No. Not those pesky and ubiquitous roadside bombs, not even the upscale models now being imported by Taliban in Afghanistan from those friendly mullahs across the border in Iran. No. Not the personal type of bomb so beloved by wannabe seekers after martyrdom.
The bomb(s) in question are those of a nuclear nature. It seems the latest growth industry in such stable, peace loving countries as North Korea and Pakistan is making more plutonium and, in the fullness of time, more fission or (drum roll) fusion weapons.
The situation in North Korea is somewhat ambiguous as is to be expected, but there are rather alarming indications that the Hermit Kingdom of the North is either cranking up the supposedly decommissioned plutonium production reactor at Yongbyon or is taking another pass at reprocessing the spent fuel rods so as to extract more plutonium. The South Koreans, who have both a tendency to get nervous and a set of good reasons for doing so, also believe the Northerners are enriching more uranium.
Recent satellite imagery shows construction work in progress near the foundations of the cooling tower destroyed by the North three years ago as part of the now moribund denuclearization process. The indications are minor and give no hint as to what is--or is going to be--constructed. There is even the possibility that the Northerners, knowing that the site is constantly monitored by both national and commercial imaging satellites, are engaged in a bit of creative chain rattling.
However, the impending transition of power from Dear Leader to his Number Three Son brings a number of imponderables into play. These include necessary genuflections before the hardest of the military hardliners or counters to the new, improved South Korean psyops program, which can be commenced at any moment for any reason. Or, it may simply be one more of those, take-us-seriously-damnit! gestures of which Pyongyang is so fond.
The capacity for Pyongyang to make mischief cannot be overstated and must not be underestimated. The impending succession does nothing to lessen either the intentional making of mischief or the potential for miscalculation. While the North may only have sufficient plutonium for a half dozen bombs, the amount of highly enriched uranium cannot be estimated with rigor. It is within the realm of conservative plausibility to estimate the Hermits have sufficient fissile material to double the number of potential warheads on the shelf. In addition, the fact that the North does not yet have warheads small enough to mate with their current stock of missiles in no way lessens the degree of threat.
Pending miniaturization--an accomplishment not likely to be in the distant offing--the North can wreak a sufficient degree of havoc simply by getting one or two truck borne devices across the DMZ. Even a couple of small (Hiroshima sized) nudets in or near the Seoul metroplex would all but fatally cripple South Korea. In short, the war could be over almost before anyone knows it had begun.
In this context it might be recalled that the Northerners are the tunnel rats from hell. Their subterranean earth moving skills have provided a number of tunnels easily capable of passing five ton trucks under the Z. Sure, the North would (to quote a line in Dr Strangelove) "get their hair mussed," but the costs to the South would be much greater, potentially quite unbearable.
That's enough for one depressing subject. Time to go to the next, even more depressing one.
Pakistan. That's right, our "ally" and "close friend," the always stable, ever reliable, constantly honest, and aboveboard "partner" in the Grand Campaign Against Violent Political Islam.
The context first. Pakistan is broke. It depends upon the success of its extortion program to keep the international (primarily US) money flowing. The floods have made the basket case even more supine. The army is allegedly engaged in both flood relief and fighting the Taliban in the FATA while actually standing ever vigilant on the Indian border facing a threat which will not come--no matter how much Islamabad may wish otherwise. The government is an excellent definition of the term, "non functional." At the same time the perceived existential and functional legitimacy of the government has sunk to levels which make President Obama's approval ratings seem stratospheric in comparison.
With this as background consider that Pakistan is plunging on at flank speed in the construction of a third reactor in its Kushab plutonium production facility. Satellite imagery shows that the second reactor has been finished, tested, and may be in full scale production while the construction work on the third unit is proceeding at a rate faster than that of the second.
The Kushab complex exists for one primary purpose, the production of plutonium. Plutonium for weapons. The increase in production indicates that Pakistan is pushing for a thermonuclear capability as well as boosting the number of deployable weapons. As the details of the reactor as well as its predecessors are not available in the open literature, the secondary purposes of the reactors cannot be determined. However, it is fair to assume that at least one of the reactors is configured for the production of tritium, the form of hydrogen central to initiating fusion reactions.
There is undoubtedly a direct linkage between the forced draft expansion of the Kushab complex and the Pakistani resistance to the fissile materials limitation treaty which has been languishing for years now. This makes the unopposed election of Pakistan to chair the IAEA all the more ironic.
Pakistan is not only a member of the nuclear club, it is a particularly ambitious one. The Islamabad government and the army both justify the investment in nuclear weapons production as defensive, a necessary deterrent to any Indian employment of its arsenal.
That position is, to be polite, a mess of caca. Pakistan already has a sufficient number of weapons to serve as a credible finite deterrent. Considering the distances involved and the flight time of either missiles or manned aircraft, the Pakistanis must use a launch-under-warning approach. This doctrine is most effective if the targeting philosophy is counter-value not counter-force.
Given the size of India and, thus, the number of alternative launch points as well as the near term potential of an Indian submarine launched cruise missile capacity, the notion of counter-force targeting in a second strike configuration makes no sense. Only a form of mutually-assured-destruction predicated on counter-value targeting operates as a sufficient deterrent.
For this approach there is neither need nor justification for a large number of warheads and launchers. A modest--less than one hundred deliverable warheads--is sufficient. The enormous expense of expanding the Kushab complex cannot be justified on legitimate defense needs. Complicating the situation for the government is that the expansion of the physical plant and concomitant work force enhances the problems of security. The same applies to any proliferation of warheads or fissile materials stockpiles.
Other than a sort of military elephantiasis, there is no excuse for what the Pakistanis are doing at Kushab. There is certainly no rational explanation. But, considering the propensity for the grandiose often exhibited by Pakistani senior military personnel, the elephantiasis diagnosis may be correct.
The US has cause for enhanced anxiety with the expansion of Kushab. The civilian government of Pakistan is, to be kind, not overly stable. The military forces of Pakistan are riddled at all levels with adherents of violent political Islam. The strategic ambitions of members of the armed forces, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the bureaucracies are no less than grandiose as all hands focus with an irrational but deeply historically rooted hostility on India.
For the US and other civilized states, the problem of securing the Pakistani nuclear facilities, arsenal, and fissile stockpile are real and pressing. Bluntly, the possibility of violent political Islamists gaining a nuclear capability via Pakistan is greater than the nuclear threat presented by Iran.
Pakistani officials have proclaimed loud and long that their country is both stable and responsible. These protestations ring hollow when considered in conjunction with the irresponsible action of expanding the Kushab complex at a time of very real, very great national peril.
There is an upside to the Pakistani nuclear dilemma. The US and its Western European allies are not alone in this contretemps. The prevailing winds--both those geographic in nature and those of armed political Islam--assure that both Russia and China have a dog in the fight, whether they either recognize or like the idea. Any nudet in the sub-continent will have impact in both countries. Similarly, any access via Pakistan to nuclear materials or weapons by advocates of violent political Islam will have effects deleterious to both.
The takeaway? Simple. To date the nuclear club has been able to exercise self-control. Today, that reassuring state of affairs is under direct threat from both North Korea and Pakistan to a degree surpassing the danger represented by Iran. And, it is up to the initial members of the club to keep matters from getting worse.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment