Deterrence, Rationality, & Iran

Stories we're following today:

The Stakes? Well, Armageddon, for One - John Meacham of Newsweek [link]

• My colleague Fareed Zakaria argues that deterrence has worked since 1945, and he is right. But I have a more tragic view of things. The success of deterrence is dependent on rationality, and the more people with access to nuclear weapons increases the risk that irrationality will enter the equation. Which is a polite way of saying that human forces—pride, ambition, fanaticism—will always confound the most elegant of geopolitical calculations.

Obama's missile defense rethink: The Czech reaction - Blanka Hancilova and Daniel Bagge in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [link]

• Some Czech politicians welcomed President Obama's recent missile defense announcement; others compared it to the pre-World War II appeasement of Hitler at Munich. Yet, with two-thirds of Czechs against the system, its scrapping may have avoided public embarrassment since it wasn't guaranteed that Parliament would have ratified the necessary bilateral agreements.
• The longer-term implication is that Prague may move toward the European Union and NATO.

North Korea May Be Open to Talks - New York Times [link]

• The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, told the visiting prime minister of China that his government was ready to return to six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program if it sees progress in bilateral talks with the United States, state-run media in North Korea and China said Tuesday.

Poll Finds Iranians' Support for Nuclear Weapons Dropping - Heather Hurlburt in Democracy Arsenal [link]

• In an authoritarian country where penalties for dissent can be severe, two-thirds of respondents are now willing to tell a stranger over the phone that they'd give up nuclear weapons to get out from under sanctions. That says something important about Iranian society.

A View from the Dark Side 

America Vulnerable to Iranian Missile Attack - Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) [link]

• This begs the question why President Obama would scrap an already-in-place long-range missile defense program for one that only protects against short- and medium-range threats with a promise to “continue research” for a long-range system. These two plans are not mutually exclusive, and the U.S. and our allies deserve a plan that protects against all threats.
• In the realm of national security, perception is reality. There is no doubt we looked like we capitulated to Russia. We certainly let down our European allies, and for the moment, we are less protected against long-range missile threats.