Bombs and rockets – Page 39 – a sibilant intake of breath

The 2008 Beijing Olympics

The Chinese government intends for the 2008 Beijing Olympics to be a kind of coming out party for China’s “peaceful rise.” Certainly, the last few decades have been remarkable: growth has persisted around 10% and hundreds of millions of people have risen out of extreme poverty. At the same time, the Chinese government has much to answer for. Democracy and human rights are both black marks on the Chinese record – both domestically and in terms of their international relations. Because of the unacceptable character of a number of Chinese policies, Canada should boycott the games.

The first set of unacceptable policies are domestic. These include suppression of free speech and the media, as well as the repression of political and apolitical organizations (such as Falun Gong). China also executes more people than any other state, with some allegations going as far as to say that people are being killed so that their organs can be harvested. Ethnic minorities are likewise suppressed in China, with Tibet being a special case. Well corroborated accounts exist of torture by various governmental entities.

Chinese foreign policy is also not in keeping with minimum standards of acceptable conduct. China continually threatens to attack against Taiwan, with hundreds of missiles pointed across the strait. As Paul Collier details, they are also known for adopting ‘no questions’ policies in relation to truly awful regimes, such as the genocidal government of Sudan. China has actively undermined efforts by the international community to put pressure on such governments to cease their human rights violations. International law now clearly recognizes that state sovereignty provides no protection for a government that is committing atrocities. The continuing Chinese insistence on strict non-intervention undermines the degree to which international norms can be manifested, and helps to keep large numbers of people in unacceptable conditions.

The Beijing party is one that deserves to be spoiled, lest China gain international legitimacy on the basis of economic growth rather than acceptable moral and legal conduct. Concerns about things like labour and environmental standards are certainly relevant, as well, but it is the status of the Chinese government as a violator of human rights – and facilitator of their violation by others – that makes them unfit to host the Olympics. Canada coming out and acknowledging this publicly could encourage other states concerned with human rights and international law to carry out boycotts of their own. Through international peer pressure, there is hope that a government as concerned with prestige as the one in Beijing will reconsider some of its least popular policies.

The Bottom Billion

Paul Collier‘s slim and informative volume is true to my recollection of the man from Oxford. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It is engaging, concise, and powerfully argued. It is also unsparing in its criticism. Collier explains that the ‘developing world’ consists of two groups of states: those experiencing sustained growth and thus seeing their standard of living converging with those in the rich world and those that are ‘stuck’ in poverty, with stagnant growth or absolute decline.

Poverty traps

The ‘stuck’ states – where the world’s poorest billion inhabitants are concentrated – are trapped in one of four ways: by conflict, natural resources, being landlocked with bad neighbours, and by bad governance. States can be trapped in more than one simultaneously and, even when they escape, there are systemic reasons for which they are unusually likely to fall back into one. The discussion of the traps is particularly informative because of how quantitative methods have been used in support of anecdotal arguments.

Not only are ‘bottom billion’ states unusually likely to suffer from conflict, corruption, and similar problems, but some of the most important paths to growth used by states that have already escaped poverty are closed to them. To grow through the export of manufactured goods, you need both low wages and economies of scale. Even if wages in Ghana are lower than those in China, China has the infrastructure and the attention of investors. The presence of export-driven Asian economies makes it harder for ‘bottom billion’ states to get on a path to development.

Solutions

Collier’s proposed solutions include aid, military intervention, changes to domestic and international laws and norms, and changes to trade policy. Much of it is familiar to those who have followed development debates: the problems with agricultural tariffs, the way aid is often used to serve domestic interests rather than poverty reduction, corruption within extractive industries, and the like. His most interesting ideas are the five international ‘charters’ he proposes. These would establish norms of best practice in relation to natural resource revenues, democracy, budget transparency, postconflict situations, and investment. Examining them in detail exceeds what can be written here, but it is fair to say that his suggestions are novel and well argued. He also proposes that ‘bottom billion’ states should see import tariffs in rich states immediately removed for their benefit. This is meant to give them a chance of getting onto the path of manufacture-led growth, despite the current advantages of fast-growing Asian states. His idea that states that meet standards of transparency and democracy should be given international guarantees against being overthrown in coups is also a novel and interesting one.

Position in the development debate

Collier’s book is partly a response to Jeffrey Sachs’ much discussed The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. Sachs pays much more attention to disease and has more faith in the power of foreign aid, but the two analyses are not really contradictory. Together, they help to define a debate that should be raging within the international development community.

