Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

I’ve been following what’s going on in Lebanon at a few places, notably Michael Totten along with Google News.  What I find interesting about this situation is less the geopolitical effects of Hezbollah successfully making their point regarding their strength in relation to the strength of the Lebanese government - this is neither the first, nor, I am sure, will it be the last time that Lebanon is completely and totally screwed - but how a situation like this might be handled in our own society.

Many hard-core Libertarians and gun rights advocates will be more than happy to tell you that, yes, indeed, American citizens have the right to purchase any weapon they want (nuclear, biological, whatever), a right that’s protected by the 2nd Amendment.  According to this argument, the 2nd amendment isn’t about maintaining a militia, recreational hunting, or anything of that sort - it’s about providing people with the means they need to defend themselves against an unjust government.  To a point, I agree with this - I believe that American citizens have the right to self-defense, albeit not necessarily the right to mutually assured destruction (guns=okay, nuclear/biological/missile weapons=nyet).  It’s true that, with our military’s current hardware, it would be nearly impossible to fight it without using something more powerful than an automatic rifle, but, at the same time, I’m not exactly comfortable with the idea of my neighbor being able to wipe out an entire neighborhood with a careless push of a button.  The government is at least halfway accountable; my neighbor isn’t.  Besides, if our government was truly that unjust, I doubt it would matter what the 2nd Amendment said or what is considered an acceptable exercise of that right; the government would undoubtedly pretend it didn’t exist and the people would hopefully drive home the point that they have other ideas.

That said, think about Lebanon in this context.  It is living the Libertarian gun control dream - non-government agents have the right (whether de facto or de jure) to whatever weapons they can afford, and they’re using them against, for various reasons, they believe to be an unjust government.  Granted, “unjust” in this instance relates to “not letting us kill the Jews and turn Lebanon into an Iranian-Syrian proxy state”, but the point still stands - Hezbollah is, for better or worse, exercising its right to bear arms quite effectively against the Lebanese government.

Here’s the question, then:  How do we balance our right to bear arms with the right to not have an exceedingly well armed minority effectively take over our country against the consent of the majority?

There are a number of possible answers to this question, of course:

1. Arm the majority.  Sounds great on paper until you’re dealing with a minority, like Hezbollah or the old CSA, that thinks they have a realistic chance of attaining their goals through force of arms.  Generally speaking, any solution where plan A is “Wait for the country to devolve into civil war and hope everybody’s ready” is not a viable solution.
2. Seize the guns!  Sounds great on paper until you remember that Hezbollah isn’t supposed to have any of the weapons it has.  They’re a very nice and powerful example illustrating the fact that a government can ban whatever it wants, but there always people willing to break the law.
3. Realize it’s not a policy problem, it’s a philosophy problem.

What many people forget is that our rights are predicated on a single assumption - that a vast majority of American citizens will all share some basic common values (liberty and justice for all), and the rest will either learn to deal with that or leave.  If that ever fails, it won’t matter what’s on paper - if a large, well-armed political minority chooses to seize control of the government through force of arms, we’re not going to handle it much better than Lebanon.  The best we could do is hope our opponents haven’t completely corrupted the military and make a go of it.  That said, because the vast majority of our citizens believe in the basic principles on which the United States is founded (or, at least, enough of the basic principles to get along - one nation under God or otherwise), it will hopefully be a long, long time before we even have to think seriously about something like this happening to us.

It’s not very often that someone not named Rachel Lucas links to me, and even rarer still when I disagree with that somebody, but here it is… courtesy of Gary Micander:

There has been an uproar lately about Hillary’s comments regarding Iran, and her promise to “obliterate” them if they were to attack Israel. At face value that comment makes me really mad. The idea that we, as United States Citizens, feel the need to preemptively destroy things that are not currently direct threats to us is ridiculous. I’m not advocating that we wait until the nuke has been launched to do something either. I’m just saying that in and of itself, Iran attacking Israel does not directly threaten us. It does not give us the right to “obliterate” a country because they have attacked another country and thus proven they have the ability.

What he misses is this:

CHRIS CUOMO: You said if Iran were to strike Israel, there would be ‘massive retaliation.” Scary words. Does ‘massive retaliation” mean you’d go into Iran? You would bomb Iran? Is that what that’s supposed to suggest?

CLINTON: Well, the question was, if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be? And I want the Iranians to know that if I am president, we will attack Iran. And I want them to understand that. Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society. Because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that. Because that, perhaps, will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic.

Here’s the deal - there’s a big difference between Iran attacking Israel and Iran nuking Israel.  To be perfectly honest, Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself from pretty much any conventional attack that could come its way from its neighbors.  It’s proven this time and again.  Israel, however, isn’t very big - as this rather handy simulator illustrates, a 4 megaton nuclear bomb would wipe Reno and Sparks combined off the map.  To put this into perspective, the distance between the western edge of Reno and the eastern edge of Sparks is about 11 miles across.  Israel, by comparison, is about 20 miles across at its thinnest near Tel Aviv.  The largest nuclear bomb ever detonated, Tsar Bomba, weighed in at 100 megatons.  Now, it goes without saying that Iran isn’t going to be throwing around any Tsar Bomba-sized bombs anytime soon, but one strategically placed atomic or nuclear device would effectively split Israel in half.  That would be a little difficult to recover from without permanently appropriating the West Bank to serve as a nuclear bypass.

That said, it’s not because of Israel’s strategic position that we should have an issue if Iran nukes Israel.  It’s because there is only one country in the entire history of the world that has ever used nuclear weapons against another nation, and, as that nation, we’d kind of like to keep it that way.  Interestingly, so would the recipient of that nuclear assault, which brings up a very important point - nuclear war is a very, very bad thing.  It is not merely regional - nuclear fallout knows no boundaries.  Furthermore, if it’s okay for Iran to nuke Israel if the mood strikes them, what’s to stop Pakistan and India from getting fresh, or China from nuking, say, Taiwan?  Is that really a world we want to live in?

The answer, of course, is no - nuclear war must never be acceptable.  Ever. It’s way too destructive at even its most “benign” to be tolerated.  We just can’t afford to treat nuclear war any other way.  The best way that we’ve come up with to prevent just that has been deterrence - if you nuke us or any of our friends, we’ll nuke you and your friends, and vice-versa.  Thankfully, Iran doesn’t need friends to keep us from nuking them - our society and culture actually values human life, so we’re not going to unilaterally nuke them.  Even so, though, Iran, along with every other country, needs to realize that the next country to use nuclear weapons in an offensive capacity against another country will be the last… because, by the time we’re through with that country, nobody else will ever dare to do something like that again.

I don’t, and won’t, praise Hillary for much on this blog, but on this one issue, I’m in certain agreement with her.  A nuclear attack against anyone, whether it’s the United States, Israel, or even lowly Liechtenstein, must never be tolerated.  Until someone comes up with a better way than deterrence to convince even the worst tyrants that nuclear war is not an option, that’s what we will have to use, and the only way that works is if we threaten anybody who thinks about nuclear war with complete annihilation - and mean it.

If somebody has a better idea… I’m listening.

I’ve recently taken up the habit of monitoring North Korea’s news portal - it’s actually quite enlightening. For example, I noticed a sudden flurry of articles today:

Reckless Remarks of S. Korean Conservative Forces under Fire
S. Korean Authorities’ Anti-DPRK Moves Denounced
Lee Myung Bak’s Treachery Assailed
Support to Korean People’s Efforts for Great National Unity Called for
Negotiated Solution of Nuclear Issue Urged

It’s not uncommon for Korean News to have a post or two a day about South Korea, but this seemed to be rather sudden. More importantly, there were four of them in a row, which seems to be a sign that this is more than just the usual static. So, I wondered, what was going on over there? Time to hit Google News…

South Korean prime minister says president’s US visit will strengthen bilateral relations:

SEOUL, South Korea: President Lee Myung-bak’s trip to the United States this week will boost bilateral ties between the two countries, South Korea’s prime minister said Monday.

