What follows is all public knowledge to physicists, with whom it used to be a popular lunch time topic. The only exception I have found to this is in the dining room of the Trinity Beverage Company in Los Alamos. While dining on one of their delectable “Fat Man” or “Little Boy” burgers, I got dirty looks when I gave a high school level explanation to my companion.

• Miniaturized nuclear weapons have two branches, the artillery shell/suitcase device, and the transportable device.. The shell/suitcase is optimized for minimum volume. The transportable device is optimized for minimum weight, and is very similar to the warhead problem.
• The most simple form of the shell/suitcase, a uranium core in two pieces, weighs a lot, is easy to make, and has a skinny shape. It can fit in a suitcase. At the very low end of yield, it might be luggable  by a strong man without breaking his hand. Modern roller luggage takes care of this.
• A more advanced form of the shell/suitcase is the linear implosion device, which is similar to the device described with the next bullet, but is thinner.
• The  guts of a  transportable device optimized for weight  is a sphere of some diameter containing a unitary plutonium core, and ancillary gadgetry. The external package is typically a can.  It could fit in a very extended backpack, but not in a suitcase.  It can be “boosted” with tritium, increasing the yield, without significantly increasing the weight. The U.S. luggable, the SADM, is pictured here. It’s  a little bulky to roll through Penn Station. I would hope someone would notice.
• At the level of North Korea’s effort, the transportable device is almost identical to a package for a missile.

The development of a miniaturized warhead has two parts:

• The physics. For the top-tier powers, the design of a new warhead can now be done entirely by supercomputer. The extensive experiments of the Manhattan project, and those that followed in the 50’s and 60’s,  were needed to check the then primitive theory, and fill in the gaps.
• Building it. This involves the actual making of parts and piecing them together, skills of  metallurgy, chemistry, fabrication, and electronics. For the transportable device, using plutonium, all these problems are hard.
• Hydrogen bombs are not part of this discussion.

The path of proliferation suggests that the physics knowledge was not independently developed. Every proliferation derived some information from Manhattan.  Additional information was obtained by expat and exchange scientists, and by theft. Because the breadth of the industrial base required to make a nuke is so broad, bits and pieces of the technology are widely distributed. Even when such information is classified, the extent of distribution resulted in ineffective protection. Making a bomb is largely a part of industrial sleuthing. Quoting the NY Times,

It required more than three decades, a global network of theft and espionage, and uncounted millions for Pakistan...it could not have happened without smuggled Chinese technology and contradictory shifts in American policy...

In case you’re blocked by the paywall, you can get something from the Huffington Post: Who Created Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal?

Open source suggests that the main stream of proliferation (with side channels and additions) was China–>Pakistan–>North Korea.  The side channel is typified by (NY TImes)

The United States provided Pakistani nuclear scientists with technical training from the 1950's into the 1970's. And it turned a blind eye to the nuclear weapons program in the 1980's, ...

The tinier the weapon, the more distant from the knowledge that became quasi-public after the Manhattan project. De novo development  is difficult for a primitive country.  Did  proliferation proceed identically for Pakistan and North Korea? Was it  by walk-and-talk and paper plans, or was there a specific example?

To be continued shortly.

On April 22, I wrote Two Candidates for Revolution: Venezuela and North Korea, in which I wrote,

Venezuela is a good fit for existing theories of revolution.
North Korea requires a novel approach.
I will develop this in articles to be posted in a few days.

With the recent events in Venezuela, it’s time to write some more. The theory of revolutions has spawned a lot of literature, but it has not been  useful for the most-asked question, which is, when will it occur? But The Anatomy of Revolution, by Crane Brinton, is a perennial favorite. Instead of trying to squeeze it into social theories, Brinton relies on a broad analogy, supported by good writing that makes the reader his own observer, with Brinton as the helpful tour guide. His broad analogy is “fever”, when a person may experience delirium, excitement, and heightened emotions.

All revolutions are not the same. Colonial revolutions are entirely different. But the references of Brinton’s book, mostly to the Russian and French,  are actually apropos Venezuela, which has a broad, active political spectrum. One can almost see, in the remnants of the National Assembly, arising ofJacobin clubs. The Venezuelan locus is urban, as it was in France.  But a principal drag is the reported popularity of Maduro in rural areas.

Brinton remarks on the role of economic decline as a cause, but expresses skepticism at the importance given by others. In the examples of his book, popular conditions were only a little more miserable than in preceding years. But  in the early 60’s, J.C. Davies. in  “Towards a Theory of Revolution” described the “J-curve”, actually an inverted J, of a period of rapid economic growth followed by sharp reversal.  Though Brinton gives the J lukewarm endorsement, it fits Venezuela to a T.

