The US has indeed ramped up its efforts to upgrade and improve its capabilities to deliver nuclear weapons and, in a major change in policy that went into effect when Bush took office, has said that it reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in a first-strike scenario.
Indeed, there are strong indicators, based on interpretations of von Neumann's gaming theory, that a nuclear first strike against Russia and China may be seen by some as the best and only chance of surviving a world in which nuclear weapons proliferate and in which rogue states have less to lose by shooting first. The missile shield is correctly seen by many as, not a defensive weapon, but an offensive weapon. The theory is that we should shoot first to insure that no one will shoot us first. The idea that the US will suddenly precipitate a nuclear take-out has already been discussed quietly in many corners.
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CONPLAN 8022 is “a concept plan for the quick use of nuclear, conventional, or information warfare capabilities to destroy — preemptively, if necessary — ‘time-urgent targets’ anywhere in the world. . . . As a result, the Bush administration's preemption policy is now operational on long-range bombers, strategic submarines on deterrent patrol, and presumably intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).”
Preemption in concert with a nuclear first strike became implicit U.S. policy in the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) in late 2001 and has become more explicit since then.
Hans M. Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert and project director at the Federation of American Scientists, wrote the following of CONPLAN in last September’s Arms Control Today: “Foremost among the doctrine’s new features are the incorporation of preemption into U.S. nuclear doctrine and the integration of conventional weapons and missile defenses into strategic planning. . . . The new nuclear doctrine makes it clear that the United States will not necessarily wait for the attack but preempt with nuclear weapons if necessary.”
from http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...;articleId=1928
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In 2001, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld unveiled a report that predicted a "space Pearl Harbor" ...
from http://www.wired.com/news/technology/space...w=wn_politics_1
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See also http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...;articleId=2032
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5101101336.html
http://web.mit.edu/ssp/seminars/wed_archiv...all/bracken.htm
http://www.slate.com/id/2139610/
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"Deterrence has worked so far because neither the U.S. nor the U.S.S.R. is sure it could survive a retaliatory strike after launching a pre-emptive attack. That is, the sides cooperate -- threaten each other rather than attack pre-emptively -- because they're chicken; they fear the consequences of not cooperating. Their threats remain threats. The game tends toward what Brams calls a ''deterrence equilibrium.''
But the game goes haywire when a missile shield is added. Rather than shifting toward a deterrence equilibrium, the game tends toward a ''mutual pre-emption equilibrium,'' in which both sides believe it's better to launch a first strike than to deter each other with threats. The better the defense the more likely mutual pre-emption. And it doesn't matter whether both sides or only one side has the shield. ''The side having the perfect defense can strike with impunity because it can turn back everything in a retaliatory strike,'' says Brams. ''But the other side, knowing this, will pre-empt.'' So if and when the defensive shield becomes good enough, the U.S. might decide to pre-empt during a crisis rather than sit tight and wait for the U.S.S.R. to strike -- provided the Soviets don't push the button first.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...s_v8/ai_4745683
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"This temptation to strike first is so strong that it has even affected Western leaders. At a time when the United States had the only working atomic bombs, Winston Churchill privately urged U.S. leaders to deliver an ultimatum to Russia. In Marc Trachtenburg's critically acclaimed book, "History and Strategy," Churchill is quoted as saying, "We ought not to wait until Russia is ready." In 1948 Churchill argued in the House of Commons for "bringing matters to a head" while America yet retained its atomic monopoly. Churchill told the House of Commons that this approach offered "the best chance of coming out of it alive." Churchill pointed to the extreme aggressiveness of the Russians at a time when the U.S. had all the nuclear weapons. Imagine, said Churchill, what will happen "when they get the atomic bomb and have accumulated a large store." Churchill was not alone in suggesting that the West should destroy its enemy while it had the chance. John von Neumann, a leading mathematician and the founder of game theory, said, "If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=19773
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"Maintaining the ability to execute a disarming surprise first strike against Russia is also an essentially nuclear mission. But this mission makes sense only if it comes close to total success. Since the Russians would most likely launch their nuclear missiles rather than watch them be destroyed, time is of the essence. The U.S. strike would have to destroy everything in one blow. At least some Russian nuclear weapons are hardened enough to require multiple attacks with conventional weapons. The need for post-attack evaluation and re-attack
does not allow time for conventional attack. Although the United States claims that a disarming first strike is not an explicit mission of U.S. nuclear forces, the nature of the arsenal argues otherwise. Also this mission is suggested by the Administration's "defeat" goal. (page 61)
http://www.fas.org/resource/01282005175922.pdf
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"Buh-bye, Alaska.
