Draft US Defense Paper Outlines Preventive Nuclear Strikes

dlofnep

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0911-02.htm

A copy of the draft obtained by AFP urges US theater force commanders operating around the world to prepare specific plans for using nuclear weapons in their regions -- and outlines scenarios, under which it would be justified to seek presidential approval for a nuclear strike.

Using weapons of mass destruction to stop people using weapons of mass destruction. Hypocrites.

the_syco

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But the official, who spoke to AFP late Saturday on condition of anonymity, said it has not yet been signed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and thus has not been made official policy.

Its not signed yet. I've seen something like this happen before, and the usual thing happens: it gets toned down, so don't get your hopes up.
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dlofnep

I know it's not signed.. That's not the point. The point is the are attempting to rid weapons of mass destruction by using weapons of mas destruction. I think it's one big joke.

the_syco

dlofnep wrote:

I know it's not signed.. That's not the point. The point is the are attempting to rid weapons of mass destruction by using weapons of mas destruction. I think it's one big joke.

The current adminstraion is a joke. The "surprise" attack on Baghdad was done with tanks, and they rang the senior staff in the Iraqi Army looking for their surrender before that.

I actually think the "leak" was just a "this is what we can do", as opposed to the final draft, that'll take out the bottom 3 otions.

Hobbes

This is pretty serious if it is signed into law. Especially seeing as the US can't find its ass from its elbow when it comes to WMD.

Actual document is here.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/jp3_12fc2.pdf

zuma

If those plans had been around a couple of years ago then the US may have had nuked Iraq...even though they had/have no Weapons of Mass Destruction(chemical/biological weapons are Weapons of Mass Murder!).

Then again why would the US want to contaminate all that lovely oil with loads of nuclear radiation???

Hobbes

I've read most of it. All I can see is WTF are they thinking?!

bonkey

I'd say that this paper should be added to all teh other draft legislation we've seen ppl get worked up about...the domination/militarisation of space is always a good one for that, f'r example.

I must say, though, I am always amazed at how any of these things even get proposed. I mean...seriously...are there really people in positions of authority who not only think that this is a good idea, but think its a sellable idea?

Why else would they want it as draft legislation?

jc

Hobbes

Why else would they want it as draft legislation?

PATRIOT act was draft legislation at one time. It is disturbing they are even considering this and that it has a large number of high level people accepting it. Or should we just worry once it is signed into law?

supersheep

Why is anyone surprised? The US was always going to be the first country to use nukes offensively. If the Cold War had gone hot, it was NATO strategy to use tactical nuclear weapons on the Warsaw Pact forces - they needed to, if they wanted to stop them. And, of course, they wanted to build their "Deep Nuclear Penetrator" and their new generation of small nuclear weapons, despite all the bans, strategic arms limitation and reduction talks, and public opinion.
A quote from the document:

Joint Publication 3-12: Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations wrote:

Nevertheless, while the belligerent that initiates nuclear warfare may find itself the target of world condemnation, no customary or conventional international law prohibits nations from employing nuclear weapons in armed conflict.

Basically, we don't care if everyone hates us, we're gonna do it anyways... And this is repeated throughout the document.
What's scary is that a local commander can ask to use nukes against the infrastructure required for an NBC strike (this could be a presidential command bunker, or similar), for "rapid and favorable war termination on US terms", or even just to "demonstrate US intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary use of WMD". So basically, they will nuke someone to show the world that they will nuke someone who will use nukes against them. Make an example, if you wish.

Hobbes

Hobbes wrote:

This is pretty serious if it is signed into law.

I'm pretty sure or at least I wouldnt be surprised that if we were to examine the minutes of the meetings the joint chief of staff attend,we'd probably find their advanced plans for invading canada too... Ergo this insignificant policy docoment enters my worry scale at 0.1 tbh.

Especially seeing as the US can't find its ass from its elbow when it comes to WMD.

And as is now obvious(even to colin Powell) and was clear to most anti war people that WMD was never their full agenda-Clearly they can find some of their ass from their elbow in some things because (a) they got yer man reelected and (b) they more or less got Iraq and no one could stop them-not even the insurgents who are busy making fools of their logic by happily blowing their own fellow arabs asunder as often as possible.

Hobbes

Earthman wrote:

I'm pretty sure or at least I wouldnt be surprised that if we were to examine the minutes of the meetings the joint chief of staff attend,we'd probably find their advanced plans for invading canada too...

It is not a wargame document, it is a proprosed adopted policy shift. I had a look at the older version of the document and pre-emptive strikes doesn't even come into it.

