Trump
closer to nuclear war as nukes
become weapons to use, not just deter
In new
policy, U.S. might answer cyber attack with
nuclear attack; more bombs, of ‘low yield,’ wanted
WALL news and commentary
The Trump
Administration edges closer to nuclear war. This observation
stems from a nuclear posture review, which the Pentagon has
been preparing since early last year.
For a new administration to request a nuclear
posture review, or strategy memo, is nothing novel, but this
one makes a significant shift. Barack Obama, wishing for “a
world without nuclear weapons,” forswore the use of nuclear
weapons, except in response to an attack with nuclear weapons
or other forms of mass destruction, like a huge biological
attack.
The
new review, however, would lower the bar. According to a
leaked draft, it would sanction nuclear retaliation for such
non-nuclear intrusions as a large-scale cyber attack.
Nuclear weapons would not have to be
used in such a circumstance but might.
Reduction
of the arsenal was an accepted trend, even under the
Republicans Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. But the review does
not bring up nuclear arms reduction at all. In fact, it
approves the development of a lot more atomic bombs, so-called
low-yield bombs, potentially for battle.
* * * * *
“Supplements
to enhance deterrence,” the document euphemistically terms the
desired mass-killing devices.
Claiming that Russia, China, and North Korea are bolstering
their arsenals, it would double the nuclear arms budget, in a
new arms race.
It
denies that battlefield nukes lower the threshold for use.
Rather it claims that they raise it — by convincing
adversaries that we would answer a nuclear attack in kind, as
though they don't know that — and thus make war less likely.
(But war seems more likely when we enhance both our
reasons and weapons for war.)
The
Department of Defense was expected to submit its official
version to the White House in February. Meanwhile, a draft was
obtained and published by Huffington Post, the online news and
opinion site (1/11/18).
How
low are those “low-yield” bombs? Huffington's Ashley Feinberg
wrote that “official language around nuclear weapons is
slippery and euphemistic. ‘Low-yield’ suggests a softer sort
of weaponry … until you realize that the bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were technically ‘low-yield’ weapons.”
She quoted Alexandra Bell, a former
senior adviser at the Department of State, now with the Center
for Arms Control and Non-proliferation: “… We have 4,000 nuclear weapons in our active stockpile,
which is more than enough to destroy the world many times
over. So I don't think it makes a convincing case that we
somehow lack capabilities.”
Earlier.
The New York Times reported increased talk of
“preventive” war in the White House (8/20/17). Then came the
news that Trump leaned toward developing “tactical” nukes and
letting military commanders determine their use . (See on this
web site, WarandLaw.org,
9/14/17, “Do
modern weapons render Congress obsolete — or more needed
than ever?”)
George
P. Shultz, secretary of state under Reagan, lately warned the
Senate Armed Services Committee against the notion of “usable”
nukes (1/25/18). “You go to a small one, then you go to a
bigger one. … A big nuclear exchange can wipe out the world.”
He has advocated abolishing nuclear arms.
Bombing would ‘escalate out of control’
|
Nearer to Doomsday
Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, of Chicago, has advanced the
symbolic Doomsday Clock 30 seconds toward midnight
(1/25/18). It is now two minutes to midnight, i.e.
to extreme global catastrophe. It got that close
just once before, in 1953, when the U.S. and the
U.S.S.R. began testing hydrogen bombs. The “clock”
moves, forward or back, once a year.
|
Two concepts in the nuclear
policy review — both the lowered threshold and battlefield
nukes — drew thumbs down from Tom Nichols of the U.S. Naval
War College, a professor of national security affairs. As a
guest on the public radio show “Left, Right, and Center” from KCRW,
Santa Monica, CA (1/19/18), he said:
“I
don't think it's a good idea to threaten nuclear use for any
reason other than to deter the use of nuclear weapons against
the United States.”
Since
the Reagan Administration's end, he said, some have pushed the
primacy of nuclear weapons for almost any military purpose.
They would build more nukes and find ways to use them.
Scorning the urge to “conventionalize” nukes, Nichols would
reduce stockpiles and find better conventional answers to
strategic problems.
The
moderator, Josh Barro, asked about “tactical weapons.” Can you
have nuclear weapons for a small attack, rather than a general
war? Nichols expected any such action to “escalate out of
control.”
Warning
against giving a president the option of nuclear use in a
crisis, he noted two misconceptions: (1) that using a nuke
could ever be a military necessity rather than a political
act; (2) that a few smaller, bunker-busting, or “usable”
nuclear weapons would not do the vast damage of a big nuclear
bomb.
* * *
* *
Rich
Lowry of National Review, while mute on the matter
of response to a cyber attack, favored developing low-yield
nuclear weapons. He thought it unlikely that they would be
used.
But if we're
going to get into a situation with North Korea or
potentially Iran down the line, where we are deterring a
nuclear power, part of deterrence is having believably
usable weapons in a crisis, and a low-yield nuclear
weapon — if some extreme circumstance arises where you
have to take a deep bunker out in North Korea in a
crisis — is more appropriate than some city-busting,
enormous bomb.
So I think this would be just an extension of the
deterrent regime we have been living with since the
advent of the atomic weapon.
* * *
* *
“I
think this is madness, because this is not what we've been
living with,” responded Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The
Nation.
This is now
in this nuclear posture review an administration
calling for possible use of nuclear weapons — usable
nuclear weapons that will lower the threshold for
launching a nuclear conflict… .
The administration is breaking with long-standing
bipartisan consensus in favor of reducing nuclear
arsenals, limiting the scenarios in which they might
be used.
She placed those
so-called small or low-yield nukes at the strength level
of the two bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki
(in 1945 on orders of President Harry S. Truman).
Her
objective: “mutual, verifiable de-escalation moving to …
abolition of nuclear weapons, at a minimum taking the
2,000 Russian-U.S. nukes off hair-trigger alert.
“We
saw in Hawaii just a few days ago the real danger of
misperception, an accident, a false alarm.”
The
trillion-dollar program of so-called modernization
(started by Obama and continued by Trump) “puts us in
greater risk than a policy of reducing the role of nukes
in our military strategy and going along with the
majority of countries in the world that approved a
treaty calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.”
Trump contradictory on nuclear
issues
Donald
Trump has contradicted himself on the matter of nuclear
weapons and their use — sometimes in the same statement.
In
an interview with Chris Matthews on MSNBC,
Trump said, “Nuclear [use] should be off the table”
and also, “I'm not taking any cards off the table”
(3/30/16}. And the next day on Fox News: A-bombing
Europe was “a horrible thought,” but he would not
take it “off the table” (3/31/16}.
Similarly,
during a presidential debate, he said, “I would certainly
not do first strike,” and in the same comment, “I can't
take anything off the table” (9/26/16).
In
an interview with The New York Times, he called
“nuclear and proliferation” the world's biggest problem
(3/27/16). Yet when asked if he would object to Japan and
South Korea having such weapons, he said that if North
Korea had them, it might very well be better if Japan did
too.
Two
days later, on CNN: “No, no, not proliferation. I hate
nuclear more than any” (3/27/16). At the same time,
“Wouldn't you rather have Japan have nuclear weapons when
North Korea has nuclear weapons?” Trump later denied
saying Japan should have nuclear weapons. Japan, of
course, was the only nation in modern times attacking the
U.S. and the only nation ever suffering a nuclear attack.
In
a meeting at the Pentagon halfway into his first
presidential year, Trump was reported to have shocked
officials by proposing nearly a tenfold increase in the
U.S. nuclear arsenal (July 2017). Military leaders did not
take it as an order, and Trump later denied making such a
proposal. It would have meant violation of arms treaties.
During
the campaign, in a foreign policy speech in
Washington, DC, he declared, “I believe in an easing
of tensions and improved relations with Russia … .
The cycle of hostility must end” (4/27/16).
Nevertheless, U.S. and Russian nuclear-armed
missiles remain aimed at each other on high alert.
The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, ending the cold
war. Yet Russia and America are still ready to nuke
each other within a few minutes.
How
the ensuing war would end most life on earth and had to be
prevented was the main theme of a lecture by and interview
with Dr. Helen Caldicott, the Australian physician and
antinuclear activist, in August 2016 in San Francisco.
(See “Dr.
Caldicott in S.F. lecture & interview” on our web site, WarandLaw.org,)
Can a president alone dictate nuclear war?
The retiring Senator Bob
Corker (R-TN) — who warned in October that Trump, with his
threats to other nations, was leading the country on “the
path to World War III” — conducted a hearing of his
Foreign Relations Committee, 11/14/17, on the authority
and procedures for launching nuclear bombs. It was the
first congressional hearing on that matter since 1976.