The 49th state suffered a nuke strike in a recent Pentagon computer simulation in which members of the press role-played the president, secretary of defense and various key military officials. The exercise is reported in chilling detail by reporter Sam Bishop of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
Of course, you can't buy this strategic war game in any store. The simulation is clearly being used by the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency to build support - and funding - for its program. Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) is a key backer of the agency and its simulation, which uses video-game technology to promote the missile defense system." ...
"Any president that relied on this missile defense system for national security decisions is relying on a chimera, on a mirage," John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World told Bishop. "Any simulation like this is based on fantasy as opposed to reality... The exercise is a phony exercise, no better than a computer game."
http://gamepolitics.livejournal.com/195022.html
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"Arms control chief Joseph is a new breed of militarist who believes that in a world where weapons of mass destruction may be proliferating, it behooves the United States to bolster its own WMD arsenal and then use it against other proliferators."
http://www.counterpunch.org/barry06162005.html
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National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 154
"The Soviet-led Warsaw Pact had a long-standing strategy to attack Western Europe that included being the first to use nuclear weapons, according to a new book of previously Secret Warsaw Pact documents published tomorrow. Although the aim was apparently to preempt NATO "aggression," the Soviets clearly expected that nuclear war was likely and planned specifically to fight and win such a conflict. The documents show that Moscow's allies went along with these plans but the alliance was weakened by resentment over Soviet domination and the belief that nuclear planning was sometimes highly unrealistic."
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· The "nuclear romanticism," primarily of Soviet planners, concerning the viability of unconventional warfare, including a memorable retort by the Polish leader that "no one should have the idea that in a nuclear war one could enjoy a cup of coffee in Paris in five or six days." (Documents Nos. 31, 115)
· Ideologically warped notions …
· The impact of Chernobyl as a reality check for Soviet officials on the effects of nuclear weapons. (Document No. 115)
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“… the chances of a crisis spiraling out of control may have been greater than imagined at the time. The plans had dynamics of their own …”
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB154/index.htm
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"At a speech today to the U.S. Institute of Peace, Stephen Hadley, the president's national security advisor, said that, "The doctrine of preemption remains sound and must remain an integral part of our national security strategy."
Hadley added: "We do not rule out the use of force before the enemy strikes."
Friday, March 17, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print....s06/0317-03.htm
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http://alovelypromise.blogspot.com/2006/04/first-strike.html (a blog )
(read in its entirety)
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Today, for the first time in almost 50 years, the United States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike. This dramatic shift in the nuclear balance of power stems from a series of improvements in the United States' nuclear systems, the precipitous decline of Russia's arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of China's nuclear forces. Unless Washington's policies change or Moscow and Beijing take steps to increase the size and readiness of their forces, Russia and China -- and the rest of the world -- will live in the shadow of U.S. nuclear primacy for many years to come.
One's views on the implications of this change will depend on one's theoretical perspective. Hawks, who believe that the United States is a benevolent force in the world, will welcome the new nuclear era because they trust that U.S. dominance in both conventional and nuclear weapons will help deter aggression by other countries. For example, as U.S. nuclear primacy grows, China's leaders may act more cautiously on issues such as Taiwan, realizing that their vulnerable nuclear forces will not deter U.S. intervention -- and that Chinese nuclear threats could invite a U.S. strike on Beijing's arsenal. But doves, who oppose using nuclear threats to coerce other states and fear an emboldened and unconstrained United States, will worry. Nuclear primacy might lure Washington into more aggressive behavior, they argue, especially when combined with U.S. dominance in so many other dimensions of national power. Finally, a third group -- owls, who worry about the possibility of inadvertent conflict -- will fret that U.S. nuclear primacy could prompt other nuclear powers to adopt strategic postures, such as by giving control of nuclear weapons to lower-level commanders, that would make an unauthorized nuclear strike more likely -- thereby creating what strategic theorists call "crisis instability."
