This was announced following an attack on their primary nuclear facility (in Natanz, Iran), but given the clear disparity between the necessary level of enrichment for weapons production and 60%, this comes off as "we won't stand idly by while being attacked" versus "we are preparing to enter the global nuclear arena".
I am no nuclear arms expert, but based off their nuclear history, I surmise they intended this statement to be somewhat of a scare tactic that rings hollow at the end of the day.
> but given the clear disparity between the necessary level of enrichment for weapons production and 60%
I'm also not an expert here, but I did a bit of research out of curiosity.
First, the core Little Boy was 64kg of 80% enriched uranium. Wikipedia says the theoretical lower limit for an implosion-type nuclear bomb of 20%. This report[1], cited on Wiki's "enriched uranium" page, seems to indicate that the critical mass for 60% HEU is ~100kg (for U233) or ~200kg (for U235).
Based upon that, it's not at all clear to me that 60% HEU isn't a direct step toward acquiring nuclear weapons.
I would suspect the possibility that 60% may be weapons-grade with modern timing systems and precise manufacturing of detonation layers and waveguides. It would seem that the ability to do finite-element shock wave simulations changes everything. But I know little about this.
expanding on your idea - how about the possibility that it would also allow to have weapons with small-ish (and highly tunable) yield which would allow for tactical use of it. The NK tests for example were of small yields and many declared it to be fizzles - i wonder though could it have been that they actually were able to build small yield weapons which in some sense are more useable than the megaton ones.
The classic Cold War style MAD is probably showing its age and limitations - even when your country is being attacked, at least in some conventional way and especially if using modern high-precision hitting mostly military, it would probably be a very tall order to muster a decision to throw the megaton ICBMs into the country of your attacker. Compare to that the decision to use small-ish (the smaller the better) tactical nukes directly against the much larger/powerful attacking forces is practically a no-brainer.
I'm just going to repeat a question I posted earlier today on a similar article. Hopefully it will get more compelling answers.
Why should anyone believe they are pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy program when they do things like this? Surely the best way to convince people you are the peaceful victim is to continue to demonstrate peaceful intentions even when others don't reward you for it.
For better or for worse, the JCPOA was abandoned and the accompanying incentives for Iran to limit the scope of its nuclear research disappeared. But that doesn't mean Iran is incentivized to develop nuclear weapons. Continuing to adhere to the guidelines outlined by the JCPOA would help build trust from the rest of the world that Iran really just wanted a peaceful nuclear energy program. Instead, their recent actions only seem to build distrust.
After laying their intentions bare like this, why should anyone trust them with JCPOA 2.0?
1) Why should Iran come to the negotiating table if the previous deal was scuttled so quickly? What even makes American treaties reliable any more? To put it another way, why should they even trust any treaty with the West? Why is Iran asked to turn the other cheek, vs America asked to provide concessions for overturning a treaty, or put hard checks on their client state, Israel.
2) If you have more to give up, wouldn't you have a stronger bargaining position? There's not much the West can do at this point in terms of tightening sanctions, and they, with the exception of Israel, have no interest in another long war in the Middle East.
3) Why should Iran not be able to develop a nuclear deterrent? It is surrounded by American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, has Saudi and the Gulf monarchies against it close by, and is an enemy of Israel, which is known to have dozens to hundreds of nuclear warheads. Clearly, given MAD, launching nuclear weapons offensively is untenable. So, a nuclear deterrent might protect Iran from foreign attack. A deterrent means the US or its client states aren't allowed to unilaterally bomb Iran any more, which is the right they are currently claiming.
I'm simply asking you to consider their view, without considering them irrational or chaotic or evil a priori. Certainly, a great deal of prejudice, jingoistic nationalism, sectarian religiosity, and macho posturing are at play on their end, as well. I can say it's similar on the end of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the US, as well. A more balanced view, understanding the motivations of all sides, may help arrive at an actual solution to this awful standoff, where innocents bear the brunt.
I sincerely wish all the countries of this region, and across the world, disarmed themselves of nuclear weapons. It's too easy for disaster to occur, accidentally or at will, and we forget that this guillotine is hanging over our head at every second.
