Note the piece in today's NYT by Bernie Aronson, the former US Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, who suggests a new and potentially ground breaking role for Brazil in global non-proliferation efforts, should they seek to play such a role and should the Obama Admnistration encourage them to do so when Dilma Rousseff visits Washington on Monday April 9. The truth is, we needs partners in order to make non-proliferation work, and in a G20 vice G7/8 world we need to look further afield than Europe and Japan. Despite previouis missteps, Brazil has an important potential role to play.

The president is doing a great job dismantling the US nuclear arsenal and missile defense program. All this is accomplishing, however, is increasing the value of the Russian, Chinese, North Korean, and Iranian nuclear programs.

At this rate the real decrease in global inventories will come after the nuclear exchange that will result from the instability being created by the silly rush to run down the road to zero.

As a necessary assist to consideration the strategic implications of N. Korea’s nuclear capabilities and Iran’s possible capabilities, it is worthwhile us to review the experience of the nuclear age as it has been analyzed by some very sharp minds since 1946. The acquired wisdom can be distilled into these propositions.

1.1. When we speak of an encounter between two nuclear armed states, the primary utility is to deter the other. The risk and consequences of nuclear war are so great as to outweigh any possible advantage in trying to use them.

2. This condition of Mutual Assured Destruction is stable when the following conditions are met: both side have the capacity to withstand a first strike while retaining the nuclear to deliver a nuclear riposte; and when there is the will to do so. No one has ever thought of testing the latter.

3. The absence of a second strike capability on one side does introduce an element of instability by both enticing a first strike by the superior and encouraging the inferior to strike preemptively. That condition increases the risk of unintentional nuclear use to some immeasurable degree. The India-Pakistan stand-off confirms the stabilizing effect of nuclear weapons even under imperfect conditions of deterrence.

4. There is a further condition for a stable binary nuclear relationship; sophisticated and dependable command and control/fail-safe systems. )E.g. permissive action links on nuclear bombs). That serves everyone’s interest – with one exception. The exception may be an inferior nuclear state that wishes to foster anxiety that its weapons might be activated accidently at the height of a crisis – thereby, deterring a superior (nuclear and conventional) antagonist from pressing its advantage. A similar logic points to cultivating an image of being ‘irrational?’ Would the United states have invaded Iraq if it believed a ‘crazy’ Saddam had 3 or 4 nuclear weapons? Would it consider aggressive action against Iran if it believed the ‘mad Mullahs’ in possession of 3 or 4 nuclear weapons?

5. A nuclear armed state that deploys an effective ballistic defense system (BMD) has a theoretical possibility of neutralizing a nuclear armed antagonist ability to retaliate. That could provide some incentive to launch a disarming first strike. The incentive increases if the BMD endowed state faces only a rudimentary arsenal. The same logic applies to the superior power’s taking risky actions involving conventional forces. The key factor in all these calculations is the level of confidence in one’s BMD’s reliability. ‘Almost’ is not good enough when nuclear weapons are present. No such reliable BMD system that can provide an impenetrable shield currently exists.

6. Can the inferior nuclear state deter the superior from launching conventional attacks? We do not have much data on this – especially since there is no case of the superior state trying to do so. Would an Iran with a rudimentary nuclear arsenal be able to deter an American or Israeli-led assault a la Iraq by threatening troop concentrations and/or fleet elements in the Persian Gulf? All we can say is that it will heighten caution.

7. If the inferior state (e.g. N. Korea0 has the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon against the superior’s homeland, that cautionary element grows by several factors.

8. Can the nuclear state provide a credible deterrent umbrella for an ally that is conventionally inferior to a superior armed enemy? (W. Europe facing the Red Army). The NATO, S. Korea experience says ‘yes.’ That is, of the stakes are highly valued, e.g. the integrity of Western Europe. Again, the risks of escalating to nuclear exchanges have a conservative effect on everyone

9. What of the nuclear totem? It didn’t exist at the time of Hiroshima/Nagaski – for two reasons. The devastating effects of nuclear weapons had not yet been demonstrated; we were in the midst of a total war with Japan. That totem exists today and will inhibit everyone who is tempted to use nuclear weapons in a compellent mode.

10. This above logic manifestly has been absorbed by everyone who has been in a position to order a nuclear strike.