--snip –
Since the Cold War's end, the U.S. nuclear arsenal has significantly improved. The United States has replaced the ballistic missiles on its submarines with the substantially more accurate Trident II D-5 missiles, many of which carry new, larger-yield warheads. The U.S. Navy has shifted a greater proportion of its SSBNs to the Pacific so that they can patrol near the Chinese coast or in the blind spot of Russia's early warning radar network. The U.S. Air Force has finished equipping its B-52 bombers with nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are probably invisible to Russian and Chinese air-defense radar. And the air force has also enhanced the avionics on its B-2 stealth bombers to permit them to fly at extremely low altitudes in order to avoid even the most sophisticated radar. Finally, although the air force finished dismantling its highly lethal MX missiles in 2005 to comply with arms control agreements, it is significantly improving its remaining ICBMs by installing the MX's high-yield warheads and advanced reentry vehicles on Minuteman ICBMs, and it has upgraded the Minuteman's guidance systems to match the MX's accuracy.
Page 2 of this article describes the deteriorated Russian capabilities…
Page 3 describes the woeful Chinese capabilities….
And some of the improvements in ours…
Some may wonder whether U.S. nuclear modernization efforts are actually designed with terrorists or rogue states in mind. Given the United States' ongoing war on terror, and the continuing U.S. interest in destroying deeply buried bunkers (reflected in the Bush administration's efforts to develop new nuclear weapons to destroy underground targets), one might assume that the W-76 upgrades are designed to be used against targets such as rogue states' arsenals of weapons of mass destruction or terrorists holed up in caves. But this explanation does not add up. The United States already has more than a thousand nuclear warheads capable of attacking bunkers or caves. If the United States' nuclear modernization were really aimed at rogue states or terrorists, the country's nuclear force would not need the additional thousand ground-burst warheads it will gain from the W-76 modernization program. The current and future U.S. nuclear force, in other words, seems designed to carry out a preemptive disarming strike against Russia or China.
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… the sort of missile defenses that the United States might plausibly deploy would be valuable primarily in an offensive context, not a defensive one -- as an adjunct to a U.S. first-strike capability, not as a standalone shield. If the United States launched a nuclear attack against Russia (or China), the targeted country would be left with a tiny surviving arsenal -- if any at all. At that point, even a relatively modest or inefficient missile-defense system might well be enough to protect against any retaliatory strikes, because the devastated enemy would have so few warheads and decoys left.
The United States is now seeking to maintain its global preeminence, which the Bush administration defines as the ability to stave off the emergence of a peer competitor and prevent weaker countries from being able to challenge the United States in critical regions such as the Persian Gulf. If Washington continues to believe such preeminence is necessary for its security, then the benefits of nuclear primacy might exceed the risks. But if the United States adopts a more restrained foreign policy -- for example, one premised on greater skepticism of the wisdom of forcibly exporting democracy, launching military strikes to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and aggressively checking rising challengers -- then the benefits of nuclear primacy will be trumped by the dangers.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faes...ar-primacy.html
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What was the import of last week's Chinese satellite take-out?
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It's no longer a two-player game, or even a three-player game.
Imagine that you are the US and you are in a crowded conference room filled with a lot of people, many of whom have side-arms in their holsters. Some of them have shotguns laying on the floor, unloaded but with shells nearby. One or two of those shotguns have shells chambered. Two of the people in that rom, the big thugs across the room named Russia and China, have sidearms, shotguns and hand-grenades. There is some strong indication that the pins on the grenades are rusted. Your task, in the first-strike scenario, is to draw your weapon and shoot the Russian and the Chinese guy right between the eyes before they can draw their weapons or pull the pins on the grenades, and then turn your gun on the rest of the crowd and say "lay down your weapons" before they can get off a shot.
You'd better be 1) a great poker face, 2) very quick on the draw, 3) have a round chambered and the hammer cocked, and 4) be a sure shot.
If you fail at any of those three, there's gonna be hell to pay, and a lot of shooting, and one or more of those grenades will go off.
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As von Moltke pointed out in the late 1800's,
"No plan ever survives contact with the enemy."
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This was originally posted here: http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...69935&st=60 and there are some comments there as well.