> has Saudi and the Gulf monarchies against it close by, and is an enemy of Israel
It is a self declared enemy of Israel. There is over a thousand miles and two countries between them. Israel has never threatened Iran and has no interest in attacking it.
As for the Saudis and Gulf monarchies, religious differences and hegemony struggles aside - as far as I know Iran are the sole aggressors supporting proxy wars and attacks in the gulf (they literally regularly blow up Saudi oil refineries). I don't think it is at all threatened by the Saudi and Gulf armies, which are not formidable, and has never been attacked by them.
This is some Scooby Doo villain level inversion. In case it isn't completely clear to you, Iran is an expansionist rising power competing with Turkey for control over the ME and Persian/Arabian gulf over a Shia/Sunni cold-religious-war type background, a centuries old holy war... their beef with the house of Saud is about who should control Mecca, feel free to read up about it.
> A more balanced view, understanding the motivations of all sides, may help arrive at an actual solution to this awful standoff, where innocents bear the brunt.
That would involve some knowledge of the history of the region and basic understanding of the cultures and actors involved.
Start by understanding what an Ayatollah is and why they have been ordering their own citizens to be hanged from construction cranes, disappeared, and tortured, for half a century.
So the points are are "Iran started the enmity" and "Iran is worse than the other countries." I have a hard time buying either. Wouldn't the nakba be the original source of enmity created by the state of Israel between it and the Muslim nations? In any case, who started it doesn't change the ground geopolitical realties that must be solved for us to achieve a world with active peace.
I am absolutely no defender of the enormous amount of violence that Iran's supply of rebel groups and militias in the region has caused. But I have a hard time ranking these crimes, and their internal oppression vs Israel's apartheid state vs the Saudi's internal oppression and funding of militias and rebel groups vs the US's war in Iraq, where between half a million and a million people died.
It's unclear to me what you mean by the "culture" of Iran? Do you mean their political religiosity? I don't find that a convincing source of differentiation between them and other countries in the region. Israeli Zionism, Saudi Wahabbism, etc.
The point is Israel is not threatening Iran. The nakba has zilch to do with Iran, prior to the Ayatollahs (and even briefly at the start of their reign) there was no enmity.
And world peace is certainly not the goal of the current Iranian regime. It is borderline willful ignorance to suggest that.
> It's unclear to me what you mean by the "culture" of Iran? Do you mean their political religiosity? I don't find that a convincing source of differentiation between them and other countries in the region. Israeli Zionism, Saudi Wahabbism, etc.
Why flaunt your ignorance?
Certainly without equivocating to whatever your beliefs might be or getting bogged down in metaphysics and moralities or saying one is somehow better than the other, if you want to understand the geopolitics you need to be able to differentiate between them.
> What even makes American [foreign policy] reliable any more? ...Why should Iran not be able to develop a nuclear deterrent?
I strongly oppose Iran developing nuclear weapons, but your logic is unassailable here. Our foreign policy with WMDs has been abysmal. Our leaders fail to take into account one simple truth: You get what you incentivize.
Ghaddafi and Hussein disarmed and ended up dead. Meanwhile Pakistan and North Korea get treated with kid gloves. Given that, why should Iran stop its nuclear program?
The United States should adopt a bipartisan set of criteria for when it will intervene re WMDs and when it won't, and stick to it across administrations. That is the only way to maintain any credibility.
Yeah, the parent comment asked about "the best way to convince people you are the peaceful victim," but Iran isn't necessarily (wholly) emphasizing that narrative. They probably don't primarily care about being believed. If convincing people they're a peaceful victim were the strongest position to be in, they'd likely pursue that more seriously.
If you look at it from Iran's perspective, why should they be responsible for building trust? They got jerked around by the last administration. Their sworn enemy, Israel, has nuclear capability, and the US and other nuclear powers have military bases within striking range of Iran.
While I personally am in favor of nuclear disarmament and anti-proliferation, it's very easy for me to say that, living in a country with nuclear weapons serving as deterrent. Iran logically wants to own that deterrent as well.
And at its base, even if they don't have immediate plans to enrich to the point where they could have a viable nuclear weapon, it's also a case of showing strength (in the negotiation sense): "we're tired of being jerked around; if you want us to come to the table, you have to see us as strong and take us seriously". I don't think they really care about presenting themselves as the "peaceful victim".
