Preparing for nuclear war?

" I am even more concerned about the billions we are planning to spend to prepare the homeland in the event of a nuclear first strike. It was a myth that drove the United States and Soviet Union each to build thousands of weapons during the Cold War. Unlikely then. And it’s certainly unlikely now.Nonetheless, the 2016 budget has millions for hardening redundant Air Force and Navy communications so they can survive a hit by a nuclear first strike.

The United States, as Obama’s 2015 National Security Strategy says, is investing in “a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent.”

The United States shouldn’t spend billions more in the expectation that the deterrence will fail.

It only helps create the impression that this country is preparing for nuclear war, and might strike first."  Washpost/Pincus

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Just who is it that we think might launch a first strike against us?  Russia, China, the UK, France, Pakistan?  Iran has no nuclear weapons but the truly paranoid are sure that they are striving mightily to acquire a ballistic missile based capability that would hold at risk Europe and North America.

This continuing theme is, of course, convenient to those who want us to make Israel safe against Iran.  Without the "threat to the US" theme the American people and their blundering ham-handed government could not be lured into eternal hostility to the BAD, BAD, IRANIAN SHIA.  

If only the Syrian government had a nuclear weapons program!!  Sigh...  pl  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/2015/02/09/174e34ec-ae4e-11e4-ad71-7b9eba0f87d6_story.html

Comments

[rjj]

An albatross shoot as foreign policy.

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

Interview with Lt. Gen. Frederick Hodges, commander of U.S. Army Europe:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/weekend-interview-gen-frederick-hodges-on-natos-russian-front-1423266333

"I believe the Russians are mobilizing right now for a war that they think is going to happen in five or six years—not that they’re going to start a war in five or six years, but I think they are anticipating that things are going to happen, and that they will be in a war of some sort, of some scale, with somebody within the next five or six years."

[BabelFish]

Perhaps Bibi can explain all this to us when he visits the Boehner Club.

[BabelFish]

In the mode of thinking we didn't learn anything from the 50's anti-Commie paranoia, this reminds me of a line from the second Jurassic Park movies. "We've learned our lessons, we aren't going to make the same old mistakes! No, that's right, your going to make brand new mistakes!"

Is this something just inherent in our country's psyche? I'm waiting for someone to start discussing the tank and bomber gaps between us and Mr. Putin's busy armed forces.

[William R. Cumming]

The NUCLEAR PRIESTHOOD now part and creator of the so-called DEEP STATE. This some say is the new fourth branch of the federal government shrouded and protected by secrecy and black budgets.

This Administration has already announced that it will require $1 Trillion to update the US nuclear arsenal.

[anna-marina]

And the Russians have plenty of evidence for this prediction. The prediction (5-6 years of peace ahead) is actually an optimistic one.

[jonst]

I recall the supposed line by Richard Nixon..."if we've lost Peoria, we've lost the country". If the Establishment has lost Pincus, there is a big trouble brewing, that even he is going off the reservation, so to speak.

[Aka]

All,
CNN just identified Ukrainian forces as "pro-US forces". Sort of a face-palm moment.

https://twitter.com/PzFeed/status/564823581138616320

[oth]

(Aljazeera) The United States has ordered the closure of its embassy in Sanaa, Yemen's capital, and said its ambassador will leave the country by Wednesday.

[MRW]

Russia lost nearly 1/4 of its population 65 years ago something we can't even comprehend or understand viscerally the way they do. They've been prepared for a redo ever since, although the state of preparedness has gone up and down like a toilet. They don't call Russia 'The Bear' for nothing. General Zhukov was 58 years old when he pushed the Nazis back to Berlin; age had nothing to do with it.

[MRW]

All this must make Obama feel like he's running a real presidency.

I remember someone once telling me that the greatest achievement of Eisenhower's presidency was maintaining the peace. I don't know how true it is, and I'm sure someone will correct me.

[Matthew]

Two sides, no plan. No endgame.

Compare https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/565191506235912192 with Moscow Times http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/u-s-military-aid-to-ukraine-would-be-declaration-of-proxy-war-russian-defense-analysts/515654.html

It's a prisoner's dilemma where everyone is a prisoner.

