Original Post
[TDC] Nuclear Prohibition?
Housekeeping:
This thread is a part of an initiative by the Toribash Debate Club [TDC] to add fuel to the Discussion board. The TDC aims to educate the masses about the big current events. To boost activity and spread awareness of the TDC, once a week we’ll be posting a topic in the Discussion board, open to everybody for discussion.
As this is a TDC initiative, you are not permitted to insult, ridicule or demean anyone in this thread. Treat other posters with respect. There’s a different, less vicious spirit to TDC threads compared to regular Discussion threads. This said, let’s move on to the topic at hand.
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Nuclear Prohibition?
Recently, there’s been a series of talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers regarding Iranian nuclear ambitions. Iran wants the economic sanctions (imposed for not suspending their nuclear enrichment activities) against them eased and the P5+1 powers want to restrict their enrichment capabilities to ensure that the Iranians are pursuing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes only.
The Obama administration has taken a different tact on Iran with respect to their nuclear program, a good first step at trying something new, since everything else didnt work. You can’t get a 3D understanding of this issue without exploring the history of nuclear non-proliferation.
45 years ago, the countries who had nuclear weapons decided that everybody else can’t have them and they formed an exclusive old boys’ club (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). Everybody else was barred from entering, If you try to get nuclear weapons, then you’d be the new enemy No.1 (this is where Iran was/is). BUT, if you did manage to get them, though, that’s a different story. Rather than being a scrawny kid that could be pushed around, you’d be as buff as anyone else in the playground. What’s the reason why we can stomp all through Iraq, yet can’t set a foot in Russia - Russia have nuclear weapons. When you have nuclear weapons, you become invasion-proof. We incentivise countries that don’t want to be invaded to get this stuff, yet we do everything in our power to paint you as a rogue regime if you try. This naturally creates an unfriendly dynamic between us and whoever the new ‘nuclear kid’ on the block is.
The failure of the NNPT is due to the fact that it’s unenforceable. Keeping nuclear weapons out of states that want them is virtually impossible. Pakistan has them through North Korea. Israel is believed to have hundreds. Any state with the capability to produce nuclear energy can make them/trade them, and any state has the right to produce nuclear energy under one of the ‘three-pillars’ of the NNPT; ‘the right to peacefully use nuclear technology’. We worry about the weapons getting into the hands of the wrong people but the black market already has them. The NNPT is a failure and not pulling the plug on it is only damaging our international relations further.
We want Iran onto our side. Having them, the principal Shiite nation, on our side would be a game-changer. The focus on keeping them from acquiring weapons, depicting their success as tantamount to something like the end of the world, is a force that keeps things the way it is.
Iran is our natural ally in the Middle East. They are a young people, with Western sympathies, that like what the West has to offer and like the idea of more freedoms. When we look at Ahmadinejad, the guy that used to lead Iran before Rouhani, he didn’t look like a guy that we wanted in charge, but if you look at the Iranians themselves, they didn’t like him much either. He’s had to remove secular candidates from elections to prevent the young pro-West populace from voting them in, and he was constantly on the other side of efforts by the people to seek more freedoms. Now Iran has a far more moderate leader, Rouhani, who’s more in tune with the people and looking to improve relations with the West.
“If the Iranian’s are our friends then how come they’ve hated us?” Their rage is very justified. In 1953, because of oil (what else?), we overthrew Iran’s democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh and placed a guy subservient to Western interest named the ‘Shah’ in power. Long story short, the Shah led a very brutal, very oppresive regime. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when Khomeini revealed the Shah’s torture rooms and the extent of the atrocities of the regime, widespread national outrage and hatred towards Americans really exploded. From this, you get the creation of the ‘Death to America’ chant and the succeeding Iran hostage crisis. Since then, the Iranian govts. still haven’t really cooled down about all that - but the new generation of Iranians, a generation that doesn’t remember the Shah as much, is more inclined towards positive change.
There’s an old saying in power politics that goes, ‘The strong do what they want, and the weak suffer what they must’. Iran has pretty much been the dominant power in the Middle East since 2200BC. The Iranians are proud of this fact. The existence of this ‘nuclear old boys club’ and our treating them like some lesser, 3rd world nation is insulting and makes enemies from people who should be friends. The way you create friends is by being friendly. Hopefully, these talks are a step in this direction.
If you want to defuse the danger of Iranian WMDs, the best way to do that is to transform them into the kind of country that we wouldn’t fear having nuclear weapons.
tl;dr, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty doesn't work, and continuing to enforce it only worsens diplomacy and relations.