> After laying their intentions bare like this, why should anyone trust [Iran] with JCPOA 2.0?
Given what happened with 1.0, why should Iran trust the US with JCPOA 2.0?
Israel openly brags about attacking Israel enrichment. They’ve clearly said the treaty is unacceptable and will strike at Iran.
Words and actions are different things, and the imbalance of power allows Israel to take more destructive actions. When was the last time Iran struck Israel?
I’m no fan of Iran, but Israel is far from a good actor or peaceful nation.
Yes, Israel attacks Iranian enrichment. So does the US. Attacking enrichment centers that aim to produce warhead material is acceptable foreign policy, especially against a nation that calls Israel a cancerous tumor needing to be destroyed. These enrichment programs have a singular goal, and it is not clean energy.
When was the last time Iran struck Israel? Is that a joke? April 13th, 2021 Iran struck an Israeli ship. Iran funds and supplies terror groups -- see https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2.... These groups especially try to kill Israelis via rocket attacks, but also American Civilians (e.g., embassy attack).
Israel is absolutely a peaceful nation, as evidenced by numerous recent peace treaties in the region, but being peaceful does not obligate them to await armed conflict as opposed to taking defensive measure.
Ok, you’re right. They’re both hostile countries. They both fund the destruction of others, whether that’s through terrorism or stealing of land.
We should stop selling bombs to everyone in the region, and pull all of our support. If they want to fight each other, let them. As long as the US blindly supports Israel, they will feel empowered to continue not being peaceful. We won’t though, since Israel is the beachhead of the petrodollar into the region. Just like no US president will stop giving weapons to the Saudis.
Israel is like my chihuahua that is only tough when she is on the leash. Let her off the leash and she is much less vicious to other dogs.
It sounds like your gripe is more with the American system than with Israel.
For what it's worth, Israel may be a chihuahua, but the reason that a chihuahua holds it's own with the big dogs is because the chihuahua has more at stake in a confrontation. Israel is a Nuclear power, and that's not by America's influence. So the notion that Israel is only tough because of American force is patently false.
Further, the notion that Israel stole land (from who? the Iranians?) and that's the source of the aggression is absurd. Hint -- Iran doesn't recognize Israel's title to any land in the region, let alone contested territory. Iran and Israel further used to have friendly relations with Iran pre revolution. Why the policy change then, and not earlier?
Israel steals land from the Palestinians. The entire creation of the state of Israel was the taking of land from the Palestinians and giving it to Israel, which continues today through the illegal settlements in Palestinian territory.
It never ceases to amaze me just how short memories are in the west.
Edit: The only enemy Iran ever had in the ME was Iraq, the decade long war between them was the stuff of nightmares. They sent tens of thousands of child soldiers into trench war fare, to be gassed by Saddam, and run over mines.
And there are just so many other incidents in between that explains why their relationship with the west is so f...up and the most recent one is JCPOA and the killing of their general and scientists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
Of course they will focus on their defense capabilities and military strength knowing that their entire history was manipulated by others. What gives them a reason to trust anyone now?
> You might be shocked at just how few Iranian citizens consider Israel to be an enemy.
Yes, I read they were ally until the revolution in Iran. I think Israel is the enemy Iran needs to increase their political influence in the region. The same way the Iran is the enemy that the US needs to sell arms in the Middle East. The rest is BS.
Iranians are living a misery between a regime that doesn't give them freedom, and sanctions that don't allow them to live. All because we have God knows how much arms sell in the Middle East, and we want to control oil. It's all sad.
Very shocking that the pro-US dictatorship installed by US efforts to overthrow the democratically elected government in Iran was friendly with Israel. And that the inevitable blowback that replaced the dictator left the region with a county distrusting and hostile to the West and Israel. It’s almost like actions have consequences.
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Unfortunately, imperial hubris blinds people to their own state and its actions.
Iran never had democracy. Soviets were in the picture as well. It's almost like the US is not omnipotent and there is more than one actor.
Historically, ordinary Persian citizens, regardless of regime, were perfectly fine with both Jews in general and Israel in particular. At worst they didn't care, why should they, the two places are very far apart.
Little spoken about in western press even the Ayatollahs initially were not hostile to Israel, as their interests aligned. That's how realpolitik works.