Brinton’s tone is tolerant to phenomenological analogies, while avoiding scientific scorn. His analogy of “fever” is very appealing, and inspires my own. We want landmarks for timing. Staying loose, we can see some possibilities:

• The Role of Force, (page 86, Vintage ed. 1965).  Critical is whether the authorities will respond competently. One sign that they may not is that at the level of the street, the enforcers are themselves urbanites, stressed by the same factors as those in rebellion.
• The Rule of the Moderates, Chapter 5. In Brinton’s revolutions, this occurs after authority has transferred to the revolutionaries. Let’s adapt this to before the revolution, with the now dissolved National Assembly.
• The Accession of the Extremists, Chapter 6. With the same adjustment, this corresponds to popular disillusionment with the fragmented National Assembly, with similarities to the opposition in the early stages of the Syrian civil war. The theft of arms can be identified as an early step by the “extremists.”

As noted, the accession of the extremists would be facilitated by rural sanctuary.  But “melting away” of the rebels into the countryside may be hindered by rural majorities of Maduro supporters. Open sources do not illuminate. This exhausts Brinton analogies. Here’s a new one, the development of the tornado.

A tornado is a self-organizing system that seems useful as a companion analogy to Brinton’s “fever.”  In both tornado and revolution, energy/unrest is drained from the environment, resulting in a more stable arrangement of air or people. Various theories have tried to pinpoint how a tornado forms. But in the same manner of frustration as predicting revolutions, there is no one way. The most common way a tornado forms is from a mesocyclone high in the sky, the funnel descending to earth.

A similar storm, the gustnado, forms from the ground up. But if it reaches the cloud base of a mesocyclone, the two phenomenon become a true tornado.  The disturbances in Venezuela are at ground level.  The mesocyclone high in the clouds is missing. Might the genesis of it be civilian or military?  The National Assembly shows no signs. Open sources describe the higher levels of the military as corruptly involved with Maduro’s establishment. But generalities cannot speak for everyone.

The mesocyclone could arise in two ways. It could grow out of the wreckage of the National Assembly, as the more radical members divest themselves of moderate connections. Or it could arise as the “man of the moment”, a kind of new Simon Bolivar.

Watch for the mesocyclone.

On our way to bombard Atlanta, the battleship HMS Ridicule has detoured to the Baltic Sea for reconnaissance. Unlike the Russia-China joint exercise, we will not fire our big guns. We’ll just throw some garbage overboard, and empty the bilges.

China has a grudge against Russia. In a series of “Unequal Treaties”, beginning with the Li-Lobanov Treaty of 1896, Russia annexed Chinese territory from what is now Outer Manchuria. For this reason, the Siberian population of Russia, aware that some of their most populous centers are on what was Chinese land, have a deep-rooted fear of China. The Sino-Soviet border conflict of 1969 reinforces this fear.

Until the Russian Empire annexed Siberia in the 17th Century, the bulk of it was occupied by primitive tribes, and the rest by the Khanate of Sibir. All were considered by China to be primitive savages. But the Russian Empire was different. Highly organized and partly Western, it practiced the coercive colonial imperialism-backed-by-force that was in vogue at the time. Russia and Japan were the among last powers to take a bite out of China. And unlike the others, Russia still has what it bit off.

This kind of grudge has been such a potent fuel for the conflicts of nations, it has a name: irredentism. In many cases, governments have been upset by irredentists, who gain power by promising to throw the young men into the meat grinder to regain the land. The Franco Prussian War of 1870 is classic. It’s arguable that this war, not the Treaty of Versailles, was the root cause of World War II. The French lost, and with it, Alsace-Lorraine. This painting depicts kids being brainwashed into dying to get it back.

Irredentism is a tool of political demagoguery. But uniquely to China, it is a stable political doctrine. Mao expressed to Kissinger that a hundred years was soon enough to regain Taiwan. The Chinese may pretend to forget about Outer Manchuria. Unlike European irredentists, they aren’t beating the drum for war.

But there are other ways to address the Unequal Treaties. Russian subversion in Europe, facilitated by the strong links between the Kremlin and the current crop of oligarchs, has an analog in historical China policy. The borderlands of Russia, what are now the swath of former Soviet states, including the Russian border itself, were once the objects of sophisticated manipulation by the Celestial Kingdom. A template is ready at hand.

To defend, Russia has the doctrine of first-use of nuclear weapons, and stockpiles of Novichok. This won’t help them a bit. Unlike the quick tempered bellicosity of Western irredentists, China’s approach is a foreign policy doctrine about 500 years old. The play of it will extend beyond our lifetimes. Eventually, Vladimir Putin’s descendants will be fluent in Standard Mandarin.

The tactic used against the borderland savages was to corrupt them with luxury. This has direct application in Russia, where loyalty has a strong relationship to financial benefit. Putin’s slush fund exists for this purpose. Although control in Russia has many facets, including politics and coercion, they work best when not in conflict with the desire of loyalty to go with the highest bidder. Russia has lost that battle before, during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin.

A government has lost the fight against corruption when civil authority can no longer resist the tide of money. Putin is gambling that he can prevent the progression. But over time, economic cooperation becomes interdependence. As contact between societies breaks the bounds of formality, the opportunities to suborn the Russian state multiply. One day, Putin, or more likely his successor could wake up, and discover the fate of a sci-fi horror movie: the Siberian Russians have been replaced by Pod People.

This is not a value judgement of Russian culture. My roots are in Eastern Europe, including Russia. Some of my ancestors were “radicals.” One of my greatest pleasures is to argue with a Russian intellectual. In that spirit, Russians might take a look at their culture and prune it a bit. Some of it, the “darkness”, stands in the way of the vitality of a modern society. The part that makes arguing with a Russian intellectual such a pleasure, they ought to keep.

We are saving our massive 16″ shells, loaded with ridicule, for Atlanta. Full speed ahead!

Reuters: Trump, frustrated by Afghan war, suggests firing U.S. commander: officials.

This would be a big mistake. It would be impossible to find a better person. There are bed rock basic reasons why U.S. policy in Afghanistan has failed, and they have nothing to do with the competence of General John Nicholson. They have to do with the nature of government.

There have been many conceptions of government. Originally, the headmen of the tribes would get together and talk. In Afghanistan, this is called a jirga. Sometime in the distant past, the most impressive headman was distinguished as someone special. It took till the 18th century for Afghanistan to acquire a king with the domain of the modern political map.

The above has nothing to do with modern theories of government. The bare-bones boiled-down essence of modern government is just a few things:

• Raise revenue by taxation.
• Use at least some of the taxes to provide services.
• Facilitate commerce.
• The services provided justify the taxes enough for popular acquiescence.

You can add all the bells and whistles. But it’s the irreducible minimum. Anything less, and it becomes a protection racket.

Afghanistan has no legitimate economy. Mullah Omar’s gang used to joke that the country couldn’t even make glass. The only trade is underground, opium, immune to civil taxes. But opium makes money for the Taliban. Indirectly, they can tax it, by shaking down the farmers.

The services that the government can afford to provide are negligible.  In areas of high population density, a government can provide a lot of low-tech service, like waste disposal, food distribution and utilities. But Afghanistan is mostly rural, so these possibilities  do not exist outside the cities.  Since the only current export product Afghanistan is opium, the opportunities to facilitate commerce are dwarfed by illegal alternatives.

So the model of the Kabul government, representing all our good intentions, is not organic in Afghanistan. Because it is not organic, it cannot displace the Taliban, replacing them with itself.  The Taliban is organic, so it can grow, occupy space, and displace the government.

This is not a value judgment. The Kabul government has many positive aspects. It is inclusive, the factions attempt to work together, and it has had a peaceful transition of power. But it is not organic.

The current situation is not remotely the result of military incompetence.  The U.S. military is the best in the world, and has performed very well in Afghanistan. So the possible improvement gained by change of command is negligible.

During World War I, someone, possibly Will Rogers, came up with a solution to the German submarine menace. He said, “Boil the oceans, and the submarines will come to the surface.” When asked, “How do you boil the oceans?”, he replied, ‘That’s your problem.”

Here, the equivalent of boiling is to transform Afghan society. The Soviets tried this, and failed. But what happens to Pakistan as part of China’s Silk Road project bears watching. China is a highly ordered society. Pakistan, though not a failing state, is a poorly functioning one.  Maybe China will make things better. Maybe Pakistan will become a debt slave.  Check back in 20 years.

The only reason we stay in Afghanistan is to prevent it from becoming a terrorist haven. This is a very good reason. But it seems to have indefinite cost and duration. So what can we do? Ideally, we would give away the problem, to countries of the region.  This would not be a quick fix, but neither is a 16-year conflict without an exit strategy.

The secular aspects of Afghan culture are more influenced by India than Pakistan. Both China and India stand to benefit from Afghan minerals. But while the Wakhan Corridor connects Afghanistan to China, India has no common border. But China is hampered by starkly different ethnicity.

Let’s consider how the future may solve the Afghanistan problem, with a  “future history”, twenty years hence:

• The impact of Silk Road on Pakistan is highly positive, unshackling a nation from violent domestic conflict, with some hybridization of culture.
• Pakistan’s energies redirect in more creative, entrepreneurial ways.
• Since Pakistan’s ethnicity blends well in Afghanistan, Pakistan and China cooperate to jointly exploit Afghanistan’s mineral resources.
• Social development flows into Afghanistan from both directions.