Collier’s treatment is surprisingly comprehensive for such a modest volume, covering everything from coups to domestic capital flight in 200 pages. The approach taken is very quantitatively oriented, backing up assertions through the use of statistical methods that are described but not comprehensively laid out. Those wanting to really evaluate his methodology should read the papers cited in an appendix. Several are linked on his website.

Environmental issues

Environmental issues receive scant attention in this analysis. When mentioned, they are mostly derided as distractions from the real task of poverty reduction. It is fair enough to say that environmental sustainability is less of a priority than alleviating extreme poverty within these states. That said, the environment is one area where his assertion that the poverty in some parts of the world is not the product of the affluence in others is most dubious. It is likely to become even more so in the near future, not least because of water scarcity and climate change.

Climate change receives only a single, peripheral mention. This is probably appropriate. Surely, the effects of climate change will make it harder to escape the traps that Collier describes. That doesn’t really change his analysis of them or the validity of his prescriptions. The best bet for very poor states is to grow to the point where they have a greater capacity to adapt and will be less vulnerable to whatever the future will bring.

‘Nuclear weapons sharing’ in Europe

One obscure but troubling legacy of the Cold War is the American nuclear weapons that are deployed in Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands under NATO nuclear weapons sharing agreements. The arsenals consist of 150 B61 gravity bombs held in US custody, apparently for the enduring purpose of deterring a Soviet/Russian tank invasion of Europe. The bombs can be tailored to different yields: with different versions capable of producing explosions with between 0.3 and 340 megatonnes of power. In total, about 3,155 of these bombs were made, with between 1,200 and 1,900 still in service worldwide. A 1994 variant has a hardened casing and can be used as a nuclear bunker buster.

Apparently, these weapons were in place during the negotiation of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and two arguments were privately maintained about why this usage is not in contravention of the treaty. The first was that, since the bombs were under American control, they had not been illegally transferred from a nuclear-weapons state to a non-nuclear weapon state in violation of Article I of the Treaty. The second was that the weapons would not be used “unless and until a decision were made to go to war, at which the treaty would no longer be controlling.”

The latter argument strikes me as exceptionally weak – as does the general rationale for maintaining these weapons. The existing arsenals of American submarine launched missiles, land-based ICBMs, nuclear-equipped bombers, and nuclear cruise missiles would seem sufficient to serve any conceivable purpose for which these bombs might be used. I am also willing to bet that your average Belgian, Italian, or Dutch citizen isn’t too pleased to have the things within their borders.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day is a fundamentally problematic holiday. On the one hand, it is meant to recognize the awfulness of war. On the other, it is meant to glorify those on our side who participated in wars. A truly pacifist holiday might be more easily palatable, but it would doubtless arise the ire of those who served in past conflicts and those who recognize the righteousness of at least some of them.

Wars can be divided into three categories:

Those fought for reasons of immediate self defence (i.e. the Polish defence efforts when both Russia and Germany attacked at the outset of the Second World War).
Wars fought for purposes that we can generally recognize as morally admirable now (the defence of the innocent).
Wars fought for purposes we know consider immoral (territorial gain, the elimination of ethnic groups, etc).

What arises in response to this categorization is the question of to what degree those today can judge the wars on the past on the basis of contemporary ideas of morality. If Canada’s participation in the First World War was essentially in defence of imperialism, does our subsequent belief that imperialism is an unacceptable aim alter how we should feel about the war? Secondly, there is the matter of the individual evaluations of soldiers. If soldiers have no responsibility for assessing the rightness or wrongness of the war they are in, we are obliged to honour the Nazi machine-gun operator defending Juno Beach as much as the Canadians storming it. If soldiers are responsible for assessing the morality of the wars they participate in, we cannot simply honour them as a block.

When you move beyond crude patriotism to an ethic of equal human worth, it becomes very difficult to continue to accept war memorials at face value.

Reloaded with non-fiction

I have officially abandoned my earlier initiative to finish all my pending books before purchasing more. Mostly, that is because I finished all the non-fiction on my list and all of the fiction I have read recently has been depressing. While much of the non-fiction can also be dispiriting, it feels less like emotional self-flagellation to read it.

My new crop of non-fiction:

Bodanis, David. Passionate Minds. 2006
Collier, Paul. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. 2007
Easterly, William. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. 2006.
Overy, Richard. Why the Allies Won. 1995.

