I was disappointed that the only reference to JFK was when Cirincione brought up his warning about proliferation. I have not seen the Rhodes book but he talks as if all these problems started in the 1970's - as a counter to the Carter presidency. Remember that the neo-conservatives all pretty much started out as Democrats. Their hero was Senator "Scoop" Jackson. Jeane Kirkpatrick led the move out of the Democratic Party to the Republicans after McGovern won the nomination in 1972. Richard Perle's first job was as a staffer to Jackson. It is bad enough that Perle and his fellow travelers took over American foreign policy under Bush/Cheney. The fact that he singlehandedly got Reagan to dig in his heels on SDI is infuriating. That Perle considers this incident to be the high point of his public career is all you need to know about this piece of crap. You have to go back to JFK to see where this all really took hold. Rhodes talks about threat inflation. I agree completely. The threat was inflated at the start of the cold war. Ike managed to tone it down. I have come

What a treat it is to have Richard Rhodes on BH.tv. As I've mentioned before, I've read his first two books on nuclear weapons repeatedly, and I could not recommend them more highly. I can't wait to read the new one. I sure hope he comes back, and I'd really enjoy it if he were to debate someone who has a more favorable view of nuclear weapons.

thprop: I suspected during this diavlog that there would be plenty of irritation from non-lefties. Your criticisms of the content of the diavlog are well-founded and you're right about where the neocons came from. However, I'd say that based on my reading of Rhodes's first two books, you'll probably find a much more even-handed treatment of JFK, and Democrats in general, in the book. Rhodes is a highly disciplined historian; he is, for example, not overly kind to the Truman Administration in either of his first two books. I think it's obvious that neither side is blame-free for the misguided policies of the Cold War and would be willing to bet you'll get the full story by reading. I suspect the one-sided emphasis in this diavlog came for two reasons: the role played by so many of the people who were responsible for threat escalation during the 1970s and 1980s who got senior positions in the GWB Administration, and the historical parallels of the Cold War and the War on Terror.

I agree! What a treat. I can't wait to get this book. It sounds like it may soften my disposition toward President Reagan.

ohc:

It sounds like it may soften my disposition toward President Reagan.

Yeah, me too. (*sigh*)

Wow! I watched this one a week ago, or somthing like that. I held off commenting to please Nate, but now I don't remember it well enough to say much about it. I guess that'll teach me that I should never both watch early and obey Nate again. Actually, I'm not sure I can watch anything early with the new set-up.
I remember enjoying the diavlog anyway. Guess I may have to watch it again.

This whole diavlog seems to be one great session of I like the results but the policies that lead to the successful results were all wrong and if you would have done it the way that "I" prefer everything would have still been successful. I personally like that the flawed policies of Ronald Reagan which lead to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, I also like the failed policies of the Bush administration that has resulted in the decommissioning and hopefully to the destruction of the North Korean heavy water reactor, I also like the fact that the failed policies of the Bush administration has removed two of the worst regimens that existed in the world and provided the opportunity to millions of people to try and form a better way of life, I also like the failed policies of the Bush administration that has now successfully put an end to the nuclear weapons ambitions of four countries, if you believe the latest NIE, and I also like the failed policy of the Bush administration that has taken the WOT to the middle east

This is arguably the biggest problem facing humanity. Right up there with climate change, peak oil (peak everything!) and the plight of the bottom billion. There is a window of opportunity with the neo-con demise in 09 for liberals and conservatives (like Kissinger and Schultz) to make serious progress on the abolition of nuclear weapons. It's going to take a major international miracle worthy of a dozen Nobel prizes, but achieving a once-in-a-century consensus on abolition may be possible. It can't be done without US and Russian leadership.

This was Reagan at his best. He was still awful in a myriad of other ways, but he and Gorby had this very radical vision of nuclear abolition and peace, and they almost pulled it off. That would have been one of the most amazing accomplishments of any president ever. On the other hand, the last segment of the conversation alludes to Reagan the defense spendaholic, and I won't even start on all the other reasons to despise his politics. Bush does help ALL former presidents look good, however. Even Nixon.

Until today, I hadn't heard that Reagan was making a serious effort at the Iceland talks with Gorbachev. Learn something new each day!

SUCH a good diavlog. The discussion of a nuclear armed world needs to change. I applaud BH.tv for having those two folks on. I would like to see a pro-nuclear arms supporter to debate Richard Rhodes just for the sake of balance. Even though I am 100% behind what he said.

I agree that Rhodes is an interesting fellow and it would have been a much better diavlog if he were paired with with someone that is less his ideological soul mate than Cirincione.

pisc: I urge you to read his books. He's not nearly as partisan (at least in the first two -- haven't read the new one yet).

I have read some of his stuff and like I said he is an interesting fellow but he is fairly left, in a non partisan way, and it does show through in his work but not nearly like it does here. That is a reflection of being paired with Cirincione who is defiantly partisan and vocal about it. This essentially disfigures what I thought would be an interesting diavlog when I saw that Rhodes was one of the participants.

I haven't watched the diavlog (h/t Brendan) or read Rhodes's new book, but The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun are two of the greatest books I have ever read and do not come off as overly partisan; the only things I would say that seem vaguely partisan are the hagiographic tone taken towards Szilard who came to see the light with regards to nukes and the vague demonization of Teller in Dark Sun. That said, both works are absolute tours de force in terms of historical research and absolute works of art in terms of crafting a non-fiction narrative. Hardly ever have I read a book that weighs as much as The Making of the Atomic Bomb and hardly been able to put it down until it was finished.

Richard Rhodes’ logic does not compute with me. He equates high military spending with decaying infrastructure. But the way that I see it, a large portion (I would believe most) of the money spent on defence went into the pockets of scientists and engineers working for defence contractors, who, in turn, were tax payers. The nation’s infrastructure, i.e., highways, blossomed during the height of the cold war. The loss of interest in maintaining that infrastructure seems to be a more recent phenomenon arising after, rather than during, the cold war. The utility and morality of nuclear weapons is a different question. When I look into the eyes of Putin or Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il or even GW Bush for that matter, I don’t see much room for optimism regarding disarmament. However, I think that we can be realists in terms of the numbers of nuclear weapons that we maintain. Personally I would wish for a massive decrease in the numbers of nuclear weapons (using the recovered nuclear material to fuel fast reactors for electricity and hydrogen production for example) corresponding with a massive build-up of our conventional forces and military related R&D.

Jim3ch: There's a little something to your idea of paying weapons researchers, who in turn pumped money back into the economy, but I don't agree with your reasoning that their tax payments should have been able to make up the difference in maintaining the nation's infrastructure. In the first place, only part of their income is returned as taxes. These monies get split up among the myriad programs that the government pays for, only one of which would be road and bridge maintenance. Another part, of course, would be more spending on weapons programs. So, it seems to me that you're arguing that a fraction of the money that could have been spent on roads should equate to however much more the government could have spent had it not been paying for weapons. I do agree that the nation's highways blossomed during the Cold War, at least the building of new ones and the improving of existing smaller roads, but I don't think it's fair to say that infrastructure, overall, got this amount of attention. Certainly the railroads were neglected, especially the passenger-carrying part. I suspect that a fair amount of big bridges and

Massive is the wrong word. But I tend to believe in the “speak softly and carry a big stick” philosophy. I subscribe to the theory that investment in a large peace-time military is a good investment in pro-longed peace. I see no evidence that having a large peacetime military is not good for the economy. It basically means jobs. Good jobs. Jobs as soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and jobs as professionals, both military and civilian. It also means more opportunities for higher education, more professionals with a broader experience base, and even a little bit more (gasp in horror!) patriotism. And, at least in my experience, military R&D programs tend to be efficient. It’s amazing, actually, how many developments, even in disciplines as benign as mathematics (e.g., Fourier series) or thermo-dynamics (e.g., thermal conductivity), had their beginnings in military R&D. There are also lots of civilian spin-offs. The entire nuclear industry in the US was a spin-off from nuclear submarine design. The US has a real strong suit in technological superiority of military equipment and tactics. That was the one thing we proved in Iraq. I think we should cultivate that ability further, but paid for by savings realized as we dismantle our nuclear weapons industry. There is no reason

While I know you are opposed to the Iraq front which in and of it self show why we need to and are expanding the Army and Marines. The conflicts we are likely to face in the near to medium term are probably going to be along the lines of Afghanistan and Iraq. Short highly kinetic combat followed by long term commitments to stabilization and nation building. The current authorized force levels, of the Army and Marines, is insufficient to sustain this period of extended stabilization and nation building hence all the talk we hear about "breaking the services." We currently are unable to sustain a force of some 160,000 troops in Iraq and 45,000 in Afghanistan hence the need to expand the ground force levels.

