This is seriously worrying

This is not deterent – The US military has enough deterrent already to blow the world up 50 times over. This is beyond deterrent, WAY beyond the stalemate of the Cold War you describe.

The trouble is that some of the USA’s potential enemies can’t be deterred with a MAD policy. Fanatics don’t think the same as normal people.

Sorry John and SOC, I don’t want to turn this into a slinging match. But I urge you to simply put politics and nationalism aside and please look at this again.

This is not deterent – The US military has enough deterrent already to blow the world up 50 times over. This is beyond deterrent, WAY beyond the stalemate of the Cold War you describe. Read again

From
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10345189

“The Pentagon has drawn up a new strategy, built on the 2002 “Bush doctrine” of pre-emptive military strikes, that would allow the US to make first use of nuclear weapons”

Pre-emptive has nothing to do with retaliation. Ask the Iraqis what they did to deserve retaliation…

You seem quite happy to go back into the Cold War situation because you cannot catch a couple of a handfuls of radicals, or negotiate with a couple of countries. The Cold War of the past was bad enough – but who knows where this – if the policy were ever enacted upon – might lead.

Another idea is to develop a lightweight ICBM capable of delivering a small kiloton-range warhead of the type described here. This would enable us to employ the deterrent force and allow us to use US-based weapons to conduct timely strikes if needed (I’m all for arming such a weapon with conventional or kinetic warheads as well) against a target anywhere in the world within about 30 minutes. Beats the hell out of having to deploy a whole military armada to a foreign country to bomb another foreign country. And it keeps our forces for the most part out of sight of countries like those in the Middle East, where our presence is often an issue.

Dave…Don’t Panic!!!
It’s called a DETERRENT…..keeping someone in line with a threat of massive retaliation. It kept Europe free of war for amost 50 years…when was the last time that happened?

The US, UK and France used the policy for years against the Soviet Union from the 50s to the late 1980s…and I don’t think a bomb was ever exploded. :rolleyes:

Somehow, I don’t think the policy (if it’s ever approved) would be used if MI5, the CIA, the French Secret Service or the Mossad learns about a terrorist cell in downtown Toronto.

But here’s a question…if using a small tactical nuke in the remote foothills of Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iran would save 1 million lives in New York or London would you do it? What about your city? Would you do it then?
Sorry if the questions seem hard…but it’s those kind of decisions that sometimes have to be made.

Remember, not everone lives in a country so remote (loved? respected?inconsequential?) that it can afford to do away with its combat jet force.
The rest of us have to live in the real world….not the a land filled with good Hobbits and kind fairies.

Posting your message on the fourth anniversay of 9-11 and two months after the London bombings is just a reminder that to many, the threat of terrorism won’t be taken seriously until it’s too late.

God help us all!!

Look at this one of two ways.

1. It deters someone from using WMDs. This is clearly aimed at P’yongyang and Tehran. It is a known fact that the DPRK has a huge inventory of WMDs, and would likely use them in the event of an attack on the ROK. Now we have a very public option to potentially deter their WMD use, or possibly even the whole war itself. What, they’ll trade P’yongyang for a few WMD-tipped SCUD launches? Plus, this ties into the whole hard-target killing nuclear weapons under development. Now they can be integrated into war plans more easily. As for Tehran, this provides them with even more of an incentive not to fire off any nuclear weapons (as if Israel’s weren’t enough). The upside here is that a policy such as this provides for a diplomatic sense of MAD on a smaller scale when dealing with smaller nation states. It potentially provides an option for both Iran and the DPRK to possess nuclear weapons in the future, enabling peace talks on both fronts to move forward after effectively bypassing this issue.

2. Someone uses WMDs against us. Now we have the right to retaliate in kind without throwing a barrage of thermonuclear weapons towards a target. What, are multiple JDAM strikes supposed to make up for some country detonating a WMD on US soil and causing mass casualties? I think not. Now, maybe they’ll think twice abous such a tactic. And if they proceed anyway, that will be the last mistake they ever make.

Nuclear weapons are no joke. But to deny our military the ability to use every means at its disposal in a conflict is simply asinine.

(Nermal just smiles and awaits an explosion of rightious indignation from the Maine man…;))