[rjj]

Is a face-palm moment a bitch slap? If so, depends how it is read: this comment seems more likely ...

"The majority of #US citizens have no idea what is #Ukraine. "Pro-US troops" they'll understand."

[blue]

Yes and the New Zealand teevee news for the last week has been describing the plan to arm the Ukrainians as "plan to provide defensive weapons". Prepping the media battlespace.

[mac]

Colonel,

May I say that I am alarmed by the discussion of arming the Kiev government and fear that a serious and major breach in the post-Glasnost era of US-Russian relations is at risk, or may have already occurred. Arming Kiev will ring loud as a call to arms to many Russians.

I am a nobody with no connections to anyone and can do nothing to influence the outcome. But where are the wise men of the US Military, inheritors of the NATO political and military infrastructure?

IMO, they remain silent at everyone's peril. Please forgive my outspokenness, but I say this because this would be a blunder far, far bigger than the already incredible blunders since 2003 and we can't just let that happen again.

[dilbert dogbert]

The pee brain read this: " Iran has no nuclear weapons but the truly paranoid are sure that they are striving mightily to acquire a ballistic missile based capability that would hold at risk Europe and North America."
and thought that Iran with that capability would just make them a target. All nuke armed countries are targets for other nuke armed countries. Does anyone contemplate a nuke attack on Nigeria? Sweden? or any other set of countries that are smart enough and industrialized enough to have nukes?

[cville reader]

The term that I have seen some in the US media use is "lethal defensive weapons." And War is Peace.

[turcopolier]

cville reader

I am always amused by the terms, "defensive" and "offensive" weapons. The only difference lies in intent. A solid defense neables offense. For example, the German 88mm. anti-aircraft gun served the German Army well in Ground combat as a superior artillery anti-tank weapon around the fires of which people like Rommel could maneuver their armor in offensive tactics. pl

[Swami Bhut Jolokia]

cville, that's exactly the same thought I had.

Perhaps some of the military types on this thread can educate us as to the nature of 'lethal defensive weapons' and how they differ from 'lethal weapons' in general. Or for that matter, 'weapons'.

[Imagine]

Yess...I have to say it's a good thing that the paranoid right-wing military theocracy has not finished building neutron bombs in its secret underground factory, nor built ICBMs that can reach America. That would be just silly, no sane country would do that. Because then we'd have to do something...

[turcopolier]

SBJ

I just did. pl

[dilbert dogbert]

Here is a link to another one that has been lost: http://file770.com/?p=20780
Reminds of the end game in Vietnam where there was the Hell No I Won't Go!!!

[Swami Bhut Jolokia]

Thanks, I think our posts crossed paths.

Hmm, I think there's an opportunity here for a defense contractor to develop an 'intent' chip that can be programmatically be changed from 'defense' to 'offense' and vice versa. Of course new rules of engagement will have to be developed around the deployment of weapons that use these chips, and then tactical guidance on when to use. Sounds like a multi-billion dollar consulting opportunity followed by multi-billion dollar procurement contracts.

Know anyone in Pentagon procurement? I can gin up a proposal pretty quick!

[r Whitman]

I was in the Army then.he sent marines into Lebanon for a few months in 1956 I think and US marshals into Little Rock in1957 . That's all I can remember.

[MS2]

Hardened communications are not a first strike investment. They are a "nuclear warfighting" type investment at worst, and an indication of a possible willingness to only "launch on impact" at best. It seems to me that US doctrine is probably still essentially "flexible response" except now the so-called "tactical" nukes would be going off literally within the former Soviet Union. If we ever did that, they could EMP us with nukes off the coasts at the very least.

As reported by the Chicago Tribune on December 11, 1987: `Halperin explained the NATO deterrent strategy known as coupling, whereby a Soviet conventional attack in Europe would be met with Allied tactical, and if the Soviets persisted, strategic nuclear weapons, in this way: `First, we fight conventionally until we're losing. Then we fight with tactical nuclear weapons until we're losing; then we blow up the world.'