So, what’s everyone's thoughts on the issue - i.e. Iran specifically, nuclear non-proliferation more broadly?
This thread is a part of an initiative by the Toribash Debate Club [TDC] to add fuel to the Discussion board. The TDC aims to educate the masses about the big current events. To boost activity and spread awareness of the TDC, once a week we’ll be posting a topic in the Discussion board, open to everybody for discussion.
As this is a TDC initiative, you are not permitted to insult, ridicule or demean anyone in this thread. Treat other posters with respect. There’s a different, less vicious spirit to TDC threads compared to regular Discussion threads. This said, let’s move on to the topic at hand.
--------------------------------------------------
Nuclear Prohibition?
Recently, there’s been a series of talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers regarding Iranian nuclear ambitions. Iran wants the economic sanctions (imposed for not suspending their nuclear enrichment activities) against them eased and the P5+1 powers want to restrict their enrichment capabilities to ensure that the Iranians are pursuing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes only.
The Obama administration has taken a different tact on Iran with respect to their nuclear program, a good first step at trying something new, since everything else didnt work. You can’t get a 3D understanding of this issue without exploring the history of nuclear non-proliferation.
45 years ago, the countries who had nuclear weapons decided that everybody else can’t have them and they formed an exclusive old boys’ club (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). Everybody else was barred from entering, If you try to get nuclear weapons, then you’d be the new enemy No.1 (this is where Iran was/is). BUT, if you did manage to get them, though, that’s a different story. Rather than being a scrawny kid that could be pushed around, you’d be as buff as anyone else in the playground. What’s the reason why we can stomp all through Iraq, yet can’t set a foot in Russia - Russia have nuclear weapons. When you have nuclear weapons, you become invasion-proof. We incentivise countries that don’t want to be invaded to get this stuff, yet we do everything in our power to paint you as a rogue regime if you try. This naturally creates an unfriendly dynamic between us and whoever the new ‘nuclear kid’ on the block is.
The failure of the NNPT is due to the fact that it’s unenforceable. Keeping nuclear weapons out of states that want them is virtually impossible. Pakistan has them through North Korea. Israel is believed to have hundreds. Any state with the capability to produce nuclear energy can make them/trade them, and any state has the right to produce nuclear energy under one of the ‘three-pillars’ of the NNPT; ‘the right to peacefully use nuclear technology’. We worry about the weapons getting into the hands of the wrong people but the black market already has them. The NNPT is a failure and not pulling the plug on it is only damaging our international relations further.
We want Iran onto our side. Having them, the principal Shiite nation, on our side would be a game-changer. The focus on keeping them from acquiring weapons, depicting their success as tantamount to something like the end of the world, is a force that keeps things the way it is.
Iran is our natural ally in the Middle East. They are a young people, with Western sympathies, that like what the West has to offer and like the idea of more freedoms. When we look at Ahmadinejad, the guy that used to lead Iran before Rouhani, he didn’t look like a guy that we wanted in charge, but if you look at the Iranians themselves, they didn’t like him much either. He’s had to remove secular candidates from elections to prevent the young pro-West populace from voting them in, and he was constantly on the other side of efforts by the people to seek more freedoms. Now Iran has a far more moderate leader, Rouhani, who’s more in tune with the people and looking to improve relations with the West.
“If the Iranian’s are our friends then how come they’ve hated us?” Their rage is very justified. In 1953, because of oil (what else?), we overthrew Iran’s democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh and placed a guy subservient to Western interest named the ‘Shah’ in power. Long story short, the Shah led a very brutal, very oppresive regime. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when Khomeini revealed the Shah’s torture rooms and the extent of the atrocities of the regime, widespread national outrage and hatred towards Americans really exploded. From this, you get the creation of the ‘Death to America’ chant and the succeeding Iran hostage crisis. Since then, the Iranian govts. still haven’t really cooled down about all that - but the new generation of Iranians, a generation that doesn’t remember the Shah as much, is more inclined towards positive change.
There’s an old saying in power politics that goes, ‘The strong do what they want, and the weak suffer what they must’. Iran has pretty much been the dominant power in the Middle East since 2200BC. The Iranians are proud of this fact. The existence of this ‘nuclear old boys club’ and our treating them like some lesser, 3rd world nation is insulting and makes enemies from people who should be friends. The way you create friends is by being friendly. Hopefully, these talks are a step in this direction.