This changed and they made the calculation like any number of colorful despots and dictators in the ME and further afield to distract their populations from their failures with an external foe.
> The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état (Persian: کودتای ۲۸ مرداد), was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on 19 August 1953.
Just because the US, at the behest of the British, helped orchestrate a coup to reinstall a dictator, doesn’t mean they never had democracy. It’s just that said democracy wanted to profit off the oil in their own land, instead of letting the British continue their imperial theft.
The inevitable blowback from such a cravenly selfish act, means that we get the world the US created.
I'll tell you a secret; it wasn't just the US and the UK but several other powers. And not just in Iran but all over the world. There was this little thing called the Cold War as a backdrop, from your own link:
"The British soldiers withdrew from Iran after the end of the war. However, under Stalin, the Soviet Union partly remained by sponsoring two "People's Democratic Republics" within Iran's borders."
> Even the Ayatollahs themselves are in power now because we thought regime change is necessary in Iran, hence we did aid their revolution.
I don't know who we is supposed to be, but if you mean the US, certainly it had interests and influence it tried to wield. Very unsuccessfully. Quite an interesting unsavory story to be sure, but scratch beneath the surface and you'll find a quite complicated one as well - it isn't black and white at all.
Iran never had democracy, it is cursed with oil as you point out and geography plays a role as well, as does religion, welcome to how the world actually works.
However Iran ended up with Ayatollahs, one could only ever so gently suggest that perhaps Iranians themselves had some agency and responsibility in this matter, or how North Korea ended up with the Kim dynasty - hardly a reason to be an apologist for these dangerous repressive regimes.
One is not an apologist for a repressive regime when one dispassionately analyzes the realpolitik of their circumstances. It's not a defense of the Ayatollahs to observe that, from the perspective of the Iranian gov't., the U.S. (among many others) has continuously been a hostile power since at least WW2, and it's silly to place expectations on them as a negotiating partner as if that weren't the case.
One is an apologist for a repressive regime when one knowingly or unknowingly repeats their exaggerated talking points.
They are very adapt at exploiting western sensibilities. Their realpolitik is to stay in power at all costs and export terror to deflect from internal instability.
The US has attained energy independence and has been leaving the region.
Turkey, China, Russia, and now Iran will divvy up the spoils. Iran is an expansionist rising power vying for hegemony in the region and a repressive authoritarian religious dictatorship, it is silly to take their negotiations in good faith as if that weren't the case - whatever historical excuse they might try and shame you with.
Yes, they're an expansionist rising power and a repressive authoritarian religious dictatorship. So what? No one at the State Dep't thinks otherwise, or is shamed by Iranian propaganda, except insofar as that propaganda is effective PR that the U.S. has to counter--and PR is where the U.S. history is relevent and problematic, and where a clear-headed appraisal of the circumstances is necessary.
When you're playing chess, you're not being an apologist for the other player by imagining their best move.
>Surely the best way to convince people you are the peaceful victim
i'm not sure that convincing people of that would play well for domestic standing of an authoritarian regime. Even if there were no threat to the current Iranian regime from outside (which i suspect is a big if), a populist government, especially an authoritarian one, to stay in power has to play a strong national identity theme. So, one way or another, each step is making them closer to the bomb - only regime change from inside as the result of some rose/orange revolution may stop it, and it doesn't seem that there is any chance of it in the near decade or two (so delaying their progress until such a time is probably the best strategy, and that is what Obama's agreement was doing - delaying, not stopping/preventing, and the voting public's non-understanding of that approach is what tanked it as GOP were technically right in their attack of the agreement that it doesn't prevent the bomb in some decades down the road). Any bold external action i think would only fuel internal nationalist forces and thus would play into the regime hand.
Iran doesn't want the world to believe it's nuclear ambitions are peaceful. The threat of (and actual) progress towards a nuclear weapon is their negotiating power.
Iran doesn't need to build "trust" with the rest of the world. (Almost) everyone agrees that they were followed through on their commitments. What Iran needs is to maintain credability. Without that, the international community would walk all over them. Iran offered to keep following the JCPOA even after the US so blatantly voided it. They just needed the rest of the world to make up the difference. When this didn't happen (again, because the US flexed its muscles to make it not happen) Iran had no way to maintain credability without resuming their nuclear program.
In more concrete terms, Iran would still need to negotiate another treaty, only this time they would need to make additional consessions. A few years later, the rest of the worlds backs out of the new treaty and forces Iran to make another set of concessions.
> After laying their intentions bare like this, why should anyone trust them with JCPOA 2.0?
Because they complied with JCPOA 1.0. And JCPOA 2.0 would likely include monitoring. And we can reimpose sanctions quickly if Iran is found to be in violation.
On the other hand, leaders in Iran would need to answer the same questions; only they will be faced with much worse answers. Their counter parties did not follow through on JCPOA 1.0. And rebuilding a nuclear program takes longer than reimposing sanctions.
It is easy to get stuck in the mindset that we are the only players. But geopolitics is a game; and our enemies get to make moves too.
Because treaties like JCPOA aren't based on trust, they're based on verification. Trust, in the sense you're describing it (the way a person might trust another based on their past behaviour) doesn't really exist between nation states.
And Iran is very incentivized to develop nuclear weapons. North Korea's bargaining position wrt to the U.S. improved immensely once they demonstrate a nuclear weapon; Pakistan and India have both enjoyed much less superpower pressure because they also have nukes. And more immediately, Israel has nukes and are Iran's primary regional rival. Israel has been a dominant regional entity largely because of it's military superiority over everyone else, which includes its nukes. Iran obtaining nukes is a potent counterweight to Israel's perceived freedom of military action.
> Surely the best way to convince people you are the peaceful victim is to continue to demonstrate peaceful intentions even when others don't reward you for it.
This is the international relations version of asking protestors to just show up unarmored and let police beat the shit out of them.
It is entirely ineffective in both cases for the same reason: there is an American news empire that centers the state's narrative. The state will attack, and will spin the resulting images of destruction as entirely provoked by the victim.
(Given that everyone knows that's what will happen, you might as well get what you paid for and show up ready for violence. That's what Iran is doing.)
US goal: Nuclear containment in Central Asia that threaten Israel.
Iran goal: reversal of sanctions that cripple the economy.
US has no incentive to lift sanctions if Iran complies with sanctions in place. In a world where a bankrupt Iran abandons enrichment, Israel is not threatened.
I have a genuine concern about Iran having a nuclear bomb. Is there someone out there with some expertise they could tell me if I’m paranoid, or if I should be really concerned?
They seem to be more predictable and reasonable than the North Korea regime. It might make things more peaceful in the middle east, since their foe now knows they have the bomb.
On the other hand, it probably means that Iran/Lebanon/Syria are doomed for the short-medium and maybe even long-term.
Pakistan, India, and China have all had nukes for decades, and are all mortal enemies, and there've even been multiple border skirmishes between pairs, without it ever escalating to open war, let alone nukes.
No matter how belligerent Iran seems, it's not obvious that their possession of nuclear weapons decreases stability in the region; arguably, with Israel being the other nuclear power in the region, it increases stability by creating a MAD circumstance, where before Israel felt safe taking unilateral military action, protected by its nuclear umbrella.
The more nations that have nukes the more risk of something terrible happening with them. Having said that Iran has shown itself to be a rational actor; and there is no way it survives a nuclear conflict.
The entire world, including Iran, learned a lot of lessons from the cold war; and so are unlikely to repeat the same mistakes that made us almost stumble into a nuclear war then.
On the other hand, nuclear weapons have a remarcable history in maintaining (relative) world piece. It isn't a gamble I would willingly take, but Iran becoming a nuclear power might be a path to piece in the middle east.
I'm an expert in paranoia. You should not be concerned if there's nothing you can do about it. If you think you can do something, focus on that instead. In any case, don't be too concerned.
If you look at Iran's advancements you'll notice that any interference by Israel or anyone else is just slowing things down a bit. If Israel's goal is to not let Iran advance their nuclear program then they've been hilariously incompetent at it.
Good Luck! At this point I would hope they would get innovative and try different options for their electricity or defense needs. Why are they getting so stuck on enriching uranium ? Why not try something else ?
60% U-235 is far more than what is necessary for commercial power generation, and yet less than what it is necessary for a nuclear weapon (> 90%). This is a threat to make a bomb without actually crossing the line to actually making a bomb.
It seems that commercial reactors use 3% to 5% enriched Uranium. [1] Is there any practical reason to enrich Uranium to 60%? For example, is it cheaper to enrich the Uranium to 60%, and then use that as fuel for ~12 commercial reactors by diluting it down to ~5%?
This appears to be spending a lot of effort to concentrate uranium into a tidy, enriched package in order to provoke Israel into transforming that package into a significantly less concentrated and much less usable form.
Well, using more highly enriched uranium means you can make reactors lighter and more compact which is very important if you want to send them to outer space. I don't think Iran has any immediate interest in that but it's very much on NASA's radar.
> Is there any practical reason to enrich Uranium to 60%?
Yes.
Going from 2% -> 90% first requires you to go from 2% -> 60% both in the mathematical sense (2->60->90) and in the process sense (it's a lot less work to from 60% -> 90% than it is from 2% -> 90%) and also in the sense that you to first develop the technology to enrich uranium to various levels, then develop the technology to enrich it to that level at scale, enriching to 2% isn't that hard, enriching to 60% is hard, enriching to 90% is harder but the leap from 2->60 is a lot harder than the leap from 60->90.
In short, no, I don't think there is any practical reason to enrich to 60% unless your intention is to either enrich to weapons grade or as a threat to do so.
Which describes radioisotope thermoelectric generators in spacecraft, prototype small sealed reactors, and nuclear submarines. The last is obviously military use.
FWIW this attack is more commonly being attributed to Israel, partly because it endangers the deal (sanction relief for enrichment limits/inspections) the US is trying to reestablish.
Because it blows the cover of diplomacy. Sovereign nations not at war aren’t supposed to conduct hostile ops against each other.
Diplomacy and international relations are sort of their own universe with their protocols, traditions etc. Admitting to the attack would mean that the US appears as the blatant aggressor, and may have to make concessions. Plausible deniability is often safe and has no consequences.
Says international law, including the United Nations charter (reciting the Westphalian doctrine), which every member state signs onto.
Of course, there are large grey areas in international relations, and nobody can reasonably expect perfect compliance, anyhow. But beyond any specific practical, tactical, or strategic reasons for maintaining plausible deniability, refusing to openly admit to a violation still reflects a degree of obeyance to the law. When large nations start openly flouting norms w/ a giant "F-U", that's when you know the international order and world peace is in trouble.
Plausible deniability of military ops is the nation-state equivalent of the polite fiction in cultural anthropology--an important, useful tool providing resilience to the normative system.
Not who, but what--self-interest, the natural human predisposition to obey cultural norms, biologically innate concept of "fairness", etc.
A cultural norm is also a mechanism for streamlining cooperation--whenever some person or entity breaks established norms, you don't need to convene and deliberate to decide whether it was wrong, it's just perse wrong and members can instantaneously begin acting accordingly. It keeps everybody aligned. Not perfectly, but to a much greater degree than when the particular invisible boundaries don't exist. And that's one reason why it's in everybody's self-interest to substantially promote obeyance to such norms, and avoid harming the norm.
Some norms are more important than others. In the context of international relations, sovereignty is perhaps still the most important one. Unless you're prepared to conquer the entire world, anything you do that harms the principle harms yourself as other nation-states are less likely to respect your own sovereignty. Balancing these interests (e.g. short-term gain vs long-term harm) is complex, but as I said upholding the principle of sovereignty is one of the most sacrosanct. And so when it's violated it's quite understandable why even super powers like the U.S. and China remain circumspect, invariably resorting to plausible deniability or pretense justifications that at least nominally avoid openly flouting the principle.
You're spinning in circles. 'self-interest, the natural human predisposition to obey cultural norms' are abstract ideas, not international enforcement bodies.
>And that's why it's in everybody's self-interest to substantially promote obeyance to such norms, and avoid harming the norm.
Oh yeah? If that's the case, why does a thing like 'tragedy of commons' exist? Is it because without a central authority to enforce order, the rational action to take by each actor is to cheat and to take as much for themselves because if they don't, someone else will? But don't believe me, look at all of history. Peace only existed when an empire was able to enforce it.
Circling back to Iran. Iran has their sovereignty, they just are pariah state because they chose a policy of antagonism against a super-power - that policy hasn't worked out for them at all.
If "might makes right" was the only viable dynamic, the human species wouldn't exist. It's one very important dynamic, but hardly the only one, and not the principle dynamic upon which human civilizations are built. It's why North Korea is still a sh*t hole, while China increasingly relies on nationalism and other social mechanisms to manage its society. Force or even the threat of force doesn't scale very well.
History is important but not determinative. The emergence of the Westphalian doctrine was a novel civilizational development; novel in how deeply and quickly it spread. It's sort of like the concepts of monotheism or "human rights"--decentralized, self-perpetuating, viral organizing principles which can't easily be put back in the box once they achieve critical mass.
EDIT: To be clear, the problem with a nation-state like the U.S. flouting national sovereignty is that the "United States" is a construct predicated on the international sovereign order. Undermining that international order undermines the very identity of the country, an identity undergirding the legitimacy of its institutions and the willingness of its people to promote them, not to mention the legitimacy of its external relationships. So even though there are counter-forces--often very powerful counter-forces--the forces for maintaining the logic of the nation-state order are exceptionally powerful and at work at all levels. Mechanisms like plausible deniability (where plausible implies something that can be tolerably overlooked) are like pressure relief valves for contradictions that threaten the normative order. Someday the nation-state order may collapse, overwhelmed by stronger organizing dynamics, hopefully establishing a better civilizational equilibrium, but so what? The point is understanding the reasons for how and why countries act in the particular, peculiar ways that they currently do.
Force and the threat of force scales incredibly well. The question is just how refined your mechanism for applying it is.
Economically, the United States is the most effective country. It got to where it is through a genocide, and it enforces the rules of its economy by threatening force all the way to deadly force in every single commercial interaction, in the interactions of property, and even in the data you're allowed to read and share. Property is the basis of American society and the basis of property is force.
The international order is a farce. It's main enforcer, the United States, is not a signatory to half of what it purports to enforce, and violates international law whenever it is convenient.
The nation state order is different from the international order, and is based on the coalescing of national power into an entity with the monopoly of violence.
At every single level, the current order is based on force. It exists because the mighty wanted it to exist and because it is an efficient way to organize power, not because it's right or even because it's an useful set of rules to apply to every situation.
Really, it's mostly a tool to spin narratives and make the use of force more efficient.
>If "might makes right" was the only viable dynamic, the human species wouldn't exist.
It's not the only viable dynamic but it's the first and most important one. If your tribe, or nation cannot defend its borders it doesn't go on existing. That was a fact for all of human civilization. We can't even count the number of peoples that were exterminated by rivals over the course human civilization and lost to history.
Within the borders of an empire, with a strong central authority who took the option of force away, "might makes right" takes a backseat to politics, which determines the status of your tribe or nation. Our present world order mimics this state. You can exist as a nation-state but you have to play by the rules. This starts breaking down as the power of some rival nation-state grows. China has a lot of ability to buck American order, and as it ascends to a global super-power it will have more. But don't think for a minute that nation-states that align with China will be free to do whatever they want. They will have to follow China's rules. If not, they will cease to exist or become a pariah state.
>The emergence of the Westphalian doctrine was a novel civilizational development; novel in how deeply and quickly it spread.
It spread because a super-power allowed it and supported it. The present global order was created after the second world war led to the collapse of European empires and ascendance of USA and Soviet Union. It was initially defined by those two super-powers, one market-based and democratic, the other communist and authoritarian. It is not a coincidence that most nations adopted one of those two systems. It is also not a coincidence that when the communist super-power collapsed, democracy (the favoured system of the other super-power) became a default system of governance. If the 21st century sees the ascendance of China as a sole super-power, their system will become the default system of governance.
I have no idea how you can think that abstract ideas can simply enforce their will.
>It's sort of like the concepts of monotheism or "human rights"--decentralized, self-perpetuating, viral organizing principles which can't easily be put back in the box once they achieve critical mass.
Put another way, if you can convince the dominant empire to adopt your ideas, your ideas will spread. When only a small regional power was monotheistic, it was a nothing burger. When it was adopted, first by the Roman empire, and then by a growing Arab empire, only then did monotheism became a dominant strain of religion. Ideas have power, but only insofar that a dominant force monopoly accepts them. You can actually see this in history with local warlords, nation-states, and tribes converting to monotheism to align themselves politically with the relevant empire (Christian or Muslim).
