jawfish

Hillary Wins Battle in Press, Loses Nuclear War
john posted in politics & culture on August 3rd, 2007

Yesterday Hillary Clinton responded to a Barack Obama statement about willingness to use nuclear weapons in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Obama said “no” and Hillary said “yes.”

photo by Tami Chappell at Reuters

Now a quick look at Google news shows that most papers covered this as a clumsy fumble by Obama, and he does sound unprepared in the quotes, but I think they got the essential story disastrously wrong. Since we are dealing with nuclear weapons here, we should step very very carefully.

The cold war strategy, Mutual Assured Destruction, in place during my entire life, is:

1) The US promises no first strike, unless we are certain that an aggressor is planning a massive first strike against us. This covers the unique scenario of a massive Russian first strike. No other country has a big enough arsenal, and the concern is the possibility that a Russian first strike could wipe out our retaliatory weapons. With submarines, this is ridiculous, but that was the status quo as I remember it.

2) The US guarantees massive retaliation against civilian targets, doomsday, if attacked.

3) The promise of massive retaliation is only viable if we also promise never to strike first. For instance, the confidence that the US would not attack the Soviet Union allowed Gorbachov to start the process of Perestroika. You can bet that hawks within his military argued otherwise, but of course they were wrong.

Republicans infected with the Dr Strangelove disease have been pushing forward ideas about using tactical nuclear weapons in the last few years. Bunker-busters, designed to penetrate deep into underground complexes, have been the primary weapon in this latest discussion.Scientific American has even reviewed the technical value of bunker-busters and found none. The fact that tactical nukes are without strategic benefit and carry enormous risk, means a quick review of the pros and cons of breaking the nuclear peace should be enough to lock the door on all first strikes.

Federation of American Scientists:

The 100 KT Sedan nuclear explosion, one of the Plowshares excavation tests, was buried at a depth of 635 feet. The main cloud and base surge are typical of shallow-buried nuclear explosions. The cloud is highly contaminated with radioactive dust particles and produces an intense local fallout.

Why are nuclear first strikes always a bad idea?
Because one of the forces holding back the use of nukes, in India vs Pakistan and other venues, has been the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Never mind that various conventional bombing programs did more damage, there is a mythos around the use of nukes. Any country or group that uses them first will be branded as outlaws. If a state uses them, they risk a nuclear retaliation of mind-boggling ferocity. If a terrorist organization nukes a city, they risk losing their political base overnight, and a terrible retaliation, possibly by the Isrealis, or the Russians for a Chechen bomb.

It is of the utmost importance that we maintain the mythic view that nukes are beyond the pale. This is one of our best defenses.

Now back to the merely political. Hillary is right about playing your foreign policy hand carefully. The failure to engage in professional diplomacy is one of the biggest faults of the Bush Administration. But in going for the jugular in an early, unimportant venue, she has both violated her own dicta about diplomacy - she put her metaphorical cards on the table - and she shows that even the most important of all Presidential decisions are just a platform for her constant image-making. Further, throwing out a red-meat ‘I am tougher than you’ statement is stupid in the primary season, she’s supposed to be winning over the anti-war wing of the party. Later is the time to appeal to Republicans.

The last straw.
I have never favored her, and most likely this was her last chance to get me as a primary voter. I will be sending contributions to Obama or others, and if there are no other candidates standing at the California primary, then I might not vote.

Readings:
Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic, who I think gets it entirely wrong.
Federation of American Scientists reviews bunker-buster bombs and finds them impractical.
A sensible commentary by Robert Parry in the Baltimore Chronicle.

comments welcome as always.