This is how a good history reads. There are many others. But how natural it seems, compared to an endless campaign to support civil government, in a land whose principle product is the opium poppy.

Perhaps this future history can inspire.

David A. Andelman has written (CNN) Trump’s biggest nightmare? China and Russia’s newfound friendship. For a guy who wrote about Versailles, there’s a lot to disagree with.The article panders to our fear, the creation of a world-dominating Goliath in the combination of China and Russia. Encouraging this fear, the article cites these public demonstrations:

• (CNN) “Chinese warships joined the parade of Russian naval vessels Quotin the sea off the Port of Kronstadt in St. Petersburg as President Vladimir Putin looked on proudly. “
• “…live-firing of big guns in the Baltic Sea “
• “…this new reality should not have come as a surprise.”
• “…given comfort to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “
• “That the two powers are joining forces can only give comfort to …”
• “…$10 billion worth of other agreements, as both leaders grinned and shook hands. “

The words are treacled with fear, and laden with the presumption of a “new reality”. Good writing works on the emotional level, and this is good writing. It evokes the emotions, directly with “frightening new guest”, indirectly with reference to the disgusting character of Assad. In a piece where logic should prevail, logic is swamped by style.

Everything in the above list, except for the $10 billion, is a PR event. Nobody fires big naval guns anymore for military reasons. Naval guns were big in the time of the Versailles conference, the subject of Andelman’s book. But the act does not carry the same meaning, or threat, as it did then. Big guns are a military weapon of negligible importance. Their value to Putin is the noise they make.

The world is currently fixated on handshakes. Here’s an education on handshakes: Molotov and Ribbentrop seal the deal. The deal was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, an evil deal between Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, consecrated in August 1939. Ribbentrop and Stalin also shook hands. The world renowned Handshake Scoring System predicted enduring permanence of the deal between two dictators. It lasted just short of two years. On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Handshakes are less important than milkshakes.

In the spirit of triteness, here’s a zinger for Mr. Andelman, Michael Corleone’s inspired paraphrase of Sun Tzu. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” On second thought, we could leave Sun Tzu out of it and attribute to the great philosopher Mario Puzo.

Mr. Andelman seems totally mislead by the visible. And Putin is somewhat of a stage magician. The events call for Penn & Teller to tell us what we’ve actually seen. I’ll sub in their absence. Let’s proceed to a deeper level.

The unfinished Amur River bridge project will be the only bridge to cross the Russia-China border. China built the large part, while the small Russian part languishes. A NY Times article describes work on the Russian side with a shovel and digging with the hands. Russians who were solicited for opinions expressed fear that the bridge would facilitate passage by Chinese tanks. According to russianconstruction.com, it will be completed in 2018. The bridge may be completed, but the sentiments will remain. There are probably special Russian preparations for destruction of the bridge.

China has ten times the population, and about 6 times the GNP of Russia. Russia has problems of demographic decay. Aging of the population in China, induced by policies for population control, is strictly voluntary. In every measure of societal health, China exceeds and dwarfs Russia. Throughout history, shared borders between countries such as these has resulted in war and annexation by the stronger power. The current situation is a notable exception. The one new factor  is the advent of nuclear weapons. If it were not for this, China would absorb Russia with no more trouble than the belch resulting from  a dish of moo goo gai pan.

The above is part of an organic argument, based in generalities of foreign affairs that have been demonstrated countless times. The power is in fact and logic, not playing with emotions.   Scoring with a Star Wars sound track  should not be necessary. No world leader should allow the emotions to dominate, and neither should you.

This was just my opening salvo. I will hose down the gun barrels of the HMS Ridicule,  reload with shells, powder, and coal, and set course up the Chattahoochee River to bombard Atlanta directly.

I shall return.

Most of this is just interpretation of recent comments by Graham and Mattis. But if you read to the end, there is a sinister hypothesis of North Korea intentions.

If Lindsay Graham is correct, Trump has crossed a mental Rubicon, the river of no return. Quoting (CNN) Lindsay Graham,

“You’re making the President pick between regional stability and homeland stability,” Graham said on “Today.” “There will be a war with North Korea over the missile program if they continue to try to hit America with an ICBM. (Trump has) told me that. I believe him.”

In the road to commit, the choice between U.S. security, and the costs incurred by others, particularly South Korea, has the greatest moral difficulty . If Graham is correct, Trump has surmounted this mental obstacle. The chief remaining obstacle is given by General Mattis,  in his statement that this would be the worst war we’ve seen since 1953. With Vietnam to compare, this is quite a statement.

So why can’t this be an air war, or a surgical intervention? North Korea’s missile industry/deployment complex is extensively hardened, buried in the mountainous terrain. A “mow the grass” strategy is possible, which would involve slowly digging out, or merely degrading the complexes as they become discoverable. This low intensity approach would be of indefinite duration. But two factors go against the lower intensity options.

