This is ... disturbing.

[unixronin]

Greenpeace reports that not only has the US Government never abandoned the idea that there's such a thing as a winnable nuclear war, but that the Bush administration has actually dramatically lowered the nuclear threshold, and is arguing internally over whether you actually need to do things like, say, warning allied troops in the area that a nuclear attack is imminent.  They obtained a copy of a document from a Pentagon website (now removed) which discusses the use of nuclear weapons as just another tool in the toolbox, and which condones the use of nuclear weapons in pre-emptive first strikes against nations, even non-nuclear nations, which the US government thinks might use chemical or biological weapons against US forces or allies.

Think about that for a moment.  Had this policy been in place only a couple of years ago, Baghdad, Tikrit, Mosul, Basra, Fallujah might very well be glowing glass craters today.  I suspect you can imagine how universally reviled the US would be in world opinion had that happened.

I know, this is basically going to be old news to some of you.  I was already aware of it.  But I didn't know this document existed out on the Internet.

This document was removed from a Pentagon website in September of 2005 "because even in an unclassified world this is not the kind of thing you want flying around the Internet," according to a Pentagon Spokesman.

We believe this is exactly the kind of document which ought to "fly around the internet," and so present you the draft report complete with tracked changes.

Download the PDF here.

Comments

[smandal.livejournal.com]

According to the Nuclear Weapons Archive (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/DoSuitcaseNukesExist.html), yield starts at 10 tons for suitcase-sized weapons and can go as high as 1 kton. Fallout area is roughly 100 sq. mile per kiloton, with radiation returning to safe levels in a week or so.

The psychology of escalation is interesting. First, despite a number of nations having nuclear weapons (including Pakistan and N. Korea), none has used them in battle except the US -- the public relations damage and the force of the retaliation would be overwhelming. Second, why does the use of a nuclear weapon tactically in place of a less convenient, equivalent-tonnage conventional bombing operation automatically make it bad? Third, if it's bad, why is there a slippery slope towards using nuclear weapons to situations where they are not simply more convenient alternatives to conventional deployments?

Escalation has costs. I think your argument (shared by many) is that the perceived costs are higher than the real costs, so any use of nuclear devices would shatter the illusion and set the world afire. I would argue that the real costs are high enough that decisionmakers are resistant to use nuclear weapons as WMDs, but low enough that tactical use should not be ruled out.

The wildcard, of course, are terrorists who don't care if there's escalation -- there are 70 virgins a'waitin'. As far as they're concerned, I figure the cat is already out of the bag -- if they had suitcase or dirty bomb capability, they'd have used it already.