Source: www.kremlin.ru

The venerated first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) will expire on December 5, 2009. The importance of this treaty lies not merely in the fact that it reduced the numbers of nuclear warheads and the platforms on which they reside in both the Soviet and US arsenals (later the five weapon holding successor states of the Soviet Union and the US.) Perhaps more important were the unprecedented levels of verification and information exchange incorporated into the Treaty- a codification of President Reagan’s often quoted “trust, but verify” line.

Currently, negotiations are underway to replace the expiring START. Reports indicate that there are two major outstanding bones of contention. The first involves the issue of ground-based mobile launchers, which the Russians have but the US does not. The US would apparently like to see more control over them, but the Russians object to what they see as a unilateral concession. This may be a gambit in search of a concession on the US side. The second issue deals with the details of the allowable numbers of various weapon platforms.

There has been talk in the US Senate of extending START I six months because, even if a new treaty is concluded in the next three weeks, it won’t be ratified and enter into force until much later.

In the Fall of 2002  I drafted an essay that became a Cato Institute Policy Analysis paper on why invading Iraq was a bad idea. In essence, the paper used rational actor theory to propose that there were better ways to address the threat to US security interests posed by Iraq, to the extent such threats existed, than by going to war. Now, seven years later, it is interesting to revisit the subject.

What made me think about this the recent discussion about a surge for Afghanistan. General McChrystal’s suggestion that 40,000 additional troops need to be introduced into the theatre raised quite a stir in the news. However, there seems to be a widespread opinion among military leaders that the 40,000 could not begin to be introduced until the new year, and could not fully be in place until late next year (presuming that they would all come from the US.) Perhaps President Obama’s delayed response is due to an attempt to figure out where they could get these troops in a reasonable timeframe. It is telling that despite a budget of over half a trillion dollars (not counting supplementals) and a military of over three million people when all branches and reserves are included, we cannot come up with 40,000 troops. Of course, few of the three million are relevant to the task at hand (i.e. sending F-16 mechanics or submariner firemen to Afghanistan is not that useful), but this raises a question for another day about why our military seems to be so ill-tailored to the wars it fights. However, the point to note here is that we can’t come up with 40,000 troops because many of the relevant troops are either in Iraq, already in Afghanistan, or are momentarily  rotated out of one of our two war zones long enough to keep their private lives in order and their sanity intact.

Let me acknowledge first that I, at least, was as fooled as anyone about the likelihood that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and /or programs for WMD. Readers of past posts will note that I place little stock in the ability to know or predict behavior absent first-hand knowledge. Despite the sound advice of Sun Tzu that we cannot know an enemy’s capabilities (much less their intentions) without first-hand information (e.g. through spies) and that such knowledge cannot be derived from oracles, humanity still thinks it can – except our oracles are probabilistic risk models. That said, in the absence of certain knowledge one is forced to make a best guess based on a reasonable reading of past actions and the available  indicators. I maintain that, given the uncertainty, it was not unreasonable to think that Iraq had WMD, and, at any rate, the advice given was optimal whether Iraq had WMD or not. The fact that Hussein did not have WMD by no means invalidates but rather bolsters the core message of the paper that (even believing that there were chemical weapons or worse) the threat to US security interests was overblown, and, to the extent these threats existed, they could be handled more effectively without force.

The question at hand here is whether we are better off having attacked Iraq, and I would maintain that we are certainly not at the moment. If, unlikely as it may be, we are threatened tomorrow by an actual threat to our existence or fundamental strategic interests we would be slow and hard-pressed to respond because we are stretched thin by the war in Iraq. True, there is one less dictator in the world. Nice as that may sound, as long as that dictator is not ruling the US, it is not a good measure of whether US interests are improved.

One issue to consider is the threat posed by the perception of the US as a “high capability – low will” state. I don’t suspect we have any enemies that think the capability of the US military is anything but extremely high. Our military is technologically without peer, and is, at best, matched by few in terms of the level of training and morale of forces (I would contend that an all-voluntary military is a force-multiplier unto itself, particularly after spending so much time studying the Russian system and its influence on combat-effectiveness when I was a graduate student .) However, there is also a perception that the US has a limited stomach for warfare, and will not see its engagements through to the end. This problem is created when a country is a little too fast-and-loose in going to war. Its danger is that it decreases the perception of other states of the cost of conflict with America and makes them more likely to engage in activities that may be viewed as threatening.

