Obama Unveils New Nuclear Doctrine

Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that under Obama's new 'Nuclear Posture Review,' released today, the US will foreswear the use of the nuclear weapons against nonnuclear countries, in contrast to previous administrations, which indicated they might use nuclear arms against nonnuclear states in retaliation for a biological or chemical attack. But the new policy included a major caveat: The countries must be in compliance with their nonproliferation obligations under international treaties. The problem for Iran and North Korea is that the pledge does not cover them because the US regards them as in non-compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The new policy will also describe the purpose of US weapons as being fundamentally for deterrence. Some Democratic legislators had urged Obama to go further and declare that the United States would not use nuclear weapons first in a conflict, but officials worried that such a change could unnerve allies protected by the US nuclear 'umbrella.' The president of the Ploughshares Fund said of the new stance, 'It orients US policy towards dramatically fewer weapons and greatly reduced roles.'"

Comments

Good publicity move

[pwnies]

...but to be honest it really doesn't limit the options of available targets. If we want to nuke someone, you'd best be sure we'll find a way to show that they're in "non-compliance".

Re:Good publicity move

[TubeSteak]

If we want to nuke someone, you'd best be sure we'll find a way to show that they're in "non-compliance".

Nuclear weapons have turned into something of a penis waving contest.
The people most likey to use a nuke (small states and non-state actors) are the least likely to have more than one nuclear weapon.
For those people, a US nuclear arsenal of 2,500 is no more intimidating than an arsenal of 25.
More importantly, the USA is easily capable of using amazingly overpowered "conventional" munitions to respond to such threats.

Nowadays, about the only reason we need nuclear weapons is if someone says "Bin Laden is in those mountains" and we decide to level the mountains.

Re:Good publicity move

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear weapons have turned into something of a penis waving contest.

Hence why we need more women in leadership. Just think what they'd wave.

Re:Good publicity move

[Lakitu]

North Korea withdrew from the NPT, and Iran has been found to be in non-compliance. They both are valid targets. I would agree with saying Iran is 'becoming' a valid target since it is currently in dispute as to what exactly is going on, but all signs point to a genuine nuclear weapons program or the pretense of having one.

North Korea also already has a few neighbors that would strongly object. North Korea also has a southern neighbor which would strongly object to Seoul being turned into a parking lot with trucks full of soldiers waving juche propaganda leaflets.

If North Korean troops start pouring through the DMZ, the US military is going to consider all of its contingency plans to keep its ~150,000+ soldiers from being killed or captured, and there is a 100% chance one of those contingency plans includes using nuclear weapons. In all likelihood it is one of the reasons why it hasn't happened yet.

Re:Good publicity move

[Anonymous Coward]

Trench warfare? Very ugly...

Re:Good publicity move

[maeka]

More importantly, the USA is easily capable of using amazingly overpowered "conventional" munitions to respond to such threats.

While I agree strongly with most of what you have said, I think you're a bit mistaken here.

If North Korea were to start shelling Seoul, little in our arsenal short of nuclear weapons would be capable of taking out their heavily entrenched artillery before the south suffered horrific losses. (And I mean horrific. NK is believed to have 10,000 tubes aimed at Seoul. "Optimistic" losses start at numbers never seen before in history.)

Conventional weapons have largely met their match against fixed fortified positions. Pouring another few feet of reinforced concrete is a very cheap countermeasure and will always be so. Many of Iraq's bunkers needed round after round of bunker-busters to penetrate - dropping N+1 down N's hole. This takes a significant amount of time. One needs to wait for the dust to clear, to assess exactly where the penetration took place, and then to attempt the second strike. Time is not on the US's side in most the standing nuclear scenarios.

Re:Good publicity move

[khallow]

It's like a Mexican standoff with RPGs at point blank range. Nobody in their right mind is going to shoot so the only sane option is to put them fuck down, but mankind isn't mature enough for this, so everyone wants to keep pointing them and making threats because it makes them feel powerful, and again, because of stupidity, people take the threat seriously.

Spoken like someone who doesn't have a clue about game theory. You know what's worse than a Mexican standoff with RPGs? One person with a RPG and no repercussions for its use.