The Easterly book was endorsed by Emily Paddon during one of our pre-seminar conversations in Oxford. It is also one of those books that I have heard mentioned in conversation often enough to feel concerned about not having read. The Collier book is clearly on a related theme. I saw Paul Collier speak many times at Oxford and always found him candid and informative. Richard Overy’s book was one of the best I read in the course of two history seminars at Oxford; I look forward to having the chance to take my time in reading it, rather than having it as one of several urgent items in an essay’s source list. Finally, I got the Bodanis book because I have heard it well recommended and know little about Voltaire and even less about Emilie du Chatelet.

I will certainly finish the fiction eventually, but I will do so interspersed with meatier stuff.

Pakistan’s state of emergency

While I cannot speak on them with any particular knowledge or authority, it does seem that the unfolding events in Pakistan generate some ominous possibilities within the region. A recent Stratfor briefing argues that:

Whether Musharraf himself survives is not a historically significant issue. What is significant is whether Pakistan will fall into internal chaos or civil war, or fragment into smaller states. We must consider what that would mean.

One can only begin to imagine how the Middle East would change if Pakistan disintegrated. It’s a nuclear power bordering a huge but relatively fragile democracy, as well as Iran and Afghanistan. Furthermore, that exists in the context of the Iranian drive for nuclear weapons, the weakness of the Afghan federal government, and. the possibility of the breakup of Iraq (as well as a Turkish attack against the northern Kurdish region). Even for a region that has frequently been in turmoil, this is quite a confluence of events.

Given the context, it is unsurprising that climate change is not the top priority in Pakistan, though the inevitable disruption a changing climate will bring in future decades does seem likely to exacerbate tensions in this part of the world.

Reliable Replacement Warheads

Since July 16th, 1945 the United States has been a nuclear power. The first American thermonuclear weapon was detonated in 1952. During the span of the Cold War, tens of thousands of hydrogen bombs were assembled and mounted inside artillery shells, torpedoes, submarine launched missiles, cruise missiles, land-based ICBMs, and aircraft-mounted bombs. Now, these weapons are starting to age and a debate has emerged on what should be done with them.

Many of these weapons are highly complex. A standard submarine-based missile has a conical warhead. Inside is a uranium casing that serves to contain the original blast until a maximum amount of fission has occurred. At the bottom of that casing is a ‘pit’ of plutonium which is at a sub-critical density. Around that is a casing of brittle, toxic, neutron-reflecting beryllium. Inside it may be a cavity containing tritium and deuterium gas (in the case of a “boosted” primary). Around the beryllium outer sphere is a shell of high explosives designed to explode with fantastic precision, crush the plutonium pit to supercritical density, and initiate the fission reaction.

This whole assembly exists to initiate fusion in the ‘secondary,’ located higher in the outer uranium casing. The material that undergoes fusion – usually lithium deuteride – is wrapped around another sphere of uranium and is, in turn, wrapped in more uranium. All this is to create the largest possible yield in a relatively small and light package. The small size and conical shape allow eight or more of these devices to be placed on a single missile and then independently targeted once that missile is at the height of its ascent.

The 2008 budget allocated $6.5 billion for the maintenance of the American nuclear stockpile. That consists of 9,900 assembled warheads – 5,700 of them deployed operationally. In addition to these, about 7,000 plutonium pits are stored at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. As the weapons age, concerns are developing about their reliability. They all contain high explosives, toxic chemicals, and corrosive agents. While it is possible to upgrade many of the non-nuclear components and replace them with more stable variants, the newly assembled bombs could not legally be tested: potentially leaving military commanders in doubt about their usability.

That is, in essence, the core of the ongoing debate about the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). The program would begin by refurbishing 100 kiloton W76 warheads, which is already undergoing a less ambitious retrofitting. The hope is that the program can produce weapons with long durability and lower maintenance costs, and be able to do so without requiring full-scale tests of the devices, as were conducted in Nevada and the Marshall Islands during the Cold War. I won’t get into the details of the debate here. More than sufficient information exists online and in recent newspapers and magazines. What is less frequently considered are some of the aspects of international law relevant to nuclear weapons.

The whole program should remind people about an oft-forgotten element of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Everyone remembers the bit about signatories without nuclear weapons pledging not to acquire them. People forget that the treaty also obliges existing nuclear powers to reduce their arsenals as part of an overall progression towards de-nuclearization. Upgrading your nuclear arsenal to endure further decades of operational status is hardly consistent with this requirement. It also signals to other states that the United States continues to consider operationally deployed nuclear weapons an important part of their overall military strategy.

