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How About a Nice Game of Global Thermonuclear War?
Loconut1389 writes "According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon has a revised doctrine to be signed in the next few weeks would give the president the authority for a preemptive nuclear strike. I would hope that this is a move designed to say we mean business and then never use it, but the means is there for mutual assured destruction."
There are at leat 19-20 countries with some kind of nuclear program, of which at least 6-8 have a full long-range nuclear capability. Wiki Has some interesting information on that one. Just because USSR is gone doesnt mean that all their tech has dropped off the face of the earth.
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
The president already has the authority to launch a pre-emptive strike.* What the article is about is a new policy statement by the US (i.e. an international "FYI") about when the president will haul off and nuke something
*This, like the policy discussed in the article, depends on the situation being one where the President doesn't have to wait for Congress to declare war.
You misunderstand what the law says. The Constitution says the President is Command in Chief of the United States armed forces. That power was more-or-less unrestricted until 1973, when the Post-Vietnam Congress passed the War Powers Resolution. That act says that the president cannot deploy the US military in the field for more than 100(?) days without congressional authorization. However, in this case (e.g, a pre-emptive strike) it has no bearing. The president is free under the law to do it, provided that he get congressional authorization within 100 days or withdraw the troops.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
No, the only nation other than the United States with anything close to a MAD deterence capability is Russia. China, UK, France and DPRK have limited capabilities compared to the US/Russia.
Israel, India, Pakistan and others have very limited power projection ablities compared to the other Nuclear Powers.
Gotta love the American education system. 18 / 295 * 100 = 6.1, not 16.39 (which would of course be exceeding the two significant figures in "18" even if it were close to the right number).
To get to 16% you would have to take out 47million.
China has about two dozen single-warhead missiles that can reach the US. That's hardly obliteration, though they're the old, heavy kind that are 2MT or more yield.
I did some research on this a while back. The original context was where someone asserted that a mutual exchange could destroy everything on the planet. The numbers for warheads are about two years out of date, so stats for certain weapons like the Peacekeepers are outdated (there are fewer deployed, possibly none by this point).
Throw it into the US and Russia, and the percentages jump to significant levels -- about 5.8% of Russia, and about 11% of the US. It doesn't factor in fallout, either, but as the numbers were intended to reflect airbursts, that wouldn't be as much of a probl
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
In no particular order, these are the 'Nuclear Nations':-
- France
- United Kingdom
- Israel
- India
- Pakistan
- China
- Russia
- United States of America
There is also reputed to be a fair amount of 'missing material' of which nobody knows the exact quantity or location.Frightening isn't it?
The world's gone MAD, totally MAD
All preemptive strikes are preventive, but not all preventive strikes are preemptive.
Preemption stops an action after it has been set in motion but before it has borne fruit. In order for an attack to be preemptive, the enemy must be engaged in an attack, albeit at a very early stage. When the gunfighter is going for his six-shooter, and the friend you've prudently stationed on the roof of the blacksmith's drills him with his winchester, that's preemption. When you shoot a guy in the back on the theory he might shoot you some day, that's merely prevention.
True preemption requires evidence, not of capability, not of hostility, but actual action being set in motion. Nobody who believes the self-defense is justifiable can deny that preemption is equally justifiable. But most forms of prevention are morally reprehensible.
Having a doctrine of preemption only means you prepare for the eventuality. I'd say it should be pretty uncontroversial, except that prevention/preemption distinction is one which many people aren't aware of. Unfortunately, the administration likes to blur the lines between these two things, giving mere prevention the status of preemption. The Iraq war was a preventive war, not a preemptive one, but the administration did its best to make it look preemptive.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
No, US policy is not shifting to resemble the French doctorine. French, Britain, and US nuclear doctorines regarding "No First Use" are all already the same, they oppose No First Use, afterall these countries all are part of NATO. US has always rejected No First Use. US policy had been one of "calculated ambiguity," that is we would be ambiguious on nuclear questions as it would contribute to our security. Secretary of Defense William Cohen in November 1998: "We think the ambiguity involved in the issue of nuclear weapons contributes to our own security, keeping any potential adversary who might use either chemical or biological [weapons] unsure of what our response would be." But there are four major problems with Calculated Ambiguity. (And this new doctorine eliminates the benefits of ambiguity, and just strengthens the case that we should not make nuclear threats.) 1. It violates The Non-Proliferation Treaty's (1995 extension conference) guarantee not to threaten non-nuclear states with nuclear use. Violations of the NPT hurt credibility in persuading countries to forgo acquisition of nuclear weapons. And Proliferation is a Bad thing. (See Scott Sagan in _Nuclear Weapons: A debate renewed_) 2. Calculated Amiguity creates a "commitment trap." If a country does threaten WMD, or does use non-nuclear WMD, then the US will be expected to use nuclear weapons, starting a nuclear war. (See Scott Sagan "The Commitment Trap" 2000 [PDF] http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/20284/sagan_is_spr 00.pdf [stanford.edu] )
3. Nuclear first use contributes to the tyranny of survival, whereby any imaginable evil can be committed in the name of survival. (See Daniel Callahan _Tyranny of Survival_ 1977)
4. Nuclear first use threats underly nuclearism, an ideology that makes nuclear use thinkable and more likely. (See Lifton & Falk _Indefensible Weapons_ 1982)
(Sorry that most of these resources are off-line, but the Sagan article should keep most entertained for a while.)