To be blunt, there's millennia of history where groups take what they want by force of arms. They don't invade a weaker country because it makes them feel powerful. They do it because they are more powerful. As long as you have groups with differ levels of power, you're going to have situations where in the absence of repercussions, it'll be convenient for the stronger group to take by force from the weaker group. Nuclear weapons provide consequences for a variety of really nasty and brutal nation-level actions.

As long as you're dwelling on the psychology of force and reprisal, you're going to miss the fundamental thing, cost versus benefit. As long as war has a big payout for its cost (for the perpetrators, not the masses), it'll continue to occur, no matter how "mature" the involved parties are.

Re:Heres the thing...

[Wyatt Earp]

The US is crazy dynamite monkey.

Re:Good and Bad

[MozeeToby]

The problem with putting conventional warheads on an ICBM is that no one would know for sure that it isn't a nuke until much too late. Technologically, it's possible to launch a missile from the continental US and have it hit a specific house halfway around the world within 3 hours. But if the Russians/Chinese/North Koreans/Iranians think you've just launched a nuke against someone, things could get very dicey, very fast.

Cold war is over!

[LostCluster]

The Mutually Assured Destruction plans of the Cold War are outdated... we're no longer fighting states with a homeland, we're fighting a mobile group that will go wherever lawlessness is tolerated and don't care what happens to innocents around them. Scorched Earth isn't the idea, it's really just a question of law enforcement. Gotta use different tactics for a different enemy.

No

[Infonaut]

If you (my next door neighbor) kill my family by purposefully spreading rat poison in our fresh vegetable garden, I promise to only shoot back at you with my pellet gun. But only if you don't own a gun.

We're talking about nuclear weapons. We're talking about whether we encourage or discourage the proliferation and use of weapons that can kill tens of thousands of people in an instant. I don't think it requires a cute analogy for the average person to understand.

Re:Weak on National Defense

[david_thornley]

If Venezuela launches a biological attack (remember that chemical and biological attacks are a whole lot harder than they sound), they're in a world of hurt by conventional means. We wouldn't have nuked them under any President since, maybe, Eisenhower, more likely Truman, but have you looked at what the US spends on its military compared to any other country (or, for that matter, all other countries)?

Obama's promising the US won't do something that almost everybody was confident the US wouldn't do anyway. It's good PR but that's about it.

The cat has been out of the bag since at least 1982, when Britain did not nuke Argentina in the Falklands/Malvinas war. No nuclear power will nuke a non-nuclear power except out of dire necessity.

Re:Weak on National Defense

[AuMatar]

Yes, because Venezuela is the country we need to worry about. Riiiiiiight.

First off, these pronouncements aren't worth the paper they're written on- they can be changed at a whim.

Secondly, this is just an announcement to the world of the administration's view of nuclear weapons. Which is unchanged in reality from our stance since the Russians got the bomb. We aren't going to start a nuclear war because someone could retaliate, and noone would win that fight. Not to mention the morality of indisciminately slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent non-combatants.

So don't worry- you're no safer or less safe than you were 12 hours ago. If you feel differently I suggest you consult the nearest psychiatrist about your paranoia.

Re:Heres the thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia and possibly China are the only countries that could blow America to oblivion and it wouldn't do them much good. Apart from anything else, the US could comfortably scrap 1000 nuclear weapons and still have enough to reduce any and all aggressors to dust. Obama's moves on weapons reduction just take America on it's first steps away from Strangelove country. There's still a hell of a long way to go before you need to start worrying about what the other monkeys are doing*.

*(but, FYI, it rhymes with plaster slating)

Re:Good and Bad

[Wyatt Earp]

More like 15 minutes. Well thats what Open Skies is for

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies

So the US puts all its nukes on B-52s/B-1Bs/B-2/Next Gen Bomber and the signatories like Russia, Ukraine, UK, France, PRC can verify that the nukes are there. So when the SSBN fires an SLBM with 12 convention MIRVs from the middle of the Indian Ocean the Russians don't get too freaked out about it.

Re:Good and Bad

[Mr 44]

ICMBs are not accurate enough to deliver a conventional explosive payload. (if you are off by half a mile, it doesn't matter if you're delivering a nuke). Thats why we have cruise missiles.

Re:Heres the thing...

[Onymous Coward]

The world really isn't as evil a place as some think it is. And it's not really the "evil" monkeys we need to be afraid of, it's the fearful ones.

The world would be a less dangerous place if folks could stop being such hair-trigger fearmonkeys.

Re:Good and Bad

[Xoltri]

So when the SSBN fires an SLBM with 12 convention MIRVs

I think you should use more acronyms next time.

Re:Weak on National Defense

[AuMatar]

Rule #1 of tyrannical dictators (which Chavez qualifies for these days, although I didn't think so 5 or so years ago)- tyrannical dictators want power. They want to maintain or increase their power. So they may do some sabre rattling, but they aren't going to seriously fuck with anyone who can really hurt them. If they have a small weak neighbor without defensive alliances they may attack their neighbor, but they won't do jack shit against a country many times their size, wealth, and military might. So let them rattle to their heart's content and otherwise ignore them. Just don't let them start snatching small countries, or you risk them thinking they can beat you.

This rule applies to all 3 big crazies at the moment- Venezuela, Iran, and N Korea. None of them are doing more than appealing to their support base. Think of it as the foreign equivalent of a Sarah Palin rally. Of the three Iran is the biggest threat because their is the religious fundamentalism aspect, but the drive for power far outweighs that.

Nations to be worried about are places like China. But its quite obvious the current rule of China is taking a long term view and is more interested in ruling through finance than arms- the fact they haven't invaded Taiwan is proof of that. We should be very concerned about the amount of money we borrow from them, but I don't see war in the next decade. Russia's another worry, but Putin for all his evil falls under rule #1- he likes ruling Russia and is more interested in holding power than anything else.

Re:Good and Bad

[Wyatt Earp]

We are talking about nuclear weapons. Acronyms are part of the business, its like computers and networking with RAM, CPU, NIC, Eth0, SATA, IDE, RAID-0...

OK. So, when the Nuclear Powered Strategic Missile Submarine fires a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile with 12 conventional Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles...

Re:Weak on National Defense

[goodmanj]

Secondly, this is just an announcement to the world of the administration's view of nuclear weapons. Which is unchanged in reality from our stance since the Russians got the bomb. We aren't going to start a nuclear war because someone could retaliate, and noone would win that fight. Not to mention the morality of indisciminately slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent non-combatants.

Yes, it matches U.S. policy going back to the 1950s... with the exception of an 8-year gap from 2002 to 2010.

The Bush administration's version of this document specifically declared that the U.S. should be prepared to use nuclear weapons on a first-strike basis, and even against non-nuclear states.

You're right, a pronouncement that "we're not gonna nuke ya" isn't worth the paper that it's printed on. But it's a big concrete improvement over a previous pronouncement that "we might nuke ya."

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nwgs/npr_review.pdf

Re:Good and Bad

[AmigaMMC]

Israel, as per their usual policy, has never admitted nor denied to have nuclear weapons.

Re:So, that's why!

[causality]

I work for an extended warranty company

How do you sleep at night?

Re:Weak on National Defense

[The End Of Days]

Yeah, the Venezuelans are so brilliant that they leave him in charge of the country. Obviously it's Americans who are dumb.

Re:Good and Bad

[amicusNYCL]

OK. So, when the Strategic Submersible Booming Nuker fires a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile with 12 conventional Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles...

Fixed that for you.

Re:So, India + N Korea, but not Israel..

[ratnerstar]

I'll tell you what doesn't go down well in America: lack of reading comprehension. Israel is not "exempted" -- they are a nuclear state. Iraq is not exempted either, as, having no nuclear weapons, they don't need an exemption. The "exemptions" you are worried about are for non-nuclear states that are considered (by the US) to be in non-compliance with NPT requirements. You're free to disagree with the policy, but at this point it doesn't seem as if you have any idea what you're disagreeing with.

Re:Pledge does cover Iran...

[Trepidity]

Signatories to the NPT are required to sign a "safeguards agreement" with the IAEA, which lays out how the IAEA will monitor the country's compliance with the NPT. Iran did so, and then in 2005 the IAEA, after several warnings, concluded that Iran was not in compliance with its safeguards agreement.

According to the Chairman of IAEA Standing Advisory Group on Safeguards Implementation, this is in effect a declaration of NPT violation:

Formally IAEA Board of Governors (BOG) decisions concern compliance with safeguards agreements, rather than the NPT as such, but in practical terms non-compliance with a safeguards agreement constitutes non-compliance with the NPT.

Iran was then referred to the UN Security Council for the violation, as provided for in the NPT. Incidentally, as a signatory of the UN Charter, Iran also agrees to abide by all decisions of the UN Security Council. Security Council resolution 1696 demanded that Iran halt its uranium enrichment program; resolutions 1737 and 1747 have followed up and imposed sanctions for noncompliance (the two follow-up resolutions passed unanimously). Iran has so far violated all three resolutions.

Actual reasons

[TiggertheMad]

If North Korean troops start pouring through the DMZ, the US military is going to consider all of its contingency plans to keep its ~150,000+ soldiers from being killed or captured, and there is a 100% chance one of those contingency plans includes using nuclear weapons. In all likelihood it is one of the reasons why it hasn't happened yet.

NK is not even remotely a conventional match for US troops. They cannot keep the lights on at night, let alone maintain air superiority against stealth fighters. Nukes would not be considered if NK attempted a land grab.

They are being held in reserve, to make sure NK knows good and well the consequences of building and employing a few fission weapons. This is a carrot/stick move that might encourage them into non-proliferation compliance. We have all the reason in the world to want this, because we would completely steamroll them in a conventional war, and we wouldn't suffer the negative publicity of a nuclear war.

Re:Actual reasons

[maeka]

Every aircraft we have, every cruise missile, launched at once, loaded with conventional bunker busters, would not make a dent in the north's 10,000 artillery tubes which are heavily fortified into the hills.

They don't need to "keep the lights on at night" to rain unimaginable hell down on the south.

Artillery is cheap, effective, and when behind three meters of reinforced concrete damn hard to kill.

Re:Actual reasons

[Marcika]

I've read that NK has somewhere on the order of 1,000,000 troops - how true is that? What's the combined number of S.Korean stationed US troops + S. Korean troops? It would appear to me that they have the advantage in a ground war, assuming they have the bullet supplies to maintain a sustained offensive. 100 bullets a month x a million soldiers is a lot of bullets for a country like NK.

North Korea is the most militarized country in the world today, with about 20% of men ages 17–54 in the regular armed forces (at nearly 1.2 million armed personnel), plus about 3 million reserve troops (i.e. past conscripts). Most of the divisions are infantry, mech inf or antiquated artillery, but it's only half a day's marching to Seoul...

South Korea tries to keep step with this: they have about 650k (much better-equipped) active troops due to two years' conscription for all males, and have 3 million reserves as well -- which would make a Northern attack without the support/assistance of China suicidal.

Absolutely incorrect.

[maillemaker]

>Nuclear weapons have turned into something of a penis waving contest.

It would seem to me that you are completely incorrect. Having nuclear weapons is basically your best way to keep the US from interfering overtly with your country.

Re:What we need more of is brinkmanship

[Alex Belits]

...and THIS is average American's understanding of international conflict -- an equivalent of schoolyard brawl.

This is why everyone treats you like a bunch of retards with bombs.

Irrelevant words

[guspasho]

The US won't nuke you unless you aren't in compliance with nuclear agreements. How many of our enemies *are* in compliance? Is the US in compliance? Who gets to determine who is in non-compliance anyway? Why should anyone believe the US wouldn't nuke someone it that it really wanted to anyway?

These are meaningless words from a belligerent rogue state.

Re:Good and Bad

[Wyatt Earp]

Thats what Google, FAS.org, Wikipedia or the dictionary are for.

Many /.ers are also into science fiction, gaming or were military and those abbreviations have been common in those genres and sectors of society for decades.

The abbreviations MIRV, SSBN, SLBM are not obscure and have not been obscure for at least 35 years. One doesn't have to be a "nuclear weapon fetishists" to be literate in the terminology of the devices that have been waiting to kill us for the last 50 years.

Re:It's a good sign

[knarf]

"Nucular" is the vernacular in half the country. I'm sorry you don't understand the concept of dialects, and you can go to hell if you want to judge me based on my accent.

All I can say is that this fits in with that rightwing extremist shop ad you have in your sig. It reinforces the stereotype. Would you walk around in a t-shirt reading something along the lines you just uttered?

" Nucular or go to hell "?

"Praise the lord and pass the nucular bombs"?

"Nucular Choctaw Bingo"?

Of course nucular is just plain wrong no matter which dialect you speak or accent you have. At least that is what I learned at school...