The futility of arms control
The first ordinance bearing on military matters in the Capitularies of Charles the Great is one showing his anxiety to keep as much armour as possible within the realm. In 779 he orders that no merchant shall dare to export byrnies from the realm. This order was repeated again and again in later years, in the Capitula Minora, cap. 7, and again in the Aachen Capitulary of 805; the trade in arms with the Wends and Avars is especially denounced in the last-named document. Any merchant caught conveying a mail-shirt outside the realm is sentenced to the forfeiture of all his property. - Sir Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, Volume One
As they say in France, ''Plus ca change.''
While the very public fizzle of North Korea's long-feared missile program has been viewed with a sigh of relief by some, no doubt the World Democratic Revolutionists will use it to argue that the United States must take advantage of this unexpected reprieve to attack Iran and bring its nuclear weapons program to a forcible end.
But as a brief review of Charlemagne's military ordinances shows rather clearly, arms control has been nothing but an exercise in futility for over 1,200 years. Law after law threatening brutal retribution didn't prevent the Avars, the Vikings or the Magyars from obtaining the iron armor that allowed them to meet the Franks on equal terms.
The most fundamental rule of technology is that once the genie has escaped the bottle, it is all but impossible to recapture it. Humanity can no more pretend it does not know how to split the atom than it can forget how to forge an iron-mail shirt. The only effective limitation on the spread of military technology is that of cost; the United States is able to prevent the proliferation of cruise-missile armed nuclear-powered submarines because very few countries or individuals possess the 4.4 billion dollars required to make one, let alone the werewithal to hire and train 133 individuals to staff it.
And of those few who do possess the necessary resources, it is obvious that none of them see any point to doing so. No law is necessary, indeed, any law banning the ownership of boomers would be easily ignored by anyone with the ability to buy one.
As diverse countries have demonstrated over the past decades, it is neither prohibitively difficult nor expensive to construct a nuclear weapon and a long-range delivery system. The French have done it, the Israelis have done it, the South Africans, the Indians and the Pakistanis have done it. If North Korea, a nation of 22 million people with a Gross Domestic Product of $1,700 per capita, can successfully pull it off, then anti-proliferation activists shouldn't be worrying about Iran doing it, as they inevitably will. They should instead probably start worrying about Ingvar Kamprad, Bill Gates or Roman Abramovich deciding to go nuclear.
It has never been possible to control human beings for an extended period of time. This holds true for nations as well as individuals. The fact that a probable event is seen as undesirable, even dangerous, should not lead those hoping it will not come to pass to resort to violence, at least not in a foolish cause that history has repeatedly proven to be completely ineffective.
There may eventually come a time when each and every man holds within his hand the power to destroy the world. Should that doomsday scenario ever come to pass, perhaps then we will finally find ourselves able to treat others as we would ourselves be treated.