Islamist regimes and nukes (Harris)
April 1st, 2008 | Published in Fundamentalism, War, Quotes, Politics, Religion | 5 Comments
There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-ranged nuclear weaponry?….
In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action against us, given what Islamists believe. How would such an unconscionable act of self-defense be perceived by the rest of the Muslim world? It would likely be seen as the first incursion of a genocidal crusade. The horrible irony here is that seeing it could make it so: this very perception could plunge us into a state of hot war with any Muslim state that had the capacity to pose a nuclear threat of its own. All this is perfectly insane, of course.
—Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (W. W. Norton, 2004), pp. 128-129.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:39 am (#)
Wow, Harris is a scary fellow. Essentially his excuse for making a nuclear first strike against somebody else is a childish “well, they were gonna do it first.” Ironically, he’s become the very thing he is afraid of in the “Islamists.”
April 1st, 2008 at 10:47 am (#)
He admits it would be an unthinkable crime. But if someone acquired a nuke and was going to kill us with it, should we strike first or should we let them kill us? Either way, millions die.
It’s a messy issue and is a relatively new question for man to deal with, because we’ve only had this kind of destructive technology for less than a century.
I hope we never have to deal with this scenario, but it seems likely that we eventually will.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:07 am (#)
The problem is - how would we know that somebody is “going to kill us with it?” The only way we could know that is if they actually did attack first. It isn’t a sure thing that millions are going to die, either way. But if we were to first strike against them, then that would be a sure thing that millions would die.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:29 am (#)
So if terrorists said they had a nuke, and we confirmed it, and we found out their plan to attack… you think we should wait and see if they really attack? There are no scenarios where you think we should strike first?
April 1st, 2008 at 12:57 pm (#)
I don’t think I can think of any scenario where a nuclear first strike that kills millions of innocents is an appropriate action. You can?
The horrible part is that Harris tries to blame the Muslims in this situation. Notice that he says the thing in this situation that would plunge us into war wouldn’t be the actual nuclear strike by the U.S., but rather the Islamic people’s “perception” of this event.