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A lot of people in and out of the blogosphere are worrying about the prospect of an Indo-Pak nuclear war -- or an Indo-Pak war that escalates to a nuclear one. Glenn Reynolds finds his optimism wilting in the face of news, as does Stephen Green. Suman Palit invokes the specter of the Dreadful Bride. And me, I'm afraid that an Indo-Pak nuclear war wouldn't kill enough people. Am I a callous, inhuman monster? Well, certainly, a case for that can be (and has been) made. But one of the factors -- perhaps the single most important factor -- that has prevented the use of nuclear weapons during the last half century has been the apocalyptic mystique that they possess. Tens of millions of people (not to mention quite a few French) are convinced that the use of any nuclear weapon, any time, any place, for any reason, will mean TEOLAWKI. (Do I think that they're right? No. On the other hand, I also think that Christianity is a bunch of yivshish, but that doesn't mean that I deny its very great influence on history.) An Indo-Pak nuclear exchange could mean as many as 100 million dead, mostly on the Pakistani side. It probably wouldn't mean the destruction of either nation qua nation (although the rest of the war could finish off Pakistan). And, as we know, an auto accident in L.A. means more to most Americans than a flood in Bangladesh, an earthquake in China, or a genocidal civil war in Rwanda. It's entirely possible to my mind that a lot of Third World leaders (and perhaps even some First World ones) will look at the results and say, "Well, that wasn't that bad". To paraphrase Everett Dirksen, kill a billion people here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real carnage. John "Akatsukami" Braue Thursday, May 23, 2002 |
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