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"This sudden fear of Chinese nukes really strikes me as ridiculous to the point of being surreal," says TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson. "They've had 23 nukes pointed at us all along. Is that not enough to do the job? This is a great political issue for Republicans, but if you peel away the rhetoric, not a thing has changed in terms of tactical advantage."
The stolen U.S. technology that may or may not be put to use by Beijing won't even make the missiles more accurate, just smaller. Some of their new nukes might be more mobile and harder to find. So in a nuclear war, the U.S. probably wouldn't be able to knock out as many Chinese missiles; of course, in nuclear war, it's hard to imagine that mattering all that much. Indeed, if the current furor has any useful purpose, it might be to remind U.S. weaponry hawks that very little of the feverish work that goes on in Los Alamos these days is actually improving America's ability to win a war. "I liken it to teenagers working on their cars," says Thompson. "It's a matter of pride to have a better, faster car with a souped-up engine that puts all your friends' to shame. But you can still get to the 7-11 in a Pacer." The U.S., you'll recall, already went to the 7-11 -- 54 years ago. How could it matter whether Beijing is driving an Edsel or a Datsun?
"At this point, we're in a race with ourselves," says Thompson. "China has never desired to have a state-of-the-art nuclear arsenal -- otherwise they wouldn't be so far behind everybody else." Maybe now, says Thompson, they've caught up by a few years -- in 2002, they'll be in the 1970s, and in another decade or two they'll be where the U.S. is today. He's got a worst-case scenario, too: "The Chinese put a nuclear missile in a freighter, sail it up the Potomac, and blow it up. Who's going to care whether it was a big warhead or a miniaturized one?"