>It's why North Korea is still a sh*t hole, while China increasingly relies on nationalism and other social mechanisms to manage its society.
You're conflating concepts. There are any number of ways that you could manage a nation, some better than others. That has nothing to do with anything. What North Korea, China, USA and all other nations have in common is that they have a monopoly on force that enforces order. Why do you think police carries guns? Why do you think Police exists in the first place? There certainly is a 'carrot' component and people largely willingly buy into the system, but the existence of police should strongly suggest that this is only the case because violence has been taken away as an option. Put another way, you as a citizen interacting with another citizen, cannot use violence as an option even if you wanted to (unless it's explicitly allowed by the force monopoly). Nation-states that cannot enforce order and do not have a monopoly on force are labeled as 'failed states'. Those are the worst places to live on earth.
This is a good analogue to nation-states interacting with each other. The option of force has been largely been taken away as an option, especially for nations within the sphere of influence of a super-power or allied with a super-power.
It's why Iran funds terrorist organizations and proxy militias in Syria, Yemen and region, but doesn't actually invade its neighbours or openly commit its armies. Maybe it doesn't want to, but that's immaterial ... because regardless of whether it wants to or not, it isn't allowed to. When Iraq invaded Iran in the 1980s it gambled that America will stand back because of Iran's antagonism towards America. They got that right and America not-so-subtly even supported the Iraqi military campaign. On the other side, when Iraq gambled and invaded Kuwait, and American ally, in the 1990s - they lost that bet.
By the way, North Korea only exists because China pushed back UN forces during the Korea War. North Korea continues to exist only because China protects it.
>Force or even the threat of force doesn't scale very well.
It scales very well. It's ever present in every interaction we have. Even seemingly benign and unassuming laws, like fines for littering, have the threat of force and death behind them and it's easy to see how. If you litter, you will have an interaction with armed police and courts, and depending on how that interaction goes, you may be killed or deprived of your freedom.
>Mechanisms like plausible deniability (where plausible implies something that can be tolerably overlooked) are like pressure relief valves for contradictions that threaten the normative order.
Sure. Humans are good at managing cognitive dissonance. Did you know, for example, that Roman ideals were against starting of wars? That was a very important concept to the way how Romans saw themselves. In practice, this meant that if Rome wanted to go on a particular war campaign they would manipulate the situation in such a way that it would 'look' like their hand was forced.
"The only peace humanity every knew was within the border of some empire. Otherwise it was constant war."
This is a bold claim on a very much debatable subject, where it would come down to what "war" is, if it is the same with armed conflict/incident (like opposing force against a robbery), and so on. There are many countries, even neighboring ones (like Serbia and Romania), that say that have never been in a war against each other.
As to the commendation of living within an empire, that is just helplessness against empire's overpowering forces, which is far from the general idea of "peace" as in Wikipedia-defined "societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence".
>This is a bold claim on a very much debatable subject, where it would come down to what "war" is, if it is the same with armed conflict/incident (like opposing force against a robbery), and so on.
No. It's not debatable. Show me an example of an extended peace between nations outside of the borders of an empire. This is almost a tautology to say that you need a central authority to have a monopoly of force. Otherwise you're in the 'tragedy of commons' scenario.
>There are many countries, even neighboring ones (like Serbia and Romania), that say that have never been in a war against each other.
Certainly they don't want to, but that's immaterial, they aren't allowed to. They are within the sphere of American order.
>As to the commendation of living within an empire, that is just helplessness against empire's overpowering forces, which is far from the general idea of "peace" as in Wikipedia-defined "societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence".
"Certainly they don't want to, but that's immaterial, they aren't allowed to. They are within the sphere of American order."
If we are referring to the Serbia-Romania example, the peace track record is way longer before what you call American order to be a thing (and even longer if we'd count peace between their people, before statehood), then afterwards it's safe to say that they kept their peace despite America's interests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
I am no nuclear arms expert, but based off their nuclear history, I surmise they intended this statement to be somewhat of a scare tactic that rings hollow at the end of the day.