If you want to defuse the danger of Iranian WMDs, the best way to do that is to transform them into the kind of country that we wouldn’t fear having nuclear weapons.
tl;dr, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty doesn't work, and continuing to enforce it only worsens diplomacy and relations.
So, what’s everyone's thoughts on the issue - i.e. Iran specifically, nuclear non-proliferation more broadly?
Last edited by TDCadmin; Feb 22, 2015 at 02:53 AM.
The NNPT itself isn't a bad concept. Give the members Terms and Conditions to sign without reading, and then try to keep nuclear weapons capabilities out of the hands of the bad guys. Its falling out though, is that either no one can agree on who the bad guys are, or they label everyone as bad guys as soon as they try to get the same sort of defense as the main powers. Iran suffers from the second issue, mainly due to its checkered past. Once the center of the Persian Empire, it controlled lands stretching across what is now Greece, Egypt and east India, rivalling the expanse of the Ottoman Empire at its height. However, as each leader replaced the last, the empire shrank, with various wars chipping away at their territory until the empire was officially retired in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution, and any remaining territory was either split into individual countries or allocated to existing neighbors. Because Iran held much of the Middle East for so long, many countries have either shunned or are hostile towards Iran. Fortunately for Iran, many of these countries are also hostile towards the US, creating an 'enemy of my enemy' relationship.
The US however, refuses to let Iran have nuclear weapons capabilities because there are still large amounts of troops stationed in the Middle East that their conventional weapons systems can reach. As far as I can tell, Iran is just ahead of North Korea in terms of technology advances, and as a result, they are making fast progress to being able to reach US borders with conventional weapons systems. This is scaring the US because of Iran's shady terrorist dealings. And that 'death to America' chant isn't helping. As TDCadmin(Ele) said, that is mostly due to the older population remembering the injustices of the US and wanting them gone.
Fortunately, there is that younger population that doesn't remember/is willing to forgive the US. Because of this, my thoughts are that we should do what we can in terms of keeping Iran from having nuclear capabilities while simultaneously repairing relations until the majority of the old beareaucrats have retired from the system and past prejudices won't have an effect on foreign relations. After that time (~20-30yrs) has passed, then serious talks about reforming Iran and making them friendly can begin.
The US however, refuses to let Iran have nuclear weapons capabilities because there are still large amounts of troops stationed in the Middle East that their conventional weapons systems can reach. As far as I can tell, Iran is just ahead of North Korea in terms of technology advances, and as a result, they are making fast progress to being able to reach US borders with conventional weapons systems. This is scaring the US because of Iran's shady terrorist dealings. And that 'death to America' chant isn't helping. As TDCadmin(Ele) said, that is mostly due to the older population remembering the injustices of the US and wanting them gone.
Fortunately, there is that younger population that doesn't remember/is willing to forgive the US. Because of this, my thoughts are that we should do what we can in terms of keeping Iran from having nuclear capabilities while simultaneously repairing relations until the majority of the old beareaucrats have retired from the system and past prejudices won't have an effect on foreign relations. After that time (~20-30yrs) has passed, then serious talks about reforming Iran and making them friendly can begin.
All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’'s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.
The NNPT is a joke. Preaching nuclear disarmament whilst increasing nuclear weapon reserves is hypocrisy at it's finest. No wonder India/Israel/Iran can't take it seriously.
Nuclear armament is part of the broader issue of state military. Optimally, hostile countries would not have any military.
The solution is simple, turn over all military to the authority of the UN (or some other organization), allow self defense (and yes, that means Russia can keep it's defensive nukes) but completely restrict all aggressive actions under the requirement of a UN vote.
Then all you have to do is force everyone to join.
Nuclear armament is part of the broader issue of state military. Optimally, hostile countries would not have any military.
The solution is simple, turn over all military to the authority of the UN (or some other organization), allow self defense (and yes, that means Russia can keep it's defensive nukes) but completely restrict all aggressive actions under the requirement of a UN vote.
Then all you have to do is force everyone to join.
<Faint> the rules have been stated quite clearly 3 times now from high staff
My reply to ImmortalNot only do you have to force everybody to join, you also have to make sure they don't back stab you once they join meaning you have to further worsen relationships between countries by marching your armies through them. Immortal, the problem is, by restricting all aggressive actions(If your plan could even manage to get that far) is that the countries want their own freedom to do whatever they want. It's the reason they want countries. Your practically making your own revolution within 10 years of the plan initiating. Plus, to force all the armies into UN control means World War III since people will fight for the freedom.
