Easy-to-Use Nukes

Any nation with nuclear weapons can use them to deter, to destroy large targets dramatically preemptively or in retaliation. Only one country on earth has used nuclear weapons in an actual conflict:  America’s deployment of two nuclear bombs over Hiroshima (pictured above) and Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II… producing the greatest numbers of casualties the world had ever seen. For decades during the Cold War and beyond, the concept of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD) has led to nuclear containment treaties and effective deterrence-driven stalemates with our harshest nuclear-empowered enemies. In recent years, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, real (North Korea) or imminent (Iran), have been a major force in both our military and diplomatic strategy with some success in the latter with a formalized, UN-backed accord and a complete failure on the Korean Peninsula.

We know that major power Russia has slowly upgraded its nuclear arsenal, replacing older worn weapons with newer versions. Most nations with nuclear capacity are enhancing and improving those systems. We have seen the development of so-call “tactical” (vs “strategic”) nuclear weapons, smaller, more narrowly-targetable bombs and warheads. The less devastating the scope of a weapon, however, the greater the inclination to use that striking power as preemptive or retaliatory response in situations where our non-nuclear “smart” bombs and missiles or would otherwise have been deployed. For the target area, even more narrowly defined, the results from even a tactical strike remain horrific.

Enter a bellicose and inexperienced president, one with zero government experience and heavily determined to cater to a constituency, his “base,” that quivers with excitement at the thought of teaching “those bastards” who is the top military dog on earth. As the GOP cuts budgets for social programs, it is amping up its commitment to the military, including Donald Trump’s multi-year, trillion dollar pledge to revamp our nation’s nuclear weapons, an initiative that began during the Obama administration, albeit with different overall goals. Trump’s plan calls for a change in our underlying nuclear strategy as well. “The Trump administration outlined sweeping changes in U.S. nuclear strategy Friday [2/2], calling for two new types of nuclear weapons and warning for the first time that in ‘extreme circumstances’ the U.S. could use nuclear weapons in response to nonnuclear attacks on infrastructure and civilians.

“The strategy, described in a 75-page review released by the Pentagon, constitutes one of the most significant revisions of U.S. nuclear strategy since the Cold War, one aimed at aggressively countering nuclear-armed Russia and North Korea as well as terrorist groups seeking to acquire nuclear arms… By clarifying potential scenarios when the president might authorize a nuclear attack, officials said, the U.S. was seeking to deter adversaries from conducting large-scale cyberwarfare and other nonnuclear but potentially devastating attacks on the U.S. and its allies, a controversial idea that critics said could make nuclear war more likely.

“‘We must look reality in the eye and see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be,’ Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said in a statement accompanying the report. ‘Given the range of potential adversaries, their capabilities and strategic objectives, this review calls for a flexible, tailored nuclear deterrent strategy… ‘In no way does this approach lower the nuclear threshold,’ Mattis wrote. ‘Rather, by convincing adversaries that even limited use of nuclear weapons will be more costly than they can tolerate, it in fact raises that threshold.’

“But Joseph Cirincione, a nonproliferation expert at the Ploughshares Fund, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks reductions in the nuclear arsenal, said the new strategy — combined with President Trump’s volatile approach to international threats — could lower the threshold for employing nuclear weapons. ‘This strategy gives him a massive rebuild of the current Cold War arsenal, complete with new missions and new weapons, to include responding to a cyberattack with a nuclear bomb,’ Cirincione said. ‘This plan, coupled with this president, greatly increases the risk of nuclear war.’…

“Jon B. Wolfsthal, director of the Nuclear Crisis Group and a National Security Council official in the Obama administration, said the new strategy opened the door to first use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. in more scenarios than before… ‘The U.S. is expanding the circumstances under which it might use nuclear weapons first, even against nonnuclear states,’ he said.

“The review recommends modifying ‘a small number’ of existing nuclear warheads on Trident missiles carried on U.S. submarines to reduce the weapons’ explosive power. In addition, a new nuclear-armed cruise missile launched from naval vessels would be developed, a process likely to take years.” Los Angeles Times, February 2^nd. One plus: most of these weapons are likely to be delivered after hot-tempered Donald Trump has left office. Most… but not all.

Although the process is a whole lot more complicated than pushing a non-existent red button, under existing law, the President of the United States has a pretty unilateral right to deploy a nuclear weapon within a pretty wide range of his personal discretion. But once a nuclear weapon is deployed, strategic or otherwise, we do face the possibility that there are no limitations on the scope or nature of a retaliatory strike, by the nation we attack… or those nations which, by treaty, are obligated to come to that nation’s aid. It is a genie that will not return to its original bottle. And given Mr. Trump’s quick-to-temper personality, his rage at what he cannot control, do you think it is probable that with smaller tactical nukes, he really would never use them absent any other viable alternative? Really? Exactly how easy should it be to start a nuclear war?

I’m Peter Dekom, and we have enough already… including the delivery systems to deploy our existing nuclear weapons anywhere on earth.