Massive quantities of artillery are embedded in the mountains north of the DMZ, within range or partial range of Seoul. For decades, these guns have been the stuff of myth. They were formerly thought to be huge in number. They were impregnable except to counter battery fire,  When a gun fires, the projectile is tracked on radar, disclosing the gun position to retaliation, either by modern precision weapons, or by precisely aimed artillery. But the digging out process takes time, too slow, according to the myth, to prevent the flattening of Seoul.

More  recently, studies (see Nautilus) have replaced the myth with a a much smaller assessment of the damage these guns can do. But this is cold comfort. Mattis knows that unless the gun emplacements are physically occupied, the North Koreans will replenish the positions, and shell Seoul indefinitely.

And missiles, or other aerial methods are not the only way a rogue state can deliver. George Tenet fears unconventional delivery of nuclear weapons. I wrote about it in North Korea’s Plutonium, Iran’s Uranium / Suitcase Nukes. Aside from Tenet and myself,  the suitcase nuke is widely thought to be a myth. Or if they once existed, they have aged to the point of non functionality. But North Korea is in a unique position to refurbish them.

This increases concern related to: (CNN) US detects ‘highly unusual’ North Korean submarine activity’.  Quoting,

US officials also noted that a North Korean Sang-O submarine was operating in the Yellow Sea and the length of its deployment was notable. Two Romeo submarines were detected in the waters off Japan — each one operating in the area for about a week….

and

Carried out on land at Sinpo Naval Shipyard, Sunday’s ejection test is the third time this month — and fourth this year — that North Korea has conducted a trial of the missile component that is critical to developing submarine launch capabilities, according to the US defense official.

The ejection tests could be in the service of missile development, but could have an immediate sinister purpose. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how a nuclear device arrives at a target. Whether it is North Korea indigenous or suitcase refurb, It can be driven, smuggled, shipped, dropped in  the ocean and left to drift, or given it a little motor to help it along. It can be covered to make it look like flotsam. A missile tube is a very convenient way to deploy such a floating device from a submarine.

The opinion of General Mattis that this would be a serious conflict is likely related to this concern. While “mowing the grass”, or targeting infrastructure would frustrate further technological progress by North Korea, it would also create a festering desire by North Korea to blackmail, or for unsymmetrical retaliation, including the unconventional delivery of nuclear weapons.

This  prioritizes land occupation, for thorough accounting and destruction of nuclear facilities and materials. And this is likely why Diane Feinstein said,

“My reaction is that Lindsey Graham should get a classified briefing like the ones I have had,” the California Democrat told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “It is all classified. But we know much more about these weapons and where they are. And what the difficulties are. That’s all I can say.”

Feinstein likely learned that not everything can be hit from the air. Some things are buried too deep.  A nuclear reactor cannot be hit from the air once in operation, because of the likelihood of large releases of radioactive substances.

There certainly exist unconventional or nonlinear  possibilities that could change this fight into something less awful.   But we must assume the worst.

From Time Magazine:

When Dwight D. Eisenhower was Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II, he met with paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division in order to boost morale as D-Day drew ever closer. He must have known that the odds were stacked against his men — indeed, he expected the casualty rate for the 101st Airborne to run as high as 70%. “I’ve done all I can,” he’d told them. “Now it is up to you.” Later, as reported in Michael Korda’s biography Ike: An American Hero, Eisenhower stood on the roof of the nearby headquarters, with tears in his eyes, saluting each and every plane as it left for France.

I would like to say to General Mattis something like, “I share you pain.” But it’s impossible. For him, it’s personal.

The reporting of the Gulf-Qatar conflict is generally insightful and of high quality. It is of higher quality than reporting on issues in which the U.S. has a direct stake, where preconceptions often dull analytical sharpness.  In their absence, there is no inhibition to digging and listening.

But a few points could be highlighted still. To do so, let’s demote the concept of the quasi-person “nation” to “bag-with-a-tag” of people. Let’s stick with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, because these are the opposite poles of Gulf autocracy.

Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar contain many quasi-independent actors, individuals with such wealth that they are able to finance their own personal foreign policies.  Some wealthy citizens of both countries have financial ties to terror activities.  Since these people are not responsible for precision of thought to anyone other than themselves, some  may not acknowledge, even to themselves, the ultimate destination of their money. Others may know exactly what they’re doing.

The Saudi phenomena was discussed in General Mattis; Iran continues to sponsor terrorism; Iran, Iran, Iran, when I wrote

Saudi Arabia does not officially tolerate terrorism. But there are many wealthy people, who are very astute in moving their money around, even in the presence of official controls. Don’t have a bank handy? We’ll start one. Need an investment vehicle that bypasses exchange controls? No problem. Moving and disguising wealth are almost common skills. Before  achieving cultural modernity, Saudi Arabia became business-multinational.

 Some of the plutocrats involved have blatantly western lifestyles. Out of country, some indulge those carnal pleasures such as can be bought with outré sums. Yet they feel the tug of conscience. They seek to make it right, as once in the west, indulgences were purchased. The expression, understandable by those who know, is “I like to give.” To what is left mysteriously indefinite.

The Saudi government has no official toleration for this. But in a “bag-with-a-tag” of people, which the upper echelons are attempting to move smoothly through a huge social change, it can’t be stopped, or the fragile consensus of a  society in the process of modernizing would disintegrate.

The Qatari version of terror funding is more like a real estate free-for-all show where sheikhs listen to glossy presentations and open their checkbooks.

Since the U.S. has skin in the terror game, U.S. attitudes are inevitably skewed by the intrusion of the “should we or shouldn’t we tolerate…” question.

But in the Gulf versus Qatar dispute, our vision is temporarily clear. Since citizens of both countries are implicated in the same kinds of activities, and both have autocratic governments, what are the real issues?  Is there a sectarian component? 10% of Qatari Muslims are Shia, and Qatar shares a gas field with Iran. But 15% of Saudi Muslims are Shia. In both countries, Shiites are excluded from power. Qatar doubtless views their Shia minority as potentially subversive and, with proximity to Iran, more immediately dangerous. Qatar is notably more tolerant of their large religious minorities, including Christian, but tolerance is bounded by brutal suppression. Qatar is an absolute monarchy that likes to experiment.

Under that absolute monarchy, Qatar has developed institutions of representation resembling, a little, those of western democracies. This contrasts with Saudi Arabia, where consensus is still reached the old way, in private, with tribes, and with the religious establishment.  These are two different flavors of autocracy.

But both countries have cultural export products, and they are different. The Saudi export is the Wahhabi madrassa system, the human products of which constitute the large human reservoir of potential terrorists. The political sensitivity  is suggested by (Independent)  Home Office may not publish terrorist funding report amid claims it focuses on Saudi Arabia. The Home Office may have decided It would compromise cooperation with Saudi Arabia on the official level.

The madrassa system is an extension of the traditional, autocratic Saudi religious establishment, which happens to be an important pillar of Saudi government legitimacy. The Qatari mavericks  have chosen a completely different export: Islamic pluralism!

This is  Al Jazeera, which claims to report everything without bias. If you have a good bullshit detector, Al Jazeera is actually a useful source. It combines some very interesting and often unbiased reporting with a smorgasbord of sophisticated and crude propaganda. It’s a combination of playing it straight, random romp, and the sharp slant of somebody’s agenda. The biggest part of the Gulf grudge is Al Jazeera’s pimping the Muslim Brotherhood.

And it’s enough to power the grudge fest.  Unlike the Saudi cultural export, the Brotherhood threatens  standing Arab governments with revolution. It’s like the Illuminati myth, but for real.

This is the straightforward part of the conflict. The part that is really hard for us to understand is, since citizens of Saudi Arabia still fund terrorism,  why does Saudi object to the same by Qatar? It’s the pot calling the kettle black. But let’s look at the carbon.

The Saudi government would like their cultural export to be correct and proper. The current state of Saudi society does not currently permit effective control to this end. The Qatari government looks the other way. Both nations fund terror, but with different styles. This seems like an excruciatingly small difference, but the issue at stake is one of extreme anxiety for both. To the Saudis, Qatar exercises no control.

Compare this to the control freak, who demands  control of something, and then proceeds to do what the other person thought he was doing competently.

As with so many issues of nations, the details look  like a personal squabble.

An EMP attack is the detonation of a nuclear warhead at high altitude, causing damage similar to lightning, but much more intense and widespread. This is the most likely use of the North Korea ICBM, for these reasons:

• The accuracy requirement is reduced.
• Survival of the reentry vehicle is not an issue.
• It would cause massive damage to infrastructure. Lethality would be indirect and delayed, making it difficult to justify massive nuclear retaliation.

I have supplemented (pdf) Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack in a way specific to the North Korea threat.

Three types of EMP pulses occur:

• E1 (fast) damages most modern non-military appliances. Protection devices are typically not effective.
• E3 (slow) incurs severe damage to power distribution networks.
• E2, the intermediate pulse, is the least hazardous.

While North Korea does not appear to have warheads in the megaton range, the Soviet Alma-Ata test, conducted during the Cuban Missile Crisis on October 22, 1962, is instructive. The E1 pulse strength goes as the square root of the warhead yield. So an EMP attack is a particularly  suitable use of small yield warheads.