The best thing to do at this point is to prepare for nuclear warfare by making defense interceptors and nuclear bunkers. It's way to late to stop nuclear warfare. If The U.S.A wants to go to war over nuclear weapons, go ahead but at least have some sort of way to save your civilians other than evacuations.
Nuclear things in general are bad when they break down. Like the Fukushima plant breakdown. It pretty much destroyed regular life there for millions of years. You can see why the U.S gets spooked at this kind of stuff. However, by going to war, they make things 10 times worse. If they had became a huge threat, then the UN could take serious action but the U.S.A had stepped in too early. What the U.S. should be doing is building there economy or helping Ukraine in their war against Russia. To be honest, I think the whole reason Russia went to war was because The U.S was distracted.
If you don't get my point, I'm saying if the U.S.A would stop stepping into other people's overall advancement, then the NNPT wouldn't have actually be needed. The U.S.A is constantly digging their own grave because they keep creating these stupid wars against people just trying to improve their own country. At the rate this war is going, it'll be never ending. Think about it. Let's say there was a man fighting for Iran. He had two sons. He dies and the two sons want revenge. They have children when they grow older and join the army. They die and then the sons want revenge and the cycle repeats itself over and over and over again. The real problem is the U.S and the government(which as you should know is essentially locked in it's current state since the democrats have the presidency and I believe the senate but the Republicans have have the House of Representatives) and the NNPT, not Iran trying to advance as a country.
Sincerely,
Qukslice I'm pretty sure this is the most confusing thing i've ever written in my life.
The best thing to do at this point is to prepare for nuclear warfare by making defense interceptors and nuclear bunkers. It's way to late to stop nuclear warfare. If The U.S.A wants to go to war over nuclear weapons, go ahead but at least have some sort of way to save your civilians other than evacuations.
Nuclear things in general are bad when they break down. Like the Fukushima plant breakdown. It pretty much destroyed regular life there for millions of years. You can see why the U.S gets spooked at this kind of stuff. However, by going to war, they make things 10 times worse. If they had became a huge threat, then the UN could take serious action but the U.S.A had stepped in too early. What the U.S. should be doing is building there economy or helping Ukraine in their war against Russia. To be honest, I think the whole reason Russia went to war was because The U.S was distracted.
If you don't get my point, I'm saying if the U.S.A would stop stepping into other people's overall advancement, then the NNPT wouldn't have actually be needed. The U.S.A is constantly digging their own grave because they keep creating these stupid wars against people just trying to improve their own country. At the rate this war is going, it'll be never ending. Think about it. Let's say there was a man fighting for Iran. He had two sons. He dies and the two sons want revenge. They have children when they grow older and join the army. They die and then the sons want revenge and the cycle repeats itself over and over and over again. The real problem is the U.S and the government(which as you should know is essentially locked in it's current state since the democrats have the presidency and I believe the senate but the Republicans have have the House of Representatives) and the NNPT, not Iran trying to advance as a country.
Sincerely,
Qukslice I'm pretty sure this is the most confusing thing i've ever written in my life.
"Who wouldn't pass up gay sex with Bercat?"
"Day is probably masturbating to Osu"- Hydra 2k15
"Day is probably masturbating to Osu"- Hydra 2k15
People will fight for the right to wage wars of aggression? It's already an international crime. They already don't have the right to aggression.
The twofold plan of banning wars of aggression and giving control of non-defensive nuclear weapons to the UN means that all UN member states are essentially uninvadable and they themselves are not allowed to invade.
Fukushima is an interesting case, people think the area is totally unlivable, but the radiation levels aren't much above normal (you get more from flying in a plane than from living in the Fukushima exclusion zone). Any source of radiation that takes a long time to decay will obviously not be very radioactive, so fukushima is practically safe. People just have a huge fear of radiation because they don't understand it.
The twofold plan of banning wars of aggression and giving control of non-defensive nuclear weapons to the UN means that all UN member states are essentially uninvadable and they themselves are not allowed to invade.
Fukushima is an interesting case, people think the area is totally unlivable, but the radiation levels aren't much above normal (you get more from flying in a plane than from living in the Fukushima exclusion zone). Any source of radiation that takes a long time to decay will obviously not be very radioactive, so fukushima is practically safe. People just have a huge fear of radiation because they don't understand it.
<Faint> the rules have been stated quite clearly 3 times now from high staff
