Dear Pals,
Charles Krauthammer got it right in his column below:
Nuclear Posturing, Obama-Style
Charles Krauthammer, Friday, April 09, 2010
WASHINGTON -- Nuclear doctrine consists of thinking the unthinkable. It involves
making threats and promising retaliation that is cruel and destructive beyond
imagining. But it has its purpose: to prevent war in the first place.
During the Cold War, we let the Russians know that if they dared use their huge
conventional military advantage and invaded Western Europe, they risked massive
U.S. nuclear retaliation. Goodbye Moscow. Was this credible? Would we have done it? Who knows?
No one's ever been there. A nuclear posture is just that -- a declaratory policy designed to make the other guy think twice.
Our policies did. The result was called deterrence. For half a century, it held.
The Soviets never invaded. We never used nukes. That's why nuclear doctrine is
important.
The Obama administration has just issued a new one that "includes significant
changes to the U.S. nuclear posture," said Defense Secretary Bob Gates. First
among these involves the U.S. response to being attacked with biological or
chemical weapons.
Under the old doctrine, supported by every president of both parties for
decades, any aggressor ran the risk of a cataclysmic U.S. nuclear response that
would leave the attacking nation a cinder and a memory.
Again: Credible? Doable? No one knows. But the threat was very effective.
Under President Obama's new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked
us with biological or chemical weapons is "in compliance with the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)," explained Gates, then "the U.S. pledges not to
use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it."
Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of
Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately
calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance
with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker is up-to-date with its latest
IAEA inspections, well, it gets immunity from nuclear retaliation. (Our response
is then restricted to bullets, bombs and other conventional munitions.)
However, if the lawyers tell the president that the attacking state is NPT
noncompliant, we are free to blow the bastards to nuclear kingdom come.
This is quite insane. It's like saying that if a terrorist deliberately uses his
car to mow down a hundred people waiting at a bus stop, the decision as to
whether he gets (a) hanged or (b) 100 hours of community service hinges entirely
on whether his car had passed emissions inspections.
Apart from being morally bizarre, the Obama policy is strategically loopy. Does
anyone believe that North Korea or Iran will be more persuaded to abjure nuclear
weapons because they could then carry out a biological or chemical attack on the
U.S. without fear of nuclear retaliation?
The naivete is stunning. Similarly the Obama pledge to forswear development of
any new nuclear warheads, indeed, to permit no replacement of aging nuclear
components without the authorization of the president himself. This under the
theory that our moral example will move other countries to eschew nukes.
On the contrary. The last quarter-century -- the time of greatest superpower
nuclear arms reduction -- is precisely when Iran and North Korea went hellbent
into the development of nuclear weapons.
It gets worse. The administration's Nuclear Posture Review declares U.S.
determination to "continue to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring
non-nuclear attacks." The ultimate aim is to get to a blanket doctrine of no
first use.
This is deeply worrying to many small nations who for half a century relied on
the extended U.S. nuclear umbrella to keep them from being attacked or overrun
by far more powerful neighbors. When smaller allies see the United States
determined to move inexorably away from that posture -- and for them it's not
posture, but existential protection -- what are they to think?
Fend for yourself. Get yourself your own WMDs. Go nuclear if you have to. Do you
imagine they are not thinking that in the Persian Gulf?
This administration seems to believe that by restricting retaliatory threats and
by downplaying our reliance on nuclear weapons, it is discouraging
proliferation.
But the opposite is true. Since World War II, smaller countries have agreed to
forgo the acquisition of deterrent forces -- nuclear, biological and chemical --
precisely because they placed their trust in the firmness, power and reliability
of the American deterrent.
Seeing America retreat, they will rethink. And some will arm. There is no
greater spur to hyper-proliferation than the furling of the American nuclear
umbrella.
_____________________________
Thank you Mr. Krauthammer!!
Birk, Commonsensetarian, Citizen of the Republic, Mob of One and Sage in the Snuggie
PS: "None Dare Call It Treason"...I call it an Obamination!
The Obama Message to Isreal, Europe and the Free World...Don't count on America.
The Obama Message to terrorist states...Here's how to get away with MURDER!