Frankly, I am astounded at the relatively slow erosion of support for conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan that is, I presume, a mix of the influence of the 9-11 events on the national psyche and a detachment of the average American to these distant wars. The erosion is present none-the-less. It is not unreasonable that American support for the war in Iraq has diminished. The outcome of the conflict fundamentally affects the way people in Iraq live but not substantially how Americans live, and so it is a given that people over there will be willing to fight long after our will wanes. You may remember hearing a line during the political debates to the effect that ”Timelines to withdraw would be a boon to insurgents and radical elements”. I hate to break it to those critics, but whether we leave now, next year, or in 20 years, some radical element will be around to claim victory. 

The US needs to look at war more like it looks at nuclear war. In other words, it is an extreme action against dire attacks against the national existence or critical national interests and should not be engaged in lightly, and that, having made the decision, we will fully accept the consequences of war and see the conflict through to a definitive end. War as a means to reach limited objectives such as tweaking the world into a more palatable form – as I would suggest was the case in Iraq – is a dangerous game. 

Unfortunately, we are really only mid-course in the conflict in Iraq, so knowing the degree to which we will be better or worse off after than before the war remains unclear. If our government (both the Bush and Obama administrations) is correct in its prevailing presumption that we can leave an Iraq that is democratic, stable, and friendly to the US we may end up better off. However, we live in a world where uncertainty is inexorable, and there are other scenarios, that we cannot accurately judge the likelihood of, that may make us worse off. The most prominent of these alternative scenarios is that the Shia majority takes control and reciprocates against a minority that oppressed them for decades. Under this scenario, we will have essentially built an Iraq – Iran alliance that will make any involvement we have in the Persian Gulf region more challenging and may shake up regional stability.

Love it, hate it, or satire it hilariously (ala. Dr. Strangelove), it is hard to argue that there isn’t a satisfying elegance to the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). By satisfying, I mean that there is a clearly defined logic that results in unambiguous policy prescriptions. If two countries each have the “absolute weapon” [i.e. weaponized thermonuclear warheads], and can retain the ability to blow the hell out of each other, they won’t go to war. It is as simple as that. It is true that the policy prescriptions often sound completely daft at worst or faintly fortune-cookie-esque at best, as in: “defending yourself increases your danger”, or “targeting cities is less belligerent than targeting missile silos.” 

If you take a positive view of MAD, and turn the words around to “increases your danger, defending yourself does”, it sounds sage – like something Yoda might say. However, for those opposed to MAD,  it sounds like the kind of thing you might hear a crazy homeless person mumble to themselves as they push their shopping cart down the street, just like “I get drunk to think clearly”, “I built this city from pudding and matchsticks”, or “buying up mortgage-back securities,…how could I lose?” However, the Zen koan-like quality of the policy prescriptions aside, it is a pleasant rarity to not have counter-veiling forces pulling policy in multiple directions. ”Cash for clunkers” results in a lot of energy and material being expended on vehicles that might not otherwise be built, and may result in people going through more vehicles than they otherwise would (i.e. the environmental laudableness of the program is not as patently clear as it first seems.)  Increasing minimum wages will, under most conditions, increase unemployment. Subsidizing farmers results in more grain production and depressed grain prices (exacerbating the condition that led to the policy in the first place.) In short, the realm of policy-making is rife with catch-22s, but MAD seems, ironically, straight forward.

 The challenge before us is to find an equally compelling logic of strategic stability in a world disarmed of nuclear weapons. It may require taking the most brilliant people in the country and shipping them off to someplace like Santa Monica for a few years (just like the formation of RAND after Word War II, whose eminent scholars were largely responsible for MAD), but I’m confident there is a way.

India’s first indigenously-built nuclear reactor-propelled submarine today begins a two year shake-down that, if successful, will result in its addition to the fleet of the Indian Navy. It is interesting to consider the potential strategic ramifications of the sub. It should be noted that this is not India’s first submarine (it has purchased from other countries in the past – notably Russia, who was credited in assisting in this project as well) and that, as mentioned, it’s launch ceremony is not synonymous with it entering service because it is still untried.

In general, nuclear submarines have a mixed influence on strategic stability. A  sub’s ability to hide beneath the seas and to operate there exceptionally quietly for extended periods, means that it is a weapons platform whose survivability is high. This is consistent with deterrence theory. A state needs survivable weapons so that the enemy knows that massive retaliation to an attack is imminent, and that there is no use in trying to swamp an enemy’s deterrent capability.

On the other hand, submarines make the opponent exceedingly concerned about the sub owner’s intentions. Because a sub can pop up off-shore and launch along varying azimuths relatively close and without warning, there is a fear that they will be used to eliminate the enemy’s retaliatory capability as part of a plan to negate the opposition’s deterrent. Both China and Pakistan have small arsenals, and are, therefore, theoretically vulnerable to having their deterrent destroyed by a first strike. In reality China’s deterrent is apparently heavily fortified by being built into a mountain and is not so tiny as to make an opponent confident about knocking it out.

It should be noted that Prime Minister Singh emphasized during the launch speach that India did not have agressive intentions with the new weapon system . Of course, talk is cheap, and whether Pakistan and China believe the rhetoric will be determined by more than word choice. It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, the new system has on regional stability.

In the past I have always found the Central News Agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) (see: http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm) to be less than compelling and rarely worthy of examination. The stories are generally about how such-and-such Sub-Saharan African dictator sent congratulations to Kim Jong Il, or how the North Korean People wished to pay their respects to such-and-such nation. In essence, it was not only propaganda, but propaganda of the dullest and most mundane sort imaginable.

However, in recent weeks it is becoming increasingly worthwhile to visit the Agency’s site. Oh, it is still wild propaganda, but it is entertaining propaganda. Consider some of the current headlines:

“US Wild Ambition to Dominate Whole of Korea Can Never Come True”

“US Termed Chief Culprit of Nuclear Proliferation”

“Japanese Reactionaries Urged to Stop Their Rash Acts”

This last one is particularly amusing. It essentially rebukes elements inside Japan who would like that country to develop nuclear weapons. The irony is, of course, that the only way the Japanese will be sufficiently motivated to make major changes in their law as required to build a nuclear arsenal is in response to the continued provocations of their nutty newly nuclear neighbor who is constantly shooting missile tests across their bow lately.

Today the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed sanctions against North Korea consisting primarily of a complete arms export embargo and a partial arms import embargo. The big news seems to be China’s support for these efforts. While Chinese diplomats were careful to state that inspections must be carried out in accordance with international law, and, therefore, the sanctions did not equate to open season on DPRK shipping, they did go along with the provisions as stipulated. The Chinese don’t want a nuclear armed Japan any more than the North Koreans do. The difference is that the Chinese recognize that the way to avoid a Japan with nuclear weapons is a sane and stable North Korea.

Besides the long-range missile test that was earlier estimated would take place early next week, it will be interesting to see of what the North Korean response consists. As I have mentioned before, when you go as provocative as nuclear weapons tests, it is hard to up the ante without risking war. While the North Korean rhetoric is harsh, it is difficult to imagine what North Korea can do besides the same old bag of tricks it has been playing.

The 32nd Session of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is going on June 8-9, 2009. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) would prohibit all nuclear tests. A 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) outlawed testing of nuclear explosive devices in space, underwater, or in the atmosphere, but left open the option of subterranean tests.

The CTBT is being talked about more these days with a US administration that supports its implementation and a Congress more likely to ratify. However, the US is only one of nine Annex 2 states that must ratify the CTBT for it to enter into force. Of course, among the nine is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK.) Should it come down to North Korea holding things up, there would probably be adequate support for amending the Treaty requirements to eliminate the need for their cooperation. The Kim government has demonstrated a desire be an outlier from the non-proliferation and disarmament regime by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as well as by being the only state to conduct tests in recent years.

