Posted on 10/15/2001 2:08:11 PM PDT by spycatcher
Posted for your consideration in the light of recent Anthrax attacks, now spreading to Government officials
Click on the above link for the full article
...Defense alone, with anti-missile and counterforce weapons, cannot make American forces and citizens entirely safe from lethal biological agents. So deterrence is crucial. If an enemy is already receiving the full brunt of U.S. conventional strikes when it opts to threaten biological attack, the threat of U.S. conventional reprisal will be ineffective. Since the United States has foresworn biological and chemical weapons, that leaves nuclear deterrence.
Were the United States to declare that, with the Cold War over, nuclear weapons should be used only to deter nuclear war, there is a theoretical chance that other nations would be less inclined to obtain them. But as a practical matter, the countries whose WMD programs most worry the United States are rogue states, like Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. Since their aim is to deter U.S. conventional attack, an American pledge not to use nuclear weapons first would not diminish their interest in nuclear weapons.
Such states already assume that using nuclear weapons against U.S. interests could trigger U.S. nuclear retaliation. They may view biological weapons as more usable, more credible, and less risky than nuclear weapons. A U.S. pledge not to use nuclear weapons first would make them even more eager to obtain and less hesitant to brandish and use biological weapons.
But would the United States be right to respond with nuclear weapons to a biological attack? When thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons were poised to strike, the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States risked a general nuclear cataclysm. In contrast, U.S. nuclear retaliation for a biological attack by a rogue state would risk, at worst, another biological or conceivably a nuclear attack. Far more likely, having proven its resolve, the United States would deter escalation and prevail. By being prepared to respond to any WMD attack with nuclear weapons, and saying so, the United States is less likely to have to do so.
Of course, an actual U.S. nuclear retaliation for biological attack would be a grave, world-changing event. But it would not imperil the Nation and its global interests, let alone human viability. And it would make less likely that any WMD would ever be used againùat least against the United States.
Dull Deterrence and Sharp Deterrence
The strongest argument for a nuclear no-first-use pledge during the Cold War was that it could save us from nuclear hell. The strongest argument against such a pledge was that it could condemn us to Communist hell. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, neither argument is persuasive. Concepts saved in the attic from a different time, a different world, are not helpful. A fresh idea is needed.
During the Cold War, the United States would not exclude a nuclear response to any attack. It was motivated by a general concern about the Soviet menace and a specific concern about an attack on West Germany. The former was the context and the latter was the focal point of U.S. doctrine on initial use. It was surely the specific prospect that the United States might resort to nuclear weapons if war broke out in Europe that got the KremlinÆs attention. The general U.S. unwillingness to exclude nuclear first-use reinforced the particular application.
In light of the difficulty of preventing or defending against the growing threat of biological weapons, the United States would make a fateful mistake if it restricted the purpose of nuclear weapons to deterring nuclear attack. The gains from such a shift are nebulous; the cost all too clearùan invitation to potential enemies to acquire, threaten and use biological weapons.
We want rogue states to think that biological weapons cannot be used and can endanger their possessors because they could cause a nuclear response. We want them to feel this fear quite sharply. To the extent that the United States fails to pinpoint this problem in defining the purpose of nuclear weapons, the fear will be dull. Current U.S. policy regarding the use of nuclear weapons is not substantially different from its Cold War policy; it maintains ambiguity about the circumstances under which the United States would resort to nuclear weapons. Despite growing U.S. conventional military superiority, even a nuclear response to conventional attack is not excluded.
During the Cold War, given the magnitude of the Soviet threat, both broad deterrence and focussed deterrence were required. In the new era, the need for broad deterrence is gone and the need for sharp deterrence is acute. Yet, so far-fetched is the thought that the United States would use nuclear weapons in response to conventional attack that the current open-ended policy dulls deterrence. (If the policy causes sharp fear, why did the United States have to warn Saddam Hussein that use of WMD in the Gulf War could trigger a nuclear response?) Ambiguity is sometimes useful. In the current era, it does more harm than good.
The United States should warn explicitly that it might respond with nuclear weapons to WMD attacks against U.S. interests. (Chemical weapons could be included, though they are less dangerous than biological weapons.) To sharpen the fear to a finer point, the United States should also say that it foresees no need to use nuclear weapons except in response to WMD attacks. By declaring that the only legitimate use of WMD (i.e., nuclear weapons) is in retaliation for WMD attack, such a policy would strengthen deterrence by underscoring that a WMD attack would warrant such a response. It would further bolster deterrence by erasing the incredible aspect of current policyùi.e., nuclear response to conventional aggression. Finally, it would create a new threshold separating WMD from conventional warfare, which would clearly be in the U.S. interest, what with its conventional strength and its promise never to use biological or chemical weapons
In its effort to stem the spread of nuclear weapons, the United States has said, in effect, it would not use nuclear weapons against states that foreswear them. But what if such a state acquires biological weapons, which can kill Americans no less than nuclear explosives? Indeed, what if it used them? In view of this danger, the United States should explicitly retract its pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that use biological weapons. Far from undermining nuclear non-proliferation, an American pledge not to use WMD first could help the cause by reducing the utility of nuclear weapons. And it would underscore that any use of a weapon of mass horror would justify a response in kind.
