Foreign Affairs: The Rise of US Nuclear Primacy

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(Found this over at Spenglers in this thread. )

Foreign Affairs

venky · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 13, 2005 Posts: 839

This is the more dangerous part. The NPT is falling apart, as seen over the Iran issue, the recent deal with India and US aims to moderinize and expand its nuclear arsenal. I think the reason the NPT succeeded so far is that during a balance of power, smaller nations could count on one of the super powers to protect them from a nuclear attack or even nuclear blackmail. Now I think many nations will go after their own detterent.

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Jimmy Carter agrees with you:

venky · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 13, 2005 Posts: 839

McNamara's article is terribly scary.

As an Indian, I have very mixed views on this issue, especially on the deal with India. On one hand considering the neighbourhood that we live in, I think we have to [i]expand[/i] our current nuclear arsenal at the very least to achieve parity with China. Beyond that as we can no longer count on the Soviet umbrella as we did during the cold war, in the long run our nuclear deterrent must be effective against any potential adversary. Like for instance during the 1971 war when the US sent the nuclear armed 7th fleet to bully India into backing off from Bangladesh(then east Pakistan) we were able to ignore the US provocation thanks to Soviet support.

On the other hand, nuclear weapons for both offensive and defensive purposes is sheer madness and the NPT has been one of the cornerstones in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

gmin · Heavy Crude Joined: Feb 05, 2006 Posts: 103

I am not so sure that US has enough reason to play Russian roulette with the Russia or China under any circumstance. Even if she's the last one to pull the trigger.
The return on investment is simply too bad, and everybody knows that.
the US would have to use nuke to pacify the Iranians. the article tells Russia and China what not to do in such an event.

venky · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 13, 2005 Posts: 839

Nevertheless this quote is rather hilarious ' Laughing

'. In a scary way ' Shocked

'.

Two questions arise :

1) Are the authors right on a technical point of view ? Are the US soon to get a first strike ability, or do they even have it already ?

2) If the answer to question 1 is No ... is the group in power in the US even more crazy than one could think ? That would be : barking mad.

gmin · Heavy Crude Joined: Feb 05, 2006 Posts: 103

US has to keep taxing the rest of the world in the new century, how else could her people keep their wasteful life style?
US has to control oil in the ME. how else can she keep taxing the rest of the world in the new century?
US has to control Iran, how else can she control oil in ME?
US has to nuke Iran, how else can US control Iran fast and clean?
i call it calculated risk taking.

as long as Russia and China are making major troubles for the US, then at least they still have confidence in their deterrence against the US.

gmin · Heavy Crude Joined: Feb 05, 2006 Posts: 103

one note on nuclear corporation between US and India.
only weeks after US and India signed the agreement, and while it's still pending US legislator approval, Pakistan acquired the ability to fire missle carrying nuclear warhead, for real.
The timing is so interesting that I wonder if there is an association between the 2 events.

seahorse2 · Expert Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 1956

It is reported that the US "think tanks" believe the US can win a nuclear first strike, at least according to the Washington Post. This link was found at Savinar's LATOC, its quite disturbing, but in line with what Carter and McNamara are saying.

Washington Post

venky · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 13, 2005 Posts: 839

RdSnt

This stage in the nuclear arms raise was inevitable, whether through the craziness of the NeoCons and the relative collapse of the Soviets, or in a different world where each country did actually dis-arm themselves.

MAD represents Mutually Assured Destruction, however if everyone disarmed there would come a threshold point where the number of weapons drops below the MAD level. At that point a first strike becomes plausible again.

In the current situation, there perceived vunerability of the Russians (not an accurate assessment) and the potential Rapture crazy sentiments of the NeoCons, we are in extreme danger. The Neocons don't care about the outcome, they want to pull the trigger.

The first scenario above is very predictable and thus manageable. The second example is not predicatable and thus more dangerous.
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seahorse2 · Expert Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 1956

Bush is wanting to rebuild the US nuclear arsenal (thanks to Jato for link)

Sanfrancisco Chronicle

OneLoneClone

So MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) no longer applies...and we are moderizing our nukes

What purpose does it serve the goverment (publishers of FA) to broadcast to China & Russia that MAD is dead?

Perhaps they want China and Russia to start spending more on Nukes, they way Reagan supposedly used the costly arms buildup to crash the USSR's economy back in the eighties...

rogerhb