[anvandare]

I think we are well past the point where belief in a rules-based world order turns from optimism to delusion. Entrench yourself behind entire libraries of law books if you wish, it only makes for spectacular kindling.

To paraphrase Thucydides: the nuclear capable countries do what they want, and the non-nuclear countries suffer what they must.

[credit_guy]

It's not quite that easy to flaunt the NPT. If it were, we'd have 50 nuclear nations by now, if not more. The idea of the NPT is that you are given access to peaceful nuclear technology in exchange for accepting inspections by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). The IAEA inspectors are quite smart, it's not easy to start purifying plutonium out of spent fuel without them noticing. Plutonium is a super-nasty substance to work with, and that's when it's pure. Spent fuel is orders of magnitude nastier, if you plan to do chemical reactions with it. You can't just hide a plutonium purification facility in a janitor's room somewhere. Now getting from zero experience with plutonium to the ability to do a dash for a bomb, that's a huge leap. It is not impossible. In the nuclear proliferation literature there is the concept of "sheltered pursuit". One of the nuclear powers is basically allowing you to disregard the NPT, and pursue nuclear weapons. But guess what? Most nuclear powers are happy to let the nuclear club remain small.

In the particular case of Taiwan, how would sheltered pursuit look like? The US would allow Taiwan to seek nuclear capability. But China would certainly see this as a reason to strike. I think a lot of the world would understand and accept a Chinese preemptive strike if China could show evidence that Taiwan was trying to acquire nukes, and the IAEA concurred.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

>The US would allow Taiwan to seek nuclear capability. But China would certainly see this as a reason to strike.

China already sees a reason to strike. Right now, it's about whether Taiwan has a deterrent to them doing so.

>In the nuclear proliferation literature there is the concept of "sheltered pursuit". One of the nuclear powers is basically allowing you to disregard the NPT, and pursue nuclear weapons.

Or you develop everything but the core, some safe design that needs no testing (Trinity worked correctly on the first try, obviously. Something that needs a small core, minimum plut. This can be done in a way (and quickly enough) that you can hope to keep it secret from espionage.

Then you just make sure you have enough spent fuel that when you're ready for that part, you can get 3+ cores' worth in a hurry. Yes, the inspectors will catch on, but not before everything's done. Then you tell the inspectors to fuck off. Crisis averted.

>I think a lot of the world would understand and accept a Chinese preemptive strike if China could show evidence that Taiwan was trying to acquire nukes,

Personally, I think it's a shame that Ukraine didn't trade a couple dozen to Taiwan back in the 90s, in exchange for help rejiggering the electronics on their own nukes. Both nations could have walked away with a couple dozen, and the world would be far more peaceful today.

[throwaway198846]

> the nuclear capable countries do what they want, and the non-nuclear countries suffer what they must.

This isn't ironclad as some people believe. There were multiple attacks on nuclear nations from non-nuclear in the last 2 years.