From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 94 09:23:52 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
Message-ID: <199408231623.MAA18980@pipe3.pipeline.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Responding to msg by perry@imsi.com ("Perry E. Metzger") on 
Tue, 23 Aug  9:18 AM


>This is sheer ignorance.


Hey, that's what commercializing the national security treasure 
is all about.

Ignorance is essential for the market in nuclear "terrorism".  
The staid NY Times headlined a summary of this topic with "Call 
1-800-TERROR".  The unknown threat is the weapon.  Intelligence 
is the magic shield.

The National Resources Defense Council pointed out in an 
execellent series on nuclear weapons a few years back that it 
is impossible to make an accurate count of nuclear devices 
because every country dissembles even while leaking data to sow 
fear.  Even now, says NRDC, the need is for a reliable way to 
count so the fictitious can be separated from the real.

Lack of precision, ignorance, thank you Perry, helps market 
fake as well as real nuclear material, just like any other 
market-driven exotic product (supercomputers?).  Recent reports 
describe the Russian nuclear materials managers proffering 
their real and Potemkin cache for buy-out to the most gullible 
deep-pockets, governments.

And so goes pumping this lucrative market, and its concomitant 
market of intelligence, now commercial where once affairs of 
state.  More national security legislation, more powerful 
computers, more money for salesmen (er, agents).

Ignorance drives this market, always has; starting some forty 
years ago with George Kennan's lurid 'X' essay on containment.  
Jim Dixon, help out with gritty facts.


John