help the Russians in Ukraine, a move widely viewed as involving a quid pro quo that could include sharing Russian nuclear missile technology.

Above all, Putin’s repeated nuclear threats have changed perceptions of the value of nuclear weapons. It’s become fashionable in recent months to blame the breakdown in confidence in the U.S. nuclear shield on Donald Trump, but, as I’ve argued previously, this view is both wrong and deeply wrongheaded. Trump’s unpopularity — to put it mildly —among European elites makes it easy for them to blame him, but Joe Biden deserves the greater blame, having repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to knuckle under to Putin’s nuclear threats.

In the final analysis, the lack of confidence in our nuclear shield and the growing openness to seeking nuclear weapons is structural, rather than personality driven. So long as Putin, or Xi, or Kim can directly threaten the U.S. heartland, there’s little reason to believe that we might answer a nuclear strike against Taipei or Tallinn with our own nuclear weapons. Why should we? Perhaps the day will come when our own defenses become sufficiently credible to restore the nuclear umbrella — that, as I’ve argued, is a major benefit of Trump’s “Iron Dome” proposal.

But that day is a long way off, and, in the meantime, countries under threat will likely conclude that they need their own nuclear deterrent. One doubts that this will take the form of a “Euro-Bomb,” in spite of Macron’s pretensions and the obvious convenience of leveraging an existing French nuclear capability. No one believes that Macron can fulfill any such promises given the current political climate in France, and, given the stakes, why would they?

Why the Bomb? Why Now?

The difference today, then, isn’t technical capability, or even national resources. South Africa once had nuclear weapons and gave them up. Sweden once had a vibrant nuclear weapons development program before setting it aside as politically infeasible. And, of course, both India and Pakistan, neither exactly techno-industrial powerhouses back in the 1970s, prove perfectly capable of gaining a nuclear arsenal once they set their minds to it, an “inconvenient truth” further attested by the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. As much as we might wish otherwise, where there’s a will there’s a way, and no amount of sanction, indeed anything short of war, will keep a country from pursuing nuclear weapons once that will exists.

We now live in a world in which nuclear weapons appear much more desirable, for many more countries. Once we worried about our adversaries, now we must also account for the possibility that our allies will go nuclear, with implications that until recently we’ve chosen largely to ignore. Way back in 1962, scholar Hermann Kahn challenged the world to “think about the unthinkable,” to squarely face the ways, means, and consequences of nuclear war. It’s time for us to start thinking about the unthinkable once again.

In a “here a bomb, there a bomb, everywhere a bomb-bomb” world, we need to seriously consider what our world will look like on “the day after,” whether it’s a single detonation or a full-bore nuclear exchange. We’ve been on holiday, so to speak, for a very long time. That holiday is now over.

READ MORE from James H. McGee:

Trump and the Gaza Ceasefire: Implications for the Future of the Abraham Accords

Dueling Memes on Deportation … and Our Lives

President Trump and Peace in Ukraine

James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region. A forthcoming sequel finds the Reprisal team fighting against terrorists who’ve infiltrated our southern border in a conspiracy that ranges across the globe. You can find Letter of Reprisal on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited.