Dr. Strangelove
(Or, How George Bush Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb)
It’s natural to steal from Kubrick under the circumstances. Nobody knows what North Korea wants – because they have no reason other pure madness to want nuclear weapons – but it’s worrying that the present U.S. administration appears so intent on actually using the bomb, let alone developing new ones. So when that death’s head Condoleezza Rice starts emphasizing America’s “significant . . . deterrent capability” against North Korea, my trained duck-and-cover response starts to kick in. Never, throughout the Cold War, was I convinced that Russia would fling its ICBM’s at the U.S., or that we would initiate a nuclear war ourselves. The North Koreans, however, present a much different problem. They’re not capable of the levels achieved by the USSR and the US – mutually assured destruction – so while they now may have a nuclear warhead missile with some frightening reach, I’d be more worried for the South Koreans and the Japanese than for California. It’s clear, however, that deterrence isn’t a factor (or it should be clear to someone with Rice’s touted qualifications). If Kim Jong Il drops one, with such a significant number of our troops tied up in Iraq, I have little doubt that Bush wouldn’t hesitate to respond in kind and in greater quantity. North Korea needs to be de-escalated as a nuclear threat, but there must be better options than we’re hearing from Rice and Bush and Co. beyond how many people get to sit at the negotiating table or how many bombs we can drop.