The
gist of it was that one lone man in our supposed democracy
had the power to start a war that could destroy
civilization. Three witnesses testified before the Senate
committee and all agreed that the president had the
ultimate power to use nuclear weapons.
Peter D. Feaver,
professor of political science and public policy at Duke
University, said the president had, at a time of crisis,
“a very limited time window to make a decision, and I
think we [witnesses] all believe that the system would
carry out the order that he gave. The electorate, on
Election Day, chose him to make that decision.” (So when
pro-Trump voters went to the polls, each was thinking, “He's
the one I want to decide whether or not to start a
nuclear war!”)
* * *
* *
Who
has the authority to employ nuclear weapons? … The
president does,” said Brian McKeon, who held three
national security positions in the White House and the
Defense Department under Obama and was former counsel for
the Democratic members of the Foreign Relations Committee.
As commander in chief of
the armed forces under the Constitution [Article II], he
is the sole authority within the executive branch for such
a decision. … That is as it should be in a republic. …”
(Some republics let a council or committee decide, rather
than one man. India relies on the Political Council of the
Nuclear Command Authority; Pakistan, the Defense Committee
of the Cabinet plus the prime minister, according to
Wikipedia.)
McKeon expected the
president to consult first with the National Security
Council; his other advisers, civilian and military; and, “if
time and circumstances permit,” with leaders of key allies.
Who has the authority to take the
country to war? … Article I of the Constitution gives
Congress the power to declare war … and several other powers
with regard to supporting and regulating the armed forces.”
McKeon added, when questioned, that “the president possesses
the constitutional authority to defend against sudden attack
or to preempt an imminent attack. But Article 2 does not
give him carte blanche to take the country to war.” (A
presidential “preemptive” or first strike takes the country
to war. By no means does the Constitution sanction such an
act.)
C.
Robert Kehler, retired Air Force general and former head of
the Strategic Command, said the decision to use nuclear
weapons was up to the president alone, not Congress.
(Untrue, if it takes the country to war.)
However,
he added, military leaders could refuse to carry out the
president's order for a nuclear first strike if they and
their legal advisers found it unlawful because the
action would be unnecessary or excessive or targeted
civilians indiscriminately. (Wouldn't that describe any
nuclear bombing? The International Court of Justice
thought so, when in 1996 it ruled that use of nuclear
weapons would violate international law, particularly
rules of humanitarian law.)
Senator
Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) asked what those military
leaders would do next if the president insisted. Kehler
replied, “Other than to state their view about the
legality of the move, the president retains
constitutional authority to order some military action.”
(That is not so, unless war has been declared. The
president has no constitutional authority to initiate
military action. Only Congress has it, in Article I,
Section 8. But treaty forbids even Congress from
commencing an aggressive war.)
In that hypothetical situation, Kehler would say, “I
have a question about this” and “I am not ready to
proceed.”
“And
then what happens?” asked Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI). “I
don't know exactly,” Kehler admitted.
Proposals to prevent such a
war
Presidential power to start a nuclear war has nothing to
do with law or the Constitution, which grants Congress
alone the authority “to declare [i.e. initiate] war.”
According to two nuclear weapons academics at
WashingtonPost.com (11/22/17):
It results
from a series of Cold War era decisions made
secretly by the executive branch and the U.S.
military.... There are no "checks and balances" on
nuclear launch decisions in any formal sense.... If
President Trump wants to use one of the thousands of
nuclear weapons in the U.S. military's arsenal, the
chance of anyone stopping him appears to be very
low....
The past 50 years of American warfare has shown that
presidents and their advisers have been able to come
up with "just war" arguments for every military
engagement, no matter how stretched in
retrospect. Using a nuclear weapon on Pyongyang, for
example, could be theoretically justified by arguing
that it would be a legitimate military target....
The
pair, Alex Wellerstein (nuclear weapons historian,
Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ) and Avner
Cohen (professor of nonproliferation studies, Middlebury
Institute of International Studies at Monterey, CA)
pointed to a “two-man rule”
in handling of nuclear weapons — except at the very top
of the chain of command. They would set up a system of
checks and balances to protect against “the actions of a
rash president” and have Congress define what was legal
or illegal.
* *
* * *
At the hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) asked what
should or could be done. