What I’m getting at is that I feel it is just as dangerous for Pakistan to be so unstable as it would be for a highly duplictious China to gain control over another country’s nuclear arsenal.
Talk about “less bad choices”, both of these situations are incredibly screwed. Would you prefer that Pakistan hand over their nukes to China than for us to go in and take them ourselves (dismissing any other alternatives)?
I also have major problems with trying to prop up Mushareff’s regime if there is even the slightest danger of the fundamental Islamist forces in Pakistan getting their hands on the nukes. That would seem to be the absolute worst outcome imaginable.
China’s nuclear capacity already vastly exceeds Pakistan’s. My understanding, perhaps wrong as I am neither military nor sub-continent focused, is that they have theater weapons only, whereas China as at least some ICBM capacity. I welcome correction from those more learned in this area, but ultimately it doesn’t change China’s strategic weight. It’s not like a non-nuclear power would be getting them.
Off the top of my head, yes. Perhaps it’s only my ignorance in re China, however the seizure of Paki nukes strikes me as a worse option.
The US “going in” involves taking on the Paki military while simultaneously trying to maintain primary objective operations in Afghanistan and not having our other Muslim allies and at-least-not-enemies come crashing down in revolution.
I think that even the most unlearned observer can understand this would be a non-trivial problem. What if Pakistan launches before the matieral is neutralized? Or the entire menu of bad things that could happen to a US siezure.
China doesn’t gain much power through this, they’re not in the hands of ObL sympathizers, much less risky.
This ain’t new.
What choice do you think we have? After Musharraf, who? And at least Musharraf has a least some street cred as his own man. A US puppet? Oh that would be just too pretty. And where would such a person come from?
One has to grapple with the real choices.
This whole discussion has the air of, yes Dave got it right, a Tom Clancy novel. And a bad one at that.
I think Collunsbury covered this pretty well as it will not change China’s strategic nuclear capability. China is not a bad safeguard, and Pakistan would probably be more likely to turn them over to China than the US. Might even play better on the world stage than if the US sends in a team to take the nukes (although not some well domestically in the US). China’s been in the nuclear club for about 40 years with limited ICBM’s, so they’ve had plenty of opportunity to press the button with some very conservative leaders at the control, yet they didn’t. I don’t see how turning the nukes over to China would result in a worse situation. China also is a permanent member of the UN security council, and might even surprise the world by acting like one in such a case.
Also mentioned in an earlier post. Economics is the other big driver of international relations. Would India gain enough economically to invade and occupy Pakistan? I rather doubt it would be a good business decision.
I think Collunsbury covered this pretty well as it will not change China’s strategic nuclear capability. China is not a bad safeguard, and Pakistan would probably be more likely to turn them over to China than the US. Might even play better on the global stage than if the US sends in a team to take the nukes (although that might go down poorly on the US domestic political scene). China’s been in the nuclear club for about 40 years with limited ICBM’s, so they’ve had plenty of opportunity to press the button with some very conservative leaders at the control, yet they didn’t and the current crop of leaders are comparatively reasonable. I don’t see how turning the nukes over to China would result in a worse situation. China also is a permanent member of the UN security council, and might even surprise the world by acting like one in such a case.
Also mentioned in an earlier post. Economics is the other big driver of international relations. Would India gain enough economically to invade and occupy Pakistan? I rather doubt it would be a good business decision.