However, that still leaves seven Annex 2 countries that have not ratified the Treaty including: China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, and Pakistan. All of these states are within the regime, and their participation will be critical. Of these, Iran provides an interesting case. Its ratification of the CTBT might be made part of a negotiated agreement that would end opposition to their fuel cycle facility development provided they enact Additional Protocols to ease concerns about diversion. Iran can convincingly argue that they have a right under the NPT’s Article IV to develop a fuel cycle infrastructure to support the nuclear power plant they have under construction at Bushehr, and in the realm of isotopic separation medical technology as well as fuel cycle arguments apply. However, there is no reasonable explanation for opposition to nuclear explosive testing unless you desire to retain the capacity to build  nuclear weapons. That is, if their intent is truly the peaceful use of nuclear energy and medical isotope development as they have said, they should have no objection to prohibitions on testing. The myth of a utility to be gained from Peaceful Nuclear Explosions (PNE) seems to have long since been put to bed.

Other opponents, such as Egypt and India, object primarily on the basis that the CTBT might help to institutionalize a “have – have-not” division with respect to nuclear weapons. If such countries are true to their word, their perception of the US and Russia’s good-faith efforts to disarm will be critically important to obtaining their ratification. I remain skeptically that the CTBT can enter into force, but am interested in the views of others.

It is interesting to note that, despite the fact that the CTBT has not entered into force, the verification system consisting of four types of monitoring stations (Seismic, Infrasonic, Hydro-acoustic, and Radionuclide stations that measure the force and direction of an explosion through the ground, air, and water respectively, plus determining the nuclear nature of the test [i.e. radionuclide stations]) is up and running with partial capacity. While the system is not yet completely on-line, it has been useful in providing information about the two North Korean nuclear device tests.  

On April 5th, President Obama gave a masterful speech in Prague, the later half of which was devoted to the topic of nuclear disarmament. The speech began with an homage to people who acted on a belief that change could be achieved against an overwhelming sentiment that it could not (referring, of course, to the Cold War), and then implied that people of the same ilk were needed to advance disarmament in a similar manner.

Those wishing to see any momentum that may have been created by this speech derailed could hardly ask for better intervening world events. North Korea conducted its second test of a nuclear device, and, in the process, displayed an improved capability had been achieved. Following the nuclear test, they proceeded to set off short-range missiles like  some sort of Independence Day display, and it appears that they are preparing for a long-range missile test in up-coming weeks. Meanwhile, the Iran front remains unchanged. In other words, the Iranians are getting progressively closer to having an infrastructure that would support making weapons-grade fissile material in sufficient quantities within a reasonable time period, and this is making many countries (re: Israel) really unnerved.

It might be argued that such events are a potential boon to disarmament because they underscore the nature of the threat and give impetus for positive action. After all, nonproliferation is unlikely to go anywhere without the major nuclear weapon states showing progress toward disarmament. If the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference turns out to be a carryover from 2005, then we can expect backward and not forward momentum on nonproliferation. 

Unfortunately, I suspect that current events do not bode well for advancing the agenda President Obama laid out in his Prague Speech. Nuclear weapon states will only ease their grasp if they feel relatively safe from the threat of attack by states. I emphasize “by states” because I don’t think world leaders give much sway to deterrence as a strategy against nuclear terrorism, but they are pretty confident about the value of deterrence against states. While the threat of nuclear terrorism may (or may not) be on the rise, I don’t think that is a non-starter for disarmament. However, the same cannot be said of risk from states.

As the President stated, nuclear disarmament is not likely to be achieve quickly. There were a number of steps that were laid out that are considered intermediary steps including: reduction of the relevance of nuclear weapons to overall security, bilateral reductions between US and Russia, enactment the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), verifiable implementation of the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), strengthening of inspection authority, development of a fuel bank, and progress with North Korea and Iran.

The question is whether all of these are necessary, and, if so, whether any of them are intractable. Take, for example, the question of verifiability of the FMCT. The Bush Administration dropped this treaty supposedly because it was “impossible” to verify. The present administration seems to take as a forgone conclusion that it can be verified. This tells us one of two things. The best case scenario is that the two camps are working under different assumptions about what constitutes a minimally acceptable level of verification. I say this is the “best case” because there would ostensibly be underlying facts that could be agreed upon, and, therefore, there would be a map to understand what would be necessary to move towards a negotiated agreement (e.g. what technological developments.) The worst case is that politics is leading the facts and science- in which case there may be no room for agreement. By “politics leading” I mean that either the Bush Administration started from from the position that they did not want to support the FMCT and found arguing the unprovable case of non-verifiability a good means to quash it, or the Obama Administration started from the position that they wanted the FMCT and knew it required arguing that it was, in fact, verifiable, or, given the possibility that no one knows the answer yet, both of the above. If this is the case, then there is no incentive for either side to reduce ambiguity, and little prospect for moving forward.

When there is a point of intractability, one needs to determine whether there is a new approach to the subject that can be taken, and what it might be. Too often there is a failure to recognize points of intractability, and then to be creative about how to change the underlying conditions to one where progress is possible.

We are now on missile test number seven, following the test of a nuclear device by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The Obama Administration’s stance seems to be: “just let baby Kim Jong Il do his thing, he’ll cry himself to sleep.” Secretary Gates has indicated that he has seen no reason to suggest a build up of forces on the peninsula, and the US is not taking any action that might be seen as escalatory.

I am not being critical of this strategy as it seems about the only reasonable course to take without having any better understanding of the motivations and thinking that inform Kim Jong Il’s behavior. It would be nice to have a good historical analogy as a guide to what strategy might best be employed. However, the most apropos analogy seems to be a thug that wants something and has decided to act out until others relent. If Kim Jong Il were trying to provoke the US into war, he could easily enough do that by artillery attacks on the South. This would guarantee a fight. However, it is difficult to imagine what Kim might think he could gain from getting into a war with an opposition that holds advantages in every area except perhaps raw number of servicemen. While I have no doubt that, like many dictators, he may be a little deluded as a result of his own narcissism and being surrounded by people too fearful to tell him how the world really is, I doubt that he finds the risk of war acceptable. Furthermore, I have trouble with the idea that Kim Jong Il is trying to get the rest of the world to give him some space while he gets his “house” in order with respect to transition, because his actions are designed to do anything but get others off his back. However, I can believe that there is a domestic driver to his behavior. It is certainly possible that he is trying to show no weakness to those within the DPRK as he tries to set up Kim Jong Un for successorship. He might be worried that certain elements smell blood in the water.

The options seem to be: contain and ignore, attack and destroy, or relent and be played. Attacking North Korea would be exceedingly costly given their ability to reign down artillery on heavily populated areas of South Korea. I’ve heard this capacity is pretty well hardened against possible preemption. Relenting just takes us down a dangerous path that we have been before, and it encourages bad behavior in others. This leaves the option of letting Kim do as he pleases as long as his activities don’t become a direct threat, and not giving him the attention and concessions he seeks, as probably the best course at the moment.  

It should be noted that there is also the argument that the tests are a signal to potential arms buyers. I would not be surprised if this were true. I am presuming /hoping that during the period when the IAEA and US were verifying dismantlement that there were  samples taken at the reprocessing facility such that attribution could be definitively made if a nuclear device using North Korean material were to go off anywhere in the world. It must be made clear to the DPRK that if a nuclear explosion occurs using their material anywhere in the world and by any perpetrator, they suffer massive retaliation.

For all of the recent talk about nuclear disarmament, there remains a great deal that must be worked out in order to make it a reality in a way that maintains global stability. There is a need to build verification regimes that leave all parties confident that cheating will not make disarmament untenable, to reduce the relevance of nuclear weapons in a credible manner, and to determine how belligerence will be averted in the absence of a nuclear deterrent. This will likely require a revolutionary approach to the problem. In other words, it may not be possible to make incremental adjustments from our Cold War model to get to the state of existence required. Instead, an entirely new way of considering the problem may need to be developed, and, no less important, that approach will need to become widely disseminated and accepted. The problem is that the existing way of thinking about the subject is firmly entrenched, and will not be easily supplanted.

A new paradigm of knowledge distribution and transmission has been developing for quite some time, and may be influential with respect to any breakthroughs in thinking on disarmament. The old system of knowledge distribution / transmission is dominated by gate-keepers. These gatekeepers cull the vast number of submissions for various information outlets (journals, magazines, books, etc), and select those that they consider to have the greatest merit. What constitutes merit varies with the nature of the publication. In academic circles, “contribution” is of great importance (i.e. the paper expands the state of knowledge in the discipline in some way), but other factors such as consistency with the existing literature and / or employment of well-established methods are also valued. With regards to popular presses, the gatekeepers (i.e. editors) are basing decisions primarily upon what  they believe will have mass appeal.  In the realm of journalism, gatekeepers also seek mass appeal (sensationalism) with the additional criteria of brevity and timeliness.

