First Short Quiz: Realpolitik - Has Taiwan Been Prudent Enough To Buy/Develop Sufficient Nuclear Weapons To Deter China?

[johnkarls]

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1. What do you think of an author who (like the Professor he is) doesn’t even correct the description of his book on the book’s own dust cover whose fourth sentence proclaims vis-à-vis Taiwan --

“….just one of its companies produces over 90 percent of the semiconductors that power the world’s economy.”

2. Isn’t the accurate and typical statement that Taiwan produces “over 60% of the world’s semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced ones” – quoting The Economist’s “special report on semiconductors” of 3/6/2023 (available at https://www.economist.com/special-repor ... -important)???

3. If Kerry Brown is confused whether “just one” Taiwanese company “produces over 90 percent of the semiconductors that power the world’s economy” RATHER THAN THE FACT THAT TAIWAN IN TOTAL PRODUCES ONLY “OVER 60% OF THE WORLD’S SEMI-CODUCTORS,” how can we trust anything else that Kerry Brown says???

4. When an author is so sloppy, isn’t it necessary to substantiate any and all of her/his allegations upon which you wish to rely???

5. BTW, is the Amazon.com bio for Kerry Brown accurate when it says – “…..With 30 years experience of life in China, he…..”???

6. Indeed, doesn’t Kerry Brown’s bio on the book’s own dust cover claim “From 1998 to 2005 he worked at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office stationed in Beijing.”???

7. In fact, didn’t Kerry Brown only “experience life in China” with the “British Foreign and Commonwealth Office stationed in Beijing” from 2000-2003 with 2003-2005 spent as its Head of the Indonesia, Philippine and East Timor Section -- per his Chatham House bio where he worked 2006-2012???

8. Shouldn’t Kerry Brown be held responsible for a lie in his Amazon.com bio??? After all, isn’t Amazon.com the most likely source in the world for obtaining his book???

9. And even more importantly, shouldn’t Kerry Brown be held responsible for the lie in his bio on his book’s own dust cover???

10. So again (per Q-4) -- When an author is so sloppy, isn’t it necessary to substantiate any and all of her/his allegations upon which you wish to rely???

11. Did Kerry Brown promote his book via a Zoom webinar with the NYC Harvard Club on 4/2/2025?

12. Is the advantage of participating in a NYC Harvard Club Zoom webinar (vs. merely watching the recording afterwards) the opportunity to ask questions?

13. Did Yours Truly ask the question comprising the “possible topic” for one of our future Reading Liberally meetings posted 12/3/2023 in our website’s Sec. 3 (Possible Topics for Future Meetings) --

IAW Realpolitik, Has Taiwan Been Prudent Enough To Buy and/or Develop Sufficient Nuclear Weapons To Deter China?

[The posting which includes voluminous material is located at viewtopic.php?f=150&t=2440&sid=38ec471e ... 7237edaa94]

14. Even though Yours Truly typed the question into the Zoom question box as soon as the webinar began so, of course, it was by far first in the queue, did Mark Martinez, the NYC Harvard Club Program Committee member serving as moderator, decide as an unpardonable breach of protocol NOT to present my question to Prof. Brown?

15. Had I been expecting Prof. Brown to claim ignorance whether or not he knows the answer to my question?

16. In other words, was the purpose of the question to cause other NYC Harvard Club members participating in the webinar – usually several hundred – to focus on the issue???

17. Has hopefully Taiwan long since focused on it – at least since 12/3/2023 – though IMHO would forcing several hundred members of the NYC Harvard Club (the largest and most influential networking organization in the world since, inter alia, the club had 15,000 members the last time I checked) have remedied the situation if Taiwan has failed to focus so far???

18. If Taiwan has failed, and continues to fail courtesy of Mark Martinez’s unpardonable breach of protocol, may history record that Mark Martinez was to blame for Taiwan’s fall???

19. Would Taiwan buying or developing nuclear weapons be sufficient to deter China???

20. If you read all of the voluminous material on our website about this possibility (viewtopic.php?f=150&t=2440&sid=78d55762 ... b502f212d4), would it work???

21. Or is Yours Truly blinded by his nearly life-long study of nuclear politics since taking Henry Kissinger’s seminar on Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy when he was still a Harvard Poli Sci Prof and Yours Truly was a law student who spent more time on this than his other courses combined???

22. Didn’t PBS’ Nova Science Series air a documentary on 3/9/1975 about the results of an experiment initiated by the documentary’s producer who had been curious about how easy it would be for “any reasonably-bright student” to design and construct a nuclear weapon???

23. So didn’t he ask a friend on the M.I.T. faculty to put him in touch with a student who (even though he was only a chemistry major) in just 5 weeks designed a nuclear weapon from public-source information which experts opined would be fully functional???

24. Did the 3/9/1975 PBS Nova Program create an uproar because the construction (vs. the design) is child’s play -- as a British Royal Commission reported in September 1976 in the wake of the 3/9/1975 Nova Program -- “The equipment required [to actually construct the nuclear weapon] would not be significantly more elaborate than that already used by criminal groups in the illicit manufacture of heroin.”???

[The British Royal Commission was concerned at that time that nuclear weapons could be so easily designed and constructed by the Irish Republican Army.]

25. In addition to the nations that are commonly viewed as having nuclear weapons, isn’t it usually recognized by experts that quite a few others could produce nuclear weapons on a moment’s notice??? And presumably wouldn’t Taiwan be on this list??? And, like Israel prior to its Existential "Moment of Truth" in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, have already developed nuclear weapons???

26. Moreover, who knows what might be available for purchase on the black market from terrorist groups?

27. After all, didn’t 132 suitcase-size nukes go missing when the USSR broke up, 84 of which have never been recovered???

28. And didn’t Osama bin Laden issue 5 fatwās commanding his followers to nuke 10 million Americans -- about which the Founding Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Graham Allison, wrote a famous book entitled “Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe” (Times Books 8/9/2004) -- and about which book and fatwās Tim Russert’s 5/29/2005 Meet the Press interviewed former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman 1987-1995), U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN and then-current Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) and Messrs. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton (Chair and Co-Chair of The 9/11 Commission)???

29. And didn’t Osama’s demise permanently perpetuate the problem as the Brits discovered when re-establishing diplomatic relations following the demise of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 by having rejected their request for the revocation of the fatwā to assassinate Salman Rushdie for his “Satanic Verses” (Salmon Rushdie had fled to the U.K. where he became a citizen), since under Islamic Law only the issuer of a fatwā can revoke it and the issuer was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who was now dead???

30. So since 10 million Americans have not already been nuked, isn’t the obvious conclusion that nuclear weapons can be detected and destroyed???

31. When Yours Truly was a U.S. Navy Unrestricted Line Officer 1967-1970 (Ensign > Lieutenant (j.g.) > Lieutenant) with a Top Secret Clearance with Cryptographic Access (de rigueur for standing OOD watches for a command with nuclear weapons because it wouldn’t be practical to wake your CO in the few seconds available to launch if an order were received), did the U.S. already have spy satellites that from orbit had optics that could distinguish the grain on a railroad tie???

32. BTW, is the info queried in Q-31 long since a matter of public information??? And is that the only place Yours Truly has ever encountered it???

33. So if our spy satellites could distinguish the grain on a railroad tie 55 years ago, why couldn’t they long-since distinguish radioactive nuclear radiation???

34. Though isn’t it true that a lead shield is commonly used for shielding radiation???

35. So isn’t it beyond our civilian ability to speculate why 10 million Americans have not already been nuked, except to infer that impressive detection technology has been developed???

36. But as the producer of 60% of the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips, isn’t Taiwan well situated to ascertain what that technology comprises and develop its own counter-measures???

37. With Q-35, doesn’t Yours Truly feel like Will Parker in Oscar & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma” that, like “Kansas City,” we’ve gone “about as far as we can go”???

38. But does that mean Taiwan can’t develop the means of defeating Chinese nuclear-weapons detection systems???