Should The US Be Ready For A ‘Limited’ Nuclear War?

No Longer Unthinkable: Should US Ready For ‘Limited’ Nuclear War? -- Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Breaking Defense

AI FORCE ASSOCIATION HQ: For more than 60 years, most Americans have thought of nuclear weapons as an all-or-nothing game. The only way to win is not to play at all, we believed, because any use of nukes will lead to Armageddon. That may no longer be the game our opposition is playing. As nuclear weapons proliferate to places that might not share our reluctance to use them in small numbers, however, the US military may face a “second nuclear age” of retail Armageddon for which it is utterly unprepared.

Outside the US, both established and emerging nuclear powers increasingly see nuclear weapons as weapons that can be used in a controlled, limited, and strategically useful fashion, said Barry Watts, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, arguably the Pentagon’s favorite thinktank. The Cold War “firebreaks” between conventional and nuclear conflict are breaking down, he wrote in a recent report. Russia has not only developed new, relatively low-yield tactical nukes but also routinely wargamed their use to stop both NATO and Chinese conventional forces should they overrun Moscow’s feeble post-Soviet military, Watts said this morning at the headquarters of the Air Force Association.

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My Comment: What was unthinkable a few decades ago is now .... sadly .... becoming a talked about policy for other up-and-coming nuclear states. Should we be concerned .... definitely .... can we do something about it .... probably not.

Will South Korea And Japan Develop Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear Neighbors for North Korea? -- New York Times

North Korea declared the 1953 Korean War armistice nullified on Monday, in the wake of growing threats from the country’s leader Kim Jong-un directed last week at South Korea and the United States and the United Nations Security Council decision to in retaliation to its third nuclear test in February.

A new sense of vulnerability is leading some South Koreans to call for the development of its own nuclear weapons program. Its neighbor Japan could easily build up a nuclear arsenal. Will North Korea’s threats and continued testing cause more proliferation in the region?

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My Comment: A collection of essays on the possibility of South Korea or Japan developing nuclear weapons. What's my take .... if it was not for the American presence, both countries would be quickly developing and producing such weapons.

Why Is The U.S. Paying For Russia's Military Buildup

(Click Above Image to Enlarge)
Image from The Carneigie Endowment

Why Should We Underwrite Russian Rearmament? -- Wall Street Journal Opinion

The Nunn-Lugar program to help Russia destroy its nuclear weapons no longer makes sense.

It was Clare Boothe Luce who came up with the aphorism "No good deed goes unpunished." This maxim accurately sums up U.S. efforts to help Russia dismantle its aging nuclear arsenal.

When the Soviet Union dissolved two decades ago, its component pieces were saddled with the formidable task of picking up the fragments of a huge nuclear-weapons stockpile. Fears arose across the world that nuclear warheads and/or radioactive material might get lost or stolen.

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My Comment: This is another classic example of a US foreign aid program that was started with the best intentions, but whose end results are dubious and unhelpful at best.

This program should be shut down ASAP. With the U.S. now experiencing trillion dollar deficits, it is foolhardy to spend money that should be spent here. The Russians have more than enough money to clean up their mess .... they should start spending it now.

Drawing Down The Nuclear Stock

Russian SS-25 and American Peacekeeper strategic nuclear missiles.

From The Japan Times:

Conflicts of interest dividing Moscow and Washington have overshadowed a more positive development — real progress in nuclear arms cuts between the two powers that together hold 95 percent of the world's nuclear weapons.

Since '87, the United States and former Soviet countries, chiefly Russia, have signed a series of disarmament treaties, reducing nuclear arsenals by about 80 percent. The Russian and U.S. presidents recently agreed to reduce them further, by around a third. The new bilateral pact would replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires Dec. 5. As a result, the current ceiling on warheads would be lowered from 2,200 each to between 1,500 and 1,675, and the number of long-range missiles from 1,600 each to between 500 and 1,100.

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My Comment: In a world where many countries are salivating over the prospect of developing their own nuclear program .... the U.S. and Russia are at least cutting theirs .... for now.

World Without Nukes? Not So Fast, Graybeards Say -- A Commentary

A Trident missile at liftoff. Photograph: AP/The Guardian

From The Danger Room:

President Barack Obama recently laid out his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. A panel of nuclear strategy experts’ advice oh how to get there: Take the tiniest of baby steps.

The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States — tasked by Congress to take a comprehensive look at U.S. nuclear weapons policy — released its final recommendations this morning. And in his preface, chairman William Perry sounds downright pessimistic about the president’s goal. “Indeed, if the vision of nuclear elimination is thought of as the ‘top of the mountain,’ it is clear that it cannot be seen at this time,” he writes. “But I believe that we should be heading up the mountain to a ‘base camp’ that would be safer than where we are today.”

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Watershed Moment On Nuclear Arms -- Commentary

From The New York Times:

During the 2008 campaign, President Obama promised to deal with one of the world’s great scourges — thousands of nuclear weapons still in the American and Russian arsenals. He said he would resume arms-control negotiations — the sort that former President George W. Bush disdained — and seek deep cuts in pursuit of an eventual nuclear-free world. There is no time to waste.

In less than nine months, the 1991 Start I treaty expires. It contains the basic rules of verification that give both Moscow and Washington the confidence that they know the size and location of the other’s nuclear forces.

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Nuclear Weapons No Longer Serve A Military Purpose -- A Commentary

From The Irish Times:

Two modern dinosaurs flirted with catastrophe last month – nuclear submarines each armed with 16 ballistic missiles

THE child in Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes told it like he saw it, leaving the surrounding adults to address the consequences.

Since we adults know that recognising an uncomfortable reality obliges us to do something about it, we often prefer to avert our eyes. Our current empirical need to pledge and spend incalculable trillions to transform our economies and save our planet denies us, however, the luxury of such selective myopia.

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Nuclear Weapons For All? The Risks Of A New Scramble For The Bomb

ESTIMATED NUCLEAR WARHEADS, STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL

From U.S. News And World Report:

The global financial order has been shaken. Could the global system to prevent nuclear proliferation be next?

Amid the pressures of the Cold War, the United States led the construction of an international system meant to encourage the secure use of the atom for energy and other peaceful purposes and discourage the spread of nuclear weapons to more countries. Then, as now, a breakdown of that system would heighten the risk that events of epic lethality—and untold victims—would, at some point, ensue.

As Barack Obama becomes president, worry about just such a breakdown is mounting among nonproliferation specialists and foreign policy strategists across the political spectrum. Warns Joseph Cirincione, author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and president of the Ploughshares Fund, "We're on the verge of a system collapse."

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My Comment: Here is some interesting information on the history of nuclear tests:

The United States has conducted 1,127 nuclear and thermonuclear tests — 217 in the atmosphere.
The Soviet Union/ Russia conducted 969 tests — 219 in the atmosphere.
France, 210 tests, 50 in the atmosphere.
The United Kingdom, 45 tests — 21 in the atmosphere.
China, 45 tests — 23 in the atmosphere.
India and Pakistan — 13 tests underground.
Israel — possible 1 test atmosphere South Africa 1979.
North Korea — 1 test underground, October 2006.