It should be noted that the new paradigm is not a better system in all regards, but its strengths are quite different from the existing paradigm. Perhaps, in fact, they may best be thought of as a complements rather than predecessor and successor. The new system, exemplified by blogs and wikis, exists without gatekeepers, and relies on a public audience to recognize virtue and punish vice.

The strength of the old system is that not just any crap makes the cut. (For example, I will be making claims in this post based on anecdotal evidence because as an essayist I can, and because I don’t have the time or energy to systematically investigate and provide evidence on such claims. Within this system, overseers exist to ensure  that there seems to be some merit to everything published, and, very importantly, these overseers have an incentive to take their jobs seriously. This incentive is importantly because, arguably, the new paradigm has an even broader and more relevant set of overseers ( post-hoc) in the general public – but members of the public aren’t always driven to spend time calling out those whose reasoning is unsound or whose intentions are fraudulent. 

The  disadvantage of the traditional paradigm is that it doesn’t lend itself well to revolutionary expansions of our understanding. Whether it is an academic journal or a popular press, there is a deferrence given to precedence that is not consistant with massive changes in approach. While it may be safe to assume that the gate-keepers, be they editors or peer-reviewers, know their jobs and are capable of separating out the chaff quite well in many cases, it is not clear that they are exceptional at recognizing novel ideas of great merit. They, like everyone, are subject to their own biases, filters, and worlview, and are not likely to jump out on a limb for an idea that seems to be out in left field.

Consider, the Alfred Knopf archives which contained rejections letters to authors the likes of: George Orwell, H.L. Mencken, Langston Hughes, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Sylvia Plath, some of the letters being for works that later became classics. In the realm of academia, consider the persistent support for methods that facilitate the proliferation of Type I error, or, as Nassim Taleb has made a career of pointing out, the application of an assumption of normal distribution in numerous cases in which it is fundamentally erroneous to do so. These are prime examples of:  a.) how the scholarly community is by no means exempt from being trapped by improper paradigms (just as Cold War deterrence models are used to make decisions about today’s arsenal); b.) there is not always a recognition of better ways of thinking about problems.

Getting to zero nuclear weapons, if it turns out to be a good idea, is going to require rethinking how we think about the problem, and will take some serious redrawing of our models. I suspect it will require ideas propogated through both the old and new knowledge paradigms.

A withered and pale Kim Jong il made a public appearance to issue threats regarding his intent to step away from the Six-Party talks and to resume production of fissile material. The North Koreans expelled United Nations (UN) inspectors and observers from the United States who had been monitoring activities at the DPRK’s nuclear facilities. The threat was delivered in response UN Security Council’s condemnation of the recent North Korean missile test.

This is typical Kim Jong Il. It is about as juvenile and unsophisticated a way as one can imagine to handle the dispute. Suffering from a bad case of hurt feelings, the frail leader has decided to take his ball and go home. His “ball” in this case being the promise of nuclear disarmament with which he strings along the US and the world. Of course, the six year old who pulls the ball out of the game hurts everybody else while giving the ball owner a level of satisfaction albeit a petty one. In this case, the rest of the world can go on about its business, and the feeble nation of North Korea will suffer the economic and political consequences that result from its dear leader’s provocative behavior.

From a strategic point of view, one has to wonder whether Kim Jong Il really does have a mentality in which petty impulses and emotionality override all ability to systematically, calmly, and strategically think through to an optimal response, or does he hope to increase his security and status by appearing irrational beyond all comprehension. In other words, is he trying to convince the world that he is an intellectual six year old who cannot be trusted to reason through to his own best interest, so that they will give him a wide berth in their dealings with him. In an anarchic society, one lets the cacophonous, seething, and smelly knife-weilding midget do pretty much as he pleases, because the fact that he doesn’t care and appears irrational makes him dangerous- even if he is three foot tall. The thing is that, at some point, the rest of humanity may become tired enough of him to throw as sack over him and kick him off a cliff.