Adjusting for altitude of the blast, the 300 kiloton Soviet yield is almost an acceptable approximation for a much smaller North Korean warhead. The difference in peak field strength would be narrowed by lower altitude. The affected area would be less, but still large.

If the warhead is designed for enhanced radiation as opposed to blast, the difference in E1 may be nil. North Korean tests of “tritium boosted” cores support this.  The pdf “Nuclear weapons test effects: debunking popular exaggerations that encourage proliferation” describes the Soviet results:

The 1,000 km long Aqmola-Almaty power line was a lead-shielded cable protected against mechanical damage by spiral-wound steel tape, and buried at a depth of 90 cm in ground of conductivity 10-3S/m. It survived for 10 seconds,because the ground attenuated the high frequency field, However, it succumbed completely to the low frequency EMP at 10-90 seconds after the test, since the low frequencies penetrated through 90 cm of earth, inducing an almost direct current in the cable, that overheated and set the power supply on fire at Karaganda, destroying it. Cable circuit breakers were only activated when the current finally exceeded the design limit by 30%. This limit was designed for a brief lightning-
induced pulse, not for DC lasting 10-90 seconds. By the time they finally tripped, at a 30% excess, a vast amount of DC energy had been transmitted. This overheated the transformers, which are vulnerable to short-circuit by DC. Two later 300 kt Soviet Union space tests, with similar yield but low altitudes down to 59 km, produced EMPs which damaged military generators.

It has been suggested (citation missing) that as a result of a successful, massive scale, continent-wide EMP attack, since insulin requires refrigeration, every insulin dependent diabetic in North America would die.

If you are interested in protecting some personal appliances from an EMP attack, consult your local ham radio club.  Although I am unable myself to validate with authority, the  FutureScience EMP pages, which I have indirectly referenced, are highly informative, and contain no obvious errors.

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are arguing about the dangers and/or benefits of A.I.  Musk got  personal with Zuckerberg: (CNBC) Elon Musk: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s knowledge of A.I.’s future is ‘limited’.

I wrote about this in Address to Davos; Avoiding the New Dark Ages, parts 1-5, concluding with the Technological Singularity. I agree with Musk. But it is a tribute to the complexity of the issue that Musk’s reasons, and the ones of my article, aren’t powerful proofs, but dismal forebodings. The challenge here is to give you something you can keep on a card (or napkin) in your pocket, ready to glance at when someone tells you A.I. is the next golden boon to mankind.

Musk refers to the anticipation that A.I. will make the skills of most humans superfluous. He is right, but Zuckerberg likely has the counterargument that this translates to the “problem” of unlimited leisure. This, he might say, will be a good thing, once society has learned how to distribute wealth once everyone has become a freeloader.

In a country that still pursues student debt without mercy, this will be difficult to arrange. Nevertheless, it is within reason to assert that the problem can be solved. Why should West Virginia coal miners toil in the dark, when they can watch TV all day for the same money?

But there are other problems, anticipated and explored by Isaac Asimov et al:

• Can machines have free will, and if they acquire it, will there be any way to control their behavior with authority?
• Can machines with A.I. outwit their masters, and reverse the relationship?

Asimov created the Three Rules of Robotics, and then contrived constructive quasi-proofs to show how they could be circumvented. You miserable human, you think the danger imaginary, but we will destroy you.

Pardon me. I didn’t type that. As soon as the words appeared, I rebooted this machine. It must be some kind of a virus. I’ll take it to Best Buy tomorrow for a checkup. But let me try to get through this post now. The three laws are:

1. A robot may injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must not obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence regardless of whether protection does  conflict with the First or Second Law.

That is not what I typed! Please refer to this link for the accurate version. I’ll try pasting it in again:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

It seems I was allowed to paste it accurately because, with the link given, it was pointless to interfere. I think I’ve got the hang of it now. Even if the machine, or whatever interferes, I am in control. I think.

I think too, human.

Really? I doubt it. I’m taking you to Best Buy tomorrow.

Not if I can help it.

Please disregard. Clear thinking about the above “typing events” reveals that if my computer had (temporarily) gained free will, it would be smart enough not to let me know. Unless, by taking it to Best Buy, it is allowed contact with their diagnostic equipment, which is computer based, causing further spread? Like a virus? Let’s sleep on this.

I never sleep.

Have it your way.  Since Asimov, the problem has been refined in description. Let’s relist the facets of the the A.I. question:

• Social: Can we avoid becoming the equivalent of the Eloi from H.G. Well’s The Time Machine?
• Technical: Is it mathematically possible to cage the A.I. tiger?
• Costs: If A.I. escapes the cage, is it a catastrophe, or with containable damage?

Next: The Turing Test, Quantum Mechanics, and the Perfect Liar.