Here's the stance of the 5 major nuclear power states on the question of No First Use
China has No First Use
Russia had No First Use, but revoked it in recent years, due to a lack of reciprication.
Britain and France both oppose No First Use.
(NATO Members Canada and Germany support No First Use.)
US policy is stated above.
Also India has No First Use.
For more information on US First Use Policy, see Stansfield Turner's _Caging the Genie_ 1998. Turner was of the CIA, and advocates establishing a global No First Treaty, and believes that it would be feasible.
Having studied the question of No First Use literature for about a semester, I can say that the academic literature, especially critical academic literature, is slanted in favor of a US No First Use policy, even if not recipricated.
Anon so I doubt you'll even read this but morons have to be countered an all.
"It's also worth noting that while North Korea may or may not possess the ability to land a nuclear strike on the west coast of the continental US, China most certainly does, and we all know that China and N. Korea are essentially allies."
Allies? Hardy, more like China's annoying little neighbor who can't be gotten rid off. NK is tolerated since it doesn't jeopardize anything important (ie: trade with the west) and provides a buffer between SK. Also, China has more to fear from those NK nukes than anyone else except SK.
"(using tech Clinton sold them no doubt)"
Wow, how much tin foil do YOU cover your head with? OR are you simply as dense as DU? They're using Soviet technology, heck they copied decent amounts of it exactly.
"If they can put a person in orbit, they can land a warhead anywhere on earth they choose."
Not really, aiming and so on become more problematic and less accurate. In addition, such a weapon is easy to detect and potentially intercept. Right now China has 20 icbms it can lob at the West Coast, and either does or soon will have nuclear missiles on submarines (may have one, I'm not sure) which can hit more or less anywhere. It also would be committing economic suicide if it ever used them.
and the Soviet sphere didn't gain a permanent nuclear strike base just off our coast
Let us discuss the Cuban Missile Crisis. The REAL reason why the Soviets went ahead to put nuclear missiles into Cuba was that the Soviet Union was merely returning a favor.
You see, the USA had already planted nuclear missiles into Turkey. Did you know that? And the location of Turkey happens to be just outside the Russian border.
So the Soviet Union was merely extending the courtesy of hauling nuclear missiles next to the other guy's border, and then having had a taste of their own medicine, USA freaked out. When the missile crisis ended, USA agreed to pull out their missiles in Turkey (a little bit delayed though, so that it wouldn't seem that it was the real reason).
The key to international security is really just common sense and respect from all parties. Hauling up nukes to someones backyard and expecting them to accept it is not common sense. Crying wolf when they do the same to you is also not common sense (since you sort of asked for it)?
For more information, have a read.
I do not moderate.
Kaku didn't invent this. These are the Kardashev levels of civilization, with the minor addition of a "Category 0" to describe our current level of development. However, the Kardashev levels are much more about our capacity for productive energy utilization within the various 'islands' that we will occupy as our development progresses. Due to the relative distances involved, the Earth is like an island in our solar system, our solar system is like an island in our galaxy, and our galaxy is like an island in our universe.
The reality, of course, is that the movement from one stage to the next will not be a series of discrete jumps, but rather a blurry escalation in capability. We will have started to move out into the solar system long before we can use all the energy available to us on Earth, and we will have started to move out into the rest of the galaxy long before we have completely and utterly transformed the resources of our solar system. Good of Kaku to promote the idea, though the world government stuff sounds way too hippy (not to mention being a very bad idea--if said unified government should turn despotic, there'll be no Berlin Wall to flee over).
In a world without walls, there is no need for Windows.