Individuals and organizations contemplating a sizable RRW program might also do well to re-read the Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or use of Nuclear Weapons set down by the International Court of Justice. While such legal considerations are relatively unlikely to affect whatever decisions are made in relation to the RRW, examining the status of the law can be a good way to reach decisions about the respective rights and obligations of states.

Mosul Dam

The Mosul Dam is one element of Iraq’s infrastructure that has survived the war so far, but which is apparently seriously threatened. Because was built on gypsum, which dissolves in water, it threatens to fail catastrophically as the result of small initial problems. A report from the US Army Corps of Engineers warned that the dam’s failure would drown Mosul under nearly 20m of water and parts of Baghdad under 4.5m. The 2006 report explained that:

In terms of internal erosion potential of the foundation, Mosul Dam is the most dangerous dam in the world. If a small problem [at] Mosul Dam occurs, failure is likely.

According to the BBC, the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) has stated that the dam’s foundations could give away at any moment. The report from the Corps of Engineers states that the dam’s failure could cause 500,000 civilian deaths. General David Petraeus and the American Ambassador to Iraq have both written to the Iraqi government expressing their severe concern.

The dam is 2,100m across and contains 12 billion cubic metres of water. It generates about 320 MW of electricity. Previous attempts at addressing the gypsum issue seem to have been botched. According to the Washington Post “little of the reconstruction effort led by the U.S. Embassy has succeeded in improving the dam.” Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general reviewing the efforts has said that “[t]he expenditures of the money have yielded no benefit yet.”

Today, the Iraq government has officially stated that concerns about a possible collapse are misplaced and that the dam is constantly monitored. Ongoing actions include reducing the amount of water in the reservoir and pumping grout into the foundation (a liquefied mixture of cement and other additives). Work is meant to begin next year on wrapping the foundations in concrete to make them more secure.

Obviously, a catastrophic dam collapse is the last thing Iraq needs. Hopefully, the dam will hold until a sensible refit can be carried out, and it will not find any wayward coalition munitions or insurgent bombs helping it towards disintegration.

‘Enduring Freedom’ and Afghanistan

Last night, I got into a brief conversation about the Taliban. It reminded me of a statement quoted at a Strategic Studies Group meeting I attended in Oxford:

People are being very careful not to be against the Taliban and ‘keep the balance’ so that they will not be punished for helping foreigners when the Taliban return.

-Police commander, Kandahar

This idea raises an important question about longevity. If the Taliban can outlast any deployment NATO will be able to maintain, it becomes essential to produce a government that will be able to hold its own against them in the long term. Otherwise, we are just delaying the transition back to Taliban rule. While I am definitely not an expert on the military or political situation in Afghanistan, it does not seem like the present Karzai government has that kind of capability, in the absence of direct military support from NATO.

The question thus becomes what, if anything, NATO can do to produce a (preferably democratic) Afghan government capable of enduring after their withdrawal. If that does not prove possible, the question becomes what we are hoping to achieve in Afghanistan, and whether any lasting good will result for the population as the result of the initial displacement of the Tabliban and the Al Qaeda elements they were supporting.

The foolishness of the International Space Station

On Tuesday, the space shuttle launched once again on a mission to add another piece to the International Space Station (ISS). As I have said before, it is a needlessly dangerous, unjustifiably expensive, and rather pointless venture. The science could be equally well done by robots, without risking human lives, and without spending about $1.3 billion per launch (plus emitting all the greenhouse gasses from the solid rocket boosters and related activities).

More and more, the ISS looks like a hopeless boondoggle. The lifetime cost is being estimated at $130 billion, all to serve a self-fulfilling mandate: we need to put people into space to scientifically assess what happens when we put people into space. Furthermore, the window between the completion of the ISS in about 2012 and the potential abandonment of the station as soon as 2016 is quite narrow. Robert Park may have summed up the whole enterprise best when he remarked that:

“NASA must complete the ISS so it can be dropped into the ocean on schedule in finished form.”

Normally, I am a big supporter of science. I think funding the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor and Large Hadron Collider is wise; these machines will perform valuable scientific research. Likewise, I support the robotic work NASA does – especially when it comes to scientists looking down on Earth from orbit and providing valuable research and services. I support the James Webb telescope. I also support the idea that NASA should have some decent plans for dealing with an anticipated asteroid or comet impact. The ISS, by contrast, is a combination between technical fascination lacking strategic purpose and pointless subsidies to aerospace contractors.

Of course, the Bush plan to send people to Mars is an even worse idea with higher costs, more risk, and even less value.