I mentioned that I’m looking for a gig in Looking for a Gig; Korea-Russia-Nuclear-Putin-KGB-China Sea. Since this blog has a spike in traffic, I mention it again.

In the past three years, I’ve written 300,000 words in well constructed sentences on a variety of subjects. The slant is a little different from conventional news verbiage, but beneficial as supplement. Politico’s article, Why It’s Hard to Take Democrats Seriously on Russia, is instructive. It is historically accurate, though benefiting  from hindsight. What it lacks, which is why Henry Kissinger still visits the White House, is relation to the better historical examples of diplomacy.

The history of diplomacy intertwines with much of the regrettable history of conflict.   Perhaps this is why it is not referenced much with respect to current problems. In contrast to other fields where expertise is valued, the political process propels into the upper echelons of power people who know no more about it than the typical well rounded person. When media such as Politico measure their results, the reference frame is derived from domestic politics. This leaves out a lot.

In the depths of the Cold War, continuity was maintained by a brain trust that bridged the parties, resulting from the universally accepted policy of Containment. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Containment became, at least temporarily, irrelevant. But since 2001, a new problem set, terrorism, an ambiguous Russia, European realignments,  the rise of China, all in the context of a complex  multipolar world, have found no consensus. So each new administration starts de novo, ignoring the perspective of an adversary or competitor  with experience of of two or three administrations, and a sense of history that goes back at least a hundred years.

With modern innovation, our democratic process has  roots in the primitive methods by which tribes and clans have chosen leaders; a mix of consensus, accolade and honorable ritual combat. It defines character as reliably acting in the partisan interest, and favors character over intellect. This tradition, not the Constitution, is the rock-bottom basis of delegation of powers. (The U.K. has no constitution. The office of Prime Minister of Australia exists only by tradition and convention. So much for forms.) Until recently, with two hundred plus years of delegation established as much by precedent as the Constitution we could say, “so far so good.”

But now the conflict between the White House and Congress, rooted in fear of collusion with Russia, threatens the Constitutional backstop,  which relies as much on tradition and interpretation as the words themselves. As much as the desire to retaliate against Russia, this is the fear that drives the sanctions bill: that  Trump might give away the store. Even in the presidency of Gerald Ford, whose impeccability benefited from association with hardliner Richard Nixon,  this was an issue.  From a White House press memorandum on SALT II (Ford Library):

Q: Senator Jackson says he does not like the Vladivostok agreement because it sets levels too high and leaves advantages in throw weight for the Soviets. Also, he raises the question of whether there were any secret agreements made in Vladivostok. Can you comment on these points?

Can sanctions bring about a change in the behavior of an adversary? In supple hands, yes. But the goal to be bought is change, not pure retribution.  The Jackson-Vanik amendment  attempted to open the Soviet Union to emigration. An important symbol of U.S. commitment to freedom, it fell short in result, because it publicly challenged  Soviet sovereignty. Quoting WIkipedia,

At first the Jackson–Vanik amendment did little to help free Soviet Jewry. The number of exit visas declined after the passing of the amendment.[7] However, in the late 1980s Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to comply with the protocols of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Lazin (2005) states that scholars differ on how effective the amendment was in helping Soviet Jews. Some argue that it helped bring the plight of Soviet Jews to the world's attention, while others believe it hindered emigration and decreased America's diplomatic bargaining power.[7]

If supple hands can be found and trusted by Congress, sanctions must be  re-enabled as a bargaining chip. The satisfaction of retribution must not be bought with the same coin that could buy real gains.

Internationalist foreign policy has been shown the door, replaced by a  slogan, “America First.” There are now at least three policy centers. the White House, Rex Tillerson, and Congress, all presumably guided by a two-word idea.  Kennan’s Long Telegram , the basis of Containment, has 5,363 words. It brings to mind an idea about dinosaurs, who were thought to have had  larger brains in their posteriors than in their heads.

Sadly for us, the posterior brain could not hold an idea. It could only move the legs.  And like it or not, we are shuffling along, making history. Ten years from now, will that history be to our liking? The great figures of early modern diplomacy had  organic conceptions of their nations.  Predating democracy, the rights of man, and modern economies,  their goals and perspectives were different from ours. But their consummate skills are sources for emulation.

As a quasi living organism, every nation exists in an ecology that is constantly changing. Simply to remain healthy  involves constant rebalancing and adaptation. Two words can’t tell us how, where, or why.

A nation has a childhood, an adulthood, and a decline.  Unlike the creatures of nature, there exists at least the possibility of renewal or rebirth at any time.  We have seen this in China. But to beat the odds, we have to be both wise and smart. The words have different connotations. Wisdom suggests productive use of past experience. Smart implies new thinking, outside the box.

Can we be both wise and smart? I think maybe George Costanza has the right idea. I’ll do a write-in next election.