If it was somewhere like Russia or China coming out with this policy there would be holy war from the US over it.

Hobbes

Update on this.. The US has just approved the buying of mass production systems for generating weapons grade Anthrax and other biological weapons.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8044

*Meh*

Update: Thats what I get for only reading one news source (wikinews). I am incorrect, they are mass producing vaccine. It is possible to produce bioweapons but doesn't look like what they are doing.

MeatProduct

What surprises me more is the logic behind it. Say Bertie decided to develop and use a nuke, just Bertie and say 10 others in positions of power. Then the US may respond by dropping a nuke on Ireland in order to take out the 11 people involved in this plot. That kind of logic could be is as a WMD itself! Where is the distinction between government policy and the average fellow on the street? Surely the signing of this bill would make it clear that the US admin does not make such a distinction and paints a government and it's people with the same brush?

Nick

supersheep

MeatProduct wrote:

What surprises me more is the logic behind it. Say Bertie decided to develop and use a nuke, just Bertie and say 10 others in positions of power. Then the US may respond by dropping a nuke on Ireland in order to take out the 11 people involved in this plot. That kind of logic could be is as a WMD itself! Where is the distinction between government policy and the average fellow on the street? Surely the signing of this bill would make it clear that the US admin does not make such a distinction and paints a government and it's people with the same brush?
Nick

Well then, they did it sixty years ago when they dropped the first ones. There is no distinction between government and people with strategic nuclear weapons, and very little distinction with any other NBC agent.
Anthrax is not a viable military weapon, to be honest - it's far too troublesome to disperse easily, and too easy to defend against. It's far more useful as a terrorist weapon.

Lemming

supersheep wrote:

Well then, they did it sixty years ago when they dropped the first ones. There is no distinction between government and people with strategic nuclear weapons, and very little distinction with any other NBC agent.
Anthrax is not a viable military weapon, to be honest - it's far too troublesome to disperse easily, and too easy to defend against. It's far more useful as a terrorist weapon.

This is the whole point behind nuclear weapons. I've said it before and I'll say it again. They are not tactical weapons (despite the nametag some get). They were designed for one thing and one thing alone. To rip the heart out of a nation by decimating its cities ... that means the willful killing of civilians. Now, let me just flick through the relevant bits of teh Geneva Convention here. I seem to recall something about not killing civilians deliberately ...

Oh yeah ... heh. Funny that eh?

supersheep

Not exactly true - some actually ARE tactical. For example, the Atomic Demolition Unit (I think it's called that), which has the explosive power of 200kg of TNT, nuclear artillery shells, or even nuclear-tipped SCUDs, are all tactical nuclear weapons and would have been used on military formations in WW3.
The problem with tactical nuclear weapons is that, once they've been used, strategic nuclear weapons will quickly come into the fray. Even here, though, they're not designed only for targetting cities. My nuclear strategy is a tad rusty, but as far as I recall, the US primarily did not target USSR cities with their nukes after about the mid-fifties, they aimed at the missile silos, as they thought they could successfully pull off a first strike. The Soviets, on the other hand, targetted cities because they thought they couldn't pull one off.
Of course, either way, civilians still would get killed by nuclear weapons, but a counter-force strategy (targetting the nukes) would probably be a militarily legitimate use of nukes and not violate the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the deliberate killing of citizens, and says nothing about collateral damage.

Lemming

True Supersheep, but I'm not arguing that. My point is what Nukes were originally conceived for. They were conceived as "tour de force" weapons. Drop one on an enemy city and destroy an enemy populaces will to resist you. Smash their morale and national will to fight. Make them live in abject terror of being vaporised. Pure and simple.

The only two incidences of use of nuclear weapons were, funnily enough, on cities which kind of bears that point out.

supersheep

Not having really read up on the original doctrinal role of the nuclear bomb, I don't know that it's true that they were designed to kill cities, but it certainly seems the most likely possibility.
Of course, that was during the Second World War. I'm not sure, but that may have been before the Geneva Convention covering deliberate killing of civilians - it's so hard to know which fecking Geneva Convention is which! Even if it wasn't, the bombing of civilians was a commonly accepted strategy - look at Dresden, the Blitz, the bombings night and day from 1943 on, and so on and so on. In such an atmosphere, obviously a nuclear bomb would be viewed as a simple expansion on this theme.
I think I started off countering the "Nukes are not tactical" point, though, and then got sidelined into a minor rant on nuclear war...