(Listen to the podcast here.)

One of the most insidious things about the India nuclear deal (which The New Republic has opposed for these reasons) is that its value derives from us breaking the principles of the nonproliferation regime.

That's because so much of the deal's value is psychological. Its architects have sold it as a paradigm-shifting gateway to a new strategic relationship, in which India will finally join the family of Westernized, Democratic great powers and ally with the United States.

But how, one might ask, is a simple technology-sharing deal supposed to accomplish all this? Unless there's a fundamental change in their own interests, India's strategic goals will remain largely the same: They will not start containing China simply because they're using GE reactor parts; nor will they suddenly halt cooperation with Iran. And the development benefits of nuclear power are small, hype notwithstanding--they can't possibly reorient India on their own.

No, the only paradigm-shifting aspect of the deal is related to India's belief that the Nonproliferation Treaty is a form of "nuclear apartheid," which has kept India a second-class citizen in a world of nuclear great powers. In that view, the United States is breaking the chains of bondage that have held India down for decades. As a Council on Foreign Relations primer puts it, the deal would "gut" the NPT--dismantling a system that India finds fundamentally unfair and granting it recognition it has always felt it deserves.

Any U.S.-India "alliance" would be built on this interaction--and, as such, undoing America's commitment to the nonproliferation regime is the essence of the India deal, rather than an incidental result of it.

Update: See more bad things about the India deal here.

--Barron YoungSmith

The Democrats & National Security

By Samantha Power

Us vs. Them: How a Half Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America’s Security
by J. Peter Scoblic
Viking, 350 pp., $25.95

Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats
by Matthew Yglesias
Wiley, 251 pp., $25.95

1.

Since the Vietnam War the Republican Party has developed a reputation for having a superior approach to national security. Americans have long trusted the views of Democrats on the environment, the economy, education, and health care, but national security is the one matter about which Republicans have maintained what political scientists call "issue ownership."

Partly, this is for particular historical reasons. President Eisenhower initiated US involvement in Vietnam, and President Nixon escalated the war in 1969 and kept US troops on the ground in a manifestly unwinnable mission until 1975. But John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were tagged as the primary culprits. President Carter was widely seen as having bungled the Iran hostage rescue mission and having responded ineffectually to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Although he substantially increased US military spending, he was never forgiven for his claim that Americans had "an inordinate fear of communism."

Continue reading "New York Review Of Books: Samantha Power Reviews "U.S. vs. Them"" »

North Korea just blew up the cooling tower on its own Yongbyon reactor, as part of an ongoing dismantlement deal with the United States. This is a momentous step because it's largely irreversible: North Korea will never again be able to kick out inspectors and start reprocessing plutonium in a matter of days, as it did in 2003.

Of course, we don't know if Kim's decision was affected by the fact he now has a nuclear arsenal. North Korea may very well renounce its nuclear program, but keep the 8-15 bombs it produced during George Bush's "I'm not talking to you" phase (cir. 2001-2006).

By pursuing that ridiculous policy, George W. Bush may have perversely increased America's long-run incentive to prop up the North Korean regime--since now, a coup or political meltdown would run the risk of putting those nukes in the hands of terrorists.

--Barron YoungSmith

“Moral Clarity,” Ideological Rigidity, Strategic Myopia
by Paul Boyer (Link.)

Before I retired as a university professor, I would mentally calculate as each term began what public events that year’s freshmen were likely to remember. For today’s freshmen, born around 1990, the earliest such memory might well be Bill Clinton’s impeachment. As for national security issues, even the rare freshman attentive to such matters would be aware of little before the current Bush administration.

Continue reading "'U.S. vs. Them' Reviewed in Arms Control Today" »

Check out this audio book talk about U.S. vs. Them, featuring Peter Scoblic, the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, and a cameo by John B. Judis.

Via Ben, Great news for Obama in the form of this Gallup poll:

Large majorities of Democrats and independents, and even half of Republicans, believe the president of the United States should meet with the leaders of countries that are considered enemies of the United States. Overall, 67% of Americans say this kind of diplomacy is a good idea....

Continue reading "Poll Supports Obama's Diplomacy" »