Ok, where is the science?

jim, pisc: I buy some of both of your arguments, in particular that we could use some more troops who are good at special forces types of maneuvers, and another component trained for peacekeeping/occupation. I'd also like to see the active-duty military built up to the point where we wouldn't need to deplete the National Guard when we do get into a quagmire. I'm less sure about the efficiency of military research. I grant there have been plenty of spinoffs, but I think lots of that has to do with the reality that that's where the money was spent. Having spent nearly a decade doing DoD-sponsored research, I am of the opinion that there is an awful lot of corporate welfare going on. Revolving doors, pork barrel spending, and coziness between buyers and sellers are also all too common a part of the funding choices. The DoD budget, in round numbers and not counting "emergency funding" for Iraq and Afghanistan, plus various "black programs," is about half a trillion dollars. Every year. Admittedly, this is not all R&D spending. Still, I'd like to bet that we could get more bang for the buck by spending some of that money

...when we do get into a quagmire.

Dictionary.com

quagmire \KWAG-myr; KWOG-\, noun:
1. Soft, wet, miry land that shakes or yields under the feet.
2. A difficult or precarious position or situation; a predicament.

It would be beneficial to understand what is your particular definition of "quagmire" is before I can address your concerns. As it seems that most tricky situations in life can be described as a "quagmire" of one sort or another. If it is just another repatition of a leftist talking point; conversation is moot anyways.

Brendan, As usual you make good points. I don’t know how much money the US would save if nuclear weapons were to be scraped; but I would like to think there would be enough so that we could have both a stronger conventional military and bridges that don’t buckle. Unfortunately I keep hearing about the next generation nukes, the reliable replacement weapon (RRW), and the myriad reasons why we need them.

I find it interesting that one can call for the reduction of Military R&D on one of the very results from such Military R&D. Would the Internet exist without the expenditure of research funds from DOD and DARPA (and it's predecessor) that laid the base for it?

pisc:

It would be beneficial to understand what is your particular definition of "quagmire" is ...

If you cannot understand "quagmire" as a metaphor for Iraq, especially after looking at the second definition you yourself took the trouble to reproduce, you really have reached new lows in denying reality. Spin recent bits of news all you want, but the fact is no one, even the most eager-to-invade neocons, ever thought (or worried) that we'd still be bogged down there, lo these many years later. Don't you remember how we were supposed to be welcomed with candy and flowers? How the purple fingers meant the Iraqi people were "embracing democracy?" How it was just a few "dead-enders, if you will" that needed mopping up? And how many times "six months" was given as the expected time to finish the job? There's partisan loyalty, and then there's just sheer denial. In your obtuseness about the term "quagmire," you're suffering from the latter. And please don't ask me to explain how being an angle between 90 and 180 degrees has anything to do with this.

Jim:

As usual you make good points.

Thanks.

Unfortunately I keep hearing about the next generation nukes, the reliable replacement weapon (RRW), and the myriad reasons why we need them.

People have been selling the need for these things for more than half a century now, as Richard Rhodes pointed out. I'm not surprised, therefore, that you keep hearing the commercials. The question is whether you believe them. I grant the reality of needing to maintain a small deterrence capability, now that the nuclear cat is out of the bag. I also don't have a problem with some upgrading. But I'd really like to see more money spent on, say, securing the Russian nukes and lobbying other countries to renounce their nuclear ambitions.

pisc:

I find it interesting that one can call for the reduction of Military R&D on one of the very results from such Military R&D. Would the Internet exist without the expenditure of research funds from DOD and DARPA (and it's predecessor) that laid the base for it?

If you'll recall from my previous comment, I acknowledged that some good had come from military R&D. I also went on to say that this was probably inevitable, given that the bulk of government funding for R&D had been earmarked in this way. So, sure. I'm glad DARPA developed the ARPAnet. But it wasn't the DoD that made the Internet into what it is today. It was private citizens and companies, from Tim Berners-Lee to Netscape to Google, along with thousands of open-source hackers, several for-profit companies, and the rare good sense of the government to leave it alone while it was growing.

If you cannot understand "quagmire" as a metaphor for Iraq

As suspected your just a leftist talking point. I can remember a certain earlier president Clinton I believe was his name who assured us that Bosnia would only take a year then two now better than a decade latter we are still evolved in that quagmire. One that looks to get interesti