Of course - South Korea’s new President is visiting the United States. Suddenly it all makes perfect sense. More importantly, North Korea doesn’t like South Korea’s new President, which can only be a good thing for us. Personally, the more discomfort I see North Korea expressing with their southern neighbor, the happier I am.

As bright as things are looking, though, there’s still one part of the world we need to pay attention to:

Reception Given by Cuban Ambassador

Raul isn’t any friendlier than Fidel, it would seem… or, at least, North Korea wants the world to think Raul isn’t any friendlier.

Since one of my coworkers is a big cat fan, I dedicate this to him. If you’re reading this, you know who are you are.

Via Pajamas Media, this article at the Daily Mail reveals that China thinks cats are unclean:

Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.

Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around.

Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city.

The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of them.

Death camps? We mean “Happy Camps”, where the cats will receive the best in medical and dental care!

See, the nice thing about being a smug person of European descent is that I learned in school about this thing called bubonic plague, which only wiped out a third of my early ancestors every couple of generations. Apparently, it was spread via fleas that lived on rats… now, what eats rats again? It’s okay, though - China’s not near any bubonic infested areas.

The disorder is most common in Southeast Asia, but it also occurs in some areas of the United States.

Oh. Never mind. At least they kept SARS away, though, right?

I know I’m not being as consistent as I should be - work has been busy and I’ve had a chronic little cold that’s been making sleep far more interesting than it should be. Enough complaining, though.

Have you ever had one of those moments where something seems so immediately obvious, so immediately clear, that you can’t believe nobody else has come up with it before? I’m there right now. I’m sure somebody else has thought of this. I’m sure somebody else has written about it. However, to my knowledge, I’m the first person I’ve run across that’s realized precisely why China doesn’t just let North Korea implode or push for it to unify with South Korea.

It’s not because of any refugee problem. China has a refugee problem with North Korea now.

It’s because of us. More specifically, it’s because of the United States.

Pretend you’re in charge of the Chinese military. Who are your threats? Who are your neighbors? To the north, you have Mongolia and Russia. To the west, you have all the former -Stans of the Soviet Union. To the south, you have India, Burma, Thailand, and the various countries in Indochina. To the east, you have Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. You also have, across the Pacific, the most powerful country on Earth, economically and militarily, and they’re getting increasingly nervous about you.

The good news is that most of your neighbors are weak. Mongolia will never be a threat to you, nor will Nepal or Bhutan. Vietnam is an annoyance due to their involvement in the Spratleys, but, if things get really interesting, you have more than enough military heft to deal with them. Burma is in your pocket right now, which is helpful. Thailand is a mess at the moment. Laos and Cambodia are too small to be interesting. India and Pakistan are doing a wonderful job of distracting each other at the moment, and, even if that changed, you have Tibet between your most populous regions and theirs. The other -Stans are interesting as far as their support (tacit or otherwise) of the Muslim uprisings in Western China, but they’re never going to be more than an annoyance to you. Russia is too busy imploding, both demographically and politically, to be too serious of a threat - they just don’t have the resources to take you on in any sort of a prolonged campaign unless they use their nukes, and it’s not like you don’t have a few of those lying around yourself. Besides, Siberia isn’t exactly an ideal staging ground for an invasion of a country of 1 billion people.

This brings us to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. They’re not interesting by themselves - at least, not terribly so. Japan has already tried to invade you once, with catastrophic results. Its people aren’t going to put up with that again. Taiwan is technologically advanced but numerically few; they’re not going to hurt you, but it would hurt you to try to hurt them. South Korea is, as far as you’re concerned, in the same class as Taiwan - they’re not going to push you around, but they’re also not going to be easily pushed around, at least initially. What makes these three countries special, however, is not them unto themselves. It’s that big behemoth to the east that has been protecting them for over 60 years now.

The United States is a problem - a big one. They have the most technologically advanced military on the planet, and it’s backed by the most powerful economy on the planet. The closest they’ve come to military defeat in their entire national history has been the War of 1812, which nobody over there remembers, and the Vietnam War… and you know how well their military really did in Vietnam. The United States was spiritually tired - militarily and economically, they could’ve fought that war for as long as they wanted, and you know it. Worse yet, they learned their lessons well - you saw what they did to Iraq twice. You know that, in a head-to-head battle, your forces don’t have a prayer against the United States, at least in the short term - even if they left your communications infrastructure alone, which you know they won’t, they could run circles around you, striking targets with lethal speed and precision, permanently staying in your decision loop.

Unlike the rest of your neighbors, whom you could bully around a little with your military, the United States is not going to be intimidated by you, and, at least for the next 20 years or so, there isn’t a single thing you can do about it. So, what can you do? The answer is simple - keep that military as far away from you as humanly possible.

How can we do that?

First, some good news. There is no way in hell that Russia will let the United States use their soil for American military bases. That secures your north. The United States is also never going to set foot in Indochina again if they can even remotely help it - that takes care of the southeast. Putting troops in Pakistan or India is also out - not only is Tibet a bad location to invade through, even for the Americans, but the Americans are also not interested in destabilizing a nuclear standoff.

That leaves the -Stans, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan… and the United States has troops either in or around all of those places.

As far as locations go, the -Stans aren’t a huge problem for you - if the United States is going to invade you, you’d very much like it if they wandered through the desert for a while, giving you as much time as possible to defend your industrial base in the east. If you’re lucky, you can slow them down enough and make it painful enough where domestic pressure would send the Americans back home. Japan and Taiwan both have the Pacific Ocean between you and them - granted, the United States has the most powerful navy in the world, but launching an amphibious assault against you would be pretty difficult and expensive, logistically, even for them.

Korea, on the other hand…

Korea is a problem for you, strategically. Most of your industrial base is in North-East China. If the United States has a clear shot up the Korean peninsula to Manchuria, any hope you have of prolonged conventional military resistance is gone - most of your industrial base will be in American hands within a month. Thankfully, your predecessors realized this, as well, which is why they invaded Korea when the Americans started to get near the Yalu River and tilted the Korean War into a stalemate.

This is where North Korea comes into play, and why it is insanely vitally important for the strategic survival of the People’s Republic of China.

North Korea is a bulwark against complete American strategic domination over you. They have a leader that is more than happy to bankrupt that tiny country to stave off the Americans. Their entire government… heck, their entire reason for North Korea’s existence is predicated on the Americans being foreign devils that must be held back at all cost.

Now, let’s be realistic - militarily, they’re not stopping the Americans any further than you or any other foe of theirs would, at least in the long term (i.e. less than a year). However, North Korea can make a big mess of South Korea in a very short amount of time, which makes South Korea nervous enough to convince them that they should keep the Americans from building up too big of a force there. That’s enough.

Continuing this thought exercise, what do you want to see, or, more importantly, what do you not want to see?

You don’t want North Korea to open up - countries that open up tend to become pro-America awfully fast. You’ve already learned that at home and are having a hard enough time keeping a lid on that.

You don’t want Korea to reunite, a la Germany, unless North Korea finds a way to force the issue on its own terms, which isn’t happening. South Korea would overwhelm North Korea, politically and economically, in no time, which would give the United States complete and unfettered access to your most vulnerable border.

You don’t want the leadership in North Korea to become so suicidal that they genuinely scare their neighbors enough for South Korea to decide that a military solution, with all the pain and destruction that would entail, is preferable to the status quo. This means you would rather North Korea keep its nuclear status vague - at the very least, you’re going to make very certain that the leadership down there realizes that launching a nuclear missile against one of their neighbors would be an exercise in extremely poor judgment for all parties concerned.

You want North Korea to remain rabidly anti-American and remain perfectly willing to self-destruct in order to hold them off for you. If that means you deal with some refugees, fine - it beats dealing with an American force at your northeastern border. The good news is that the powers that be in North Korea are of the same mind as you. In order for them to stay in power, their only hope is to keep their populace in a state of perpetual fear and poverty. Isolation and rabid anti-Americanism plays quite nicely into that.

This is why North Korea is going to remain a thorn in the side of the United States for a long, long time. China can’t afford for North Korea to not be a thorn. It’s the one shield they have, strategically, against a much stronger, much more powerful foe, and they’re not going to let that go peacefully… even if it condemns 20 million people in the process.