The Trump Administration’s nuclear plan is increasingly public, with its unclassified summary providing confirmation of all the concerns that have already been set out in recent weeks, that the administration intends the development of new, lower-yield nuclear weapons that they believe would be more usable than the current arsenal.
Though Defense Secretary James Mattis denied that the new weapons would lower the nuclear threshold, the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review says the exact opposite, revealing that they view such weapons as useful in retaliation against non-nuclear attacks or other “extreme circumstances.”
The document tries to justify this as a way to deter Russia, arguing that Russia doesn’t view the current US posture as threatening enough, and that getting the US even more weapons, including smaller-yield ones they might well use more readily, would really intimidate them.
In reality, low-yield weapons would be useless with respect to Russia, who has its own large nuclear arsenal, making nuclear exchanges unthinkable. Such weapons are primarily for attacking nations without nuclear retaliation capabilities.
That would include nuclear attacks on non-nuclear states, in keeping with the US refusal to establish itself as never carrying out a nuclear first strike, as well as potentially used in a sneak attack against North Korea.
Still, Russia tends to be a successful rationale for new spending, no matter how unreasonable, and may deflect long-standing concerns that this scheme is actually just making nuclear weapons more usable, and as a result, making nuclear warfare more common in the future.
I guess incinerating 200 thousand isn’t as effective as it used to be.
Its counter intuitive to assume the Russians would be intimidated by smaller nukes – bigger is always scarier.
A tacit invitation to limited nuclear war as implied by smaller nukes might intimidate them, but not in a good way; they’ll just assume the U.S. is clueless as well as reckless.
This sounds like more Neocon “thinking”, which has already produced a
wide swath of death and chaos across the Middle East North Africa.
Lunatics running the asylum….
Are you talking about the lunatics who voted them in?
I don’t think anyone votes for occupants of the Pentagon or Neocon “think tanks”, though some may have voted for the lunatics who listen to those idiots.
I’m talking about the lunatics in the Congress – if they (the voters) don’t elect lunatics who then provide the lunatics in the Pentagon the financial means to be raving lunatics, then there wouldn’t be this type of problem.
True enough, though I’m fairly sure that it’s lunatics all the way down.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
A superb and highly appropriate quote!
They want to spend another trillion+ to “modernize” the large-yield missiles
also, you know, just in case they “need to” wipe out some continents.
The ominous development of “Dial-a-yield” technology in the new B61-12 gravity bomb, the ability to adjust the explosive force down to as low as 300 tons of TNT, blurs the line between conventional and nuclear warfare as they will almost certainly be used as tactical weapons, say against North Korea’s nuclear facilities for instance. That’s opening a Pandora’s box that no one has any idea of what the consequences will be, least of all the idiots that run the Pentagon.
And the fools in the “Democratic Party” and their minions in the FBI, CIA?NSA are still pretending that somehow the Russians helped Trump to win the POTUS “election” and are now delighted to see the result.
The fools running the country have reverted to pagan ethos, the one driven by the sense of pleasure, power and fear. Pleasure comes with salivating greed and power to achieve it. Any perception of pleasures denied comes with the froth at the mouth, and loses with shock and tears, with blaming everybody else, cursing gods for being fickle friends. Pagan ethos, we are being subjected to, is childish, boastfull — and that includes Obama’s more erudite boastfulness and sneakiness. Pagan leadership is being touted as superior. Pagan, selfish behaviour among individuals “in”, otherwiise, being concerned with higher goals, national welbeing, food and water we consume — is for whimps and idiots. Let’s have these pagans get all the bombs they desire, for if a pagan cannot dominate, it fears bring dominated.
Civilisations arose, left paganism behind, developed legal systems in which society takes on itself the responsibility to administer justice to benefit us all, to create institutions that advance our sovieties and create foundation for progress. No matter the type of civilisation, the culture or a religion, one can recognize the advances societies made once institutions were established to curb induvidual paganism.
Western civilisations for better or worse, have been shaped by Christianity, and its high or low points are directly linked to the sucess or failure of institutions. Even Wild West is a saga of humanity, taken far away from civilisation, is replete with the stiries of human depravity, and the selfless justice that prevails. Under conditions of utter lawlesness, the human spirit did not cave in to paganism, and barbarism, as its darkest form.
Niow, we have paganism ushered into our public life as a virtue. Paganism of Ayn Rand has taken over the elite thinking — leaving the society without moral compass— or being given a fake one, Fake morality comes always with the same old fairy tale style — the one of demonization of others, people or individuals, those monsters we need to fight in a kingdom far, far away. When a pagan DNC decided to spurn FBI investigation of their presumably hacked server, nkbody bat an eyelid. It was completely assumed that pagan, private justice is acceptable. We are down the road of paganism very far. It is hard to see what can stop this descent.
Madness. Insanity.
This would actually tend to undermine the anti-proliferation regime, as there would be a strong(er) incentive for all countries to build nukes. Everyone would imitate North Korea.
Perhaps the nuclear weaponeers are just trying to justify their existence and keep their jobs?