What you say makes sense, but just the opposite is happening, and I believe will be followed through on.
Check out this thread: MAD is Dead!
The arguments are being made plain. Since we can never KNOW (really, really KNOW) who deployed biochem attacks, it would be morally unacceptable to respond against ANYBODY with nukes. That's the line being put forward by everybody from Freepers to Jerry Pournelle.
And, as if in cooperation with this line of thinking, today we have threads showing Harvard "experts" saying that anthrax is a favorite weapon of domestic "fringe" groups... (My point is that liberals and leftist scum in general have a bottomless barrel of "experts" and EVERY ISSUE can be presented in an utterly confused manner so that NOTHING will every seem like a justified use of nuclear force.)
This "war" is very very strange and, contrary to what many Freepers seem to hope, my impression is that Leftist activists are going to USE this conflict to consolidate _their_ agenda, rather than any other outcome. (Let's remember it was just three days after the 911 attack that NOW put out a statement comparing American Christians to the terrorists National Organization for Women Denounces Religious Extremism in Wake of Terrorist Attack; Urges Unity, Not Bigotry )
IMHO, US patriots and Christians will, by the time this "war" is over, be regularly compared to the Taliban.
Mark W.
We are now in a biological war. There can now be no doubt this is an ongoing attack and clearly Osama and Saddam are behind it. The only WMD we can use in response is nukes. I perfer that we use these nukes to minimize fallout. Political fallout would be less as well then (not that it matters at this point)
Otherwise, I fear we will eventually have to go after the families of the terrorists and their sponsors to end the threat posed by this "cult of death" which seems to have large portions of the Islamic world spellbound. I think we need to be "dramatic". Dramatic use of a nuclear weapon at this time in a remote mountain location might just save us from having to stoop to their level (the killing of a large number of "innocents") or having to wage a full scale war against Islam as a whole. The Islamic world honestly needs a shock as big as the WTC collapse was to us ... to wake them up to the threat this abberation of Islam represents to THEM so that they will fix the problem. Prudent use of our nuclear arsenal at this time might just do the trick.
Bush needs to lead and tell Americans that this is a new level of violence that requires a new level of response.
There is no way we can continue to allow this.
Also, we are giving the Muslims a mixed signal by critizing Israel for going after the PA terrorists. AS I see it this is the perfect time for Israel to cut the heads off the snakes of the PA. We should be encouraging Israel to take any and all appropriate action to root out the terrorists in their area, as we bomb the f**k out of Afghanistan.
Tactical nuclear strikes is a must to get OBL and the Al Qaeda, but it must be done now, not later. Once this is accomplished then we can assess the "collateral" damage, but if we wait much longer, we will have missed the opportunity as the press, CNN et al will have shown the horror of civilian casualties to enough people to have changed minds and attitudes.
It's been clear for many years that terrorists are soldiers and not criminals. This is a conceptual point that doesn't require "evidence" from the newspapers.
It wasn't a "paradigm shift" which caused the government to change its approach. It was a policy decision. It was a policy decision that decided terrorists would be treated like criminals and it was a policy decision that said they would be treated like soldiers.
Since the concepts behind the policies haven't changed -- since everything we know now we also knew ten and twenty years ago -- the best question of the moment is Why did earlier governments -- republican _and_ democrat -- support the absurd policy of terrorists as criminals?
Leonard Peikoff has written a long piece on this issue that appeared in the Washington Post on September 20, 2001. He discusses the background and history of the issue. Here's the link: It Is Time to Declare War By Leonard Peikoff
Why did the Feds endorse the earlier, absurd policy? It seems all but clear that people in the intelligence community stepped aside/looked away and allowed 911 to happen. Almost certainly this horrible event was just an excuse for the Feds to change their terrorism policy (for reasons of their own) and enact all manner of oppressive domestic laws (without a declaration of war) and re-order international relations.
But it wasn't a paradigm shift.
Not only is that clear, but the fact that it was treated as such makes me question a lot about the "accepted" understanding about what's happening.
Mark W.
It appears that Bush's statements at first cautiously *followed* the public sentiment -- confused, then angry at the perpetrators, then defiant, then warlike. He could have made a warlike statement early on but I don't remember him doing that. Had the attack hit Okla or Kansas City the media would have been calling for restraint and warning Bush not to be a war-monger. Then he may have sent the FBI to talk with the Taliban.
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