Pentagon Strategy: Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons

[psi29a]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 53_pf.html

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

...


At a White House briefing that year, a spokesman said the United States would "respond with overwhelming force" to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces or allies, and said "all options" would be available to the president.

WTF? Is this in response to growing chest thumping going on world wide by China, North Korea, and others?

[MrFelony]

its called escalation...question is when will it stop

[LordMune]

Not in the foreseeable future, that's kind of the problem.

[Killfile]

It's massively destabilizing is what it is. The US nuclear stance of 2nd strike deterrence has protected this country for more than 60 years now. We're talking about shifting to a first strike policy... this can't be good.

Admittedly, the 2nd strike policy encouraged other countries to develop weapons of mass destruction... but a first strike policy encourages those countries that have them to use them or risk loosing them

Those countries that don't have WMDs are polarized, forced to side either with the US or against it. Those siding with the US have no need to develop their own NBC stockpiles, but risk retaliation from those that might seek to harm the US. Those siding against the US will seek to develop these weapons in secret, but now have no reason NOT to strike with them.. after all, a US strike is all but assured.

The middle ground becomes too dangerous given the current predisposition of the US to bomb people for no particular reason *cough*Iraq*cough*.

This is the kind of crap I expect to hear out of China (or rather, the kind of crap we hear from China on a bi-monthly basis), not what the US military should be saying.

A nuclear strike on a chemical weapons stockpile is something could result in millions of deaths depending on prevailing winds and location.

To those of you outside the United States, I formally apologize for the general insanity gripping my country right now. My advice is to go find someplace that has neither Muslims or Oil and wait until Bush is out of office in January of 2009.

[Southpaw]

Now i may be talking out of my ass on this one, but wouldn't a nuclear strike on a chemical stockpile incinerate the weapons not release them?

As for the proposed revision of doctrine I support the use of preemptive strikes on nations using WMD's. If a country is already using the damn things that is kind of a first strike violation anyway.

Now to the other parts.... the option to use nuclear weapons against a terrorist group using WMD's.... Umm, WTF? Honestly this sounds like swatting flies with a sledgehammer only you can't seem to find the flies.

The destruction of stockpiles thing.. meh who cares? So they have stockpiles, if they ever use them they will get hammered flat. I guess this is more of a they may distribute them to terrorists thing, but somehow I can't justify a first strike for this.

In the end this isn't really a big deal, congress will shoot this shit down.

[Ellen]

In the end this isn't really a big deal, congress will shoot this shit down.

...

You have so much faith in your government. I am in awe.

[Southpaw]

In the end this isn't really a big deal, congress will shoot this shit down.

...

You have so much faith in your government. I am in awe.

Its not faith, its the fact that we have a democratic party of treehugging hippies. I'm pretty sure they will see this as an anti-tree piece of legislation.

[MrFelony]

I think he is just feeling safe "hunkered down in [his] fallout shelter"

[Killfile]

Hitting a stockpile is dangerous for a number of reasons.

The major reason is that no one stockpiles chemical weapons in a warehouse in the middle of the desert.

Either:

A: The weapons are in a warehouse in the middle of a city. In this case I think nuking it might make you some enemies.

B: The weapons are underground in the middle of the desert (or some other equally inhospitable tract of land). Since a 1 MT weapon will only vaporize a small crater, it risks spreading weapons through the blast itself.

For more information on why this is a bad idea, check out this flash animation by the union of concerned scientists on nuclear bunker busters.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/n ... ation.html

Oh... and Congress gets jack squat to say about this. The President is the commander in chief of the armed forces. The Pentagon reports to him. Congress gets to declare war and slash budgets, but that's about it. A first or second strike policy debate is out of their domain.

[MrFelony]

I wish my school book came in flash form . what a useless sounding nuke

[RedEyes]

Oh... and Congress gets jack squat to say about this. The President is the commander in chief of the armed forces. The Pentagon reports to him. Congress gets to declare war and slash budgets, but that's about it. A first or second strike policy debate is out of their domain.

This is bad news. If this is true, it allows President to short-circuit Congress and nuke a country based on an assumption that the nation in question or a terrorist group over there has WMD. But, from the late Iraq war, we know that WMD claims -or the amount claimed- can turn out to be false. And after nuking, who can prove or disprove whether they actually had WMD, or it was a fluke/exaggeration.

There are serious problems with this change...

[MrFelony]

or to use such useless nukes as mentioned above ...jan 2009 cant come any sooner in my opinion

[Skullkracker]

if anyone started dropping nukes nowadays I guess the most sensible thing to do is to abandon ship...I mean Earth

[Artezul]

I am beginning to feel sick of living in this country... The world is always spiraling down in every which way. >.>

[Killfile]

Oh... and Congress gets jack squat to say about this. The President is the commander in chief of the armed forces. The Pentagon reports to him. Congress gets to declare war and slash budgets, but that's about it. A first or second strike policy debate is out of their domain.

This is bad news. If this is true, it allows President to short-circuit Congress and nuke a country based on an assumption that the nation in question or a terrorist group over there has WMD. But, from the late Iraq war, we know that WMD claims -or the amount claimed- can turn out to be false. And after nuking, who can prove or disprove whether they actually had WMD, or it was a fluke/exaggeration.

There are serious problems with this change...

It's more or less always been that way. The balance of power in the United States is that the President gets to direct the military but that the Senate (part of the Congress, or legislative body) gets to declare war. In theory, the president can't attack someone unless we've declared war.

In practice, there's really nothing spelled out in the Constitution as to what happens to the president if he just arbitrarily starts attacking people without a war declaration. As such, the Constitution relies on public pressure to reign the president in here. This worked great when it took 3 months to get to some place worth attacking, but not so much anymore.

A few decades back the Congress passed the War Powers Act, which limited the President to an engagement of no more than 90 days without the specific authorization of the Senate. This is great as well, save that the President can reduce any country in the world to a glass parking lot in a little under 5 minutes.

Bush didn't bother asking for a declaration of war against Iraq. Rather, he went in on the assumption (somehow) that the declaration given his father by the Senate was still valid. He also got authorization to use whatever means were necessary to get Saddam to allow inspections, though exactly what that means is still up for debate.

Ah the American Constitutional System -- fun for the whole family!

[Necromancer]

if anyone started dropping nukes nowadays I guess the most sensible thing to do is to abandon ship...I mean Earth

It'll happen soon enough.