I asked a few days ago whether the Bush Administration was deliberately helping Pakistan nuke up. The answer to that question is “No.” Sorry.
Tom McGuire has the goods: The Economist was wrong to say, and I was therefore wrong to repeat, that the Bush Administration had scuttled the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty negotiations in order to help Pakistan acquire more nuclear weapons; at worst, more Pakistani nukes was a predictable consequence of a decision taken for other reasons, and at best there was nothing we could have done through this means to prevent the Pakistanis from getting more nukes anyway.
Update and correction of the correction: Matt has done some more primary-source checking, and it now seems that objections from Pakistan were one reason behind the administration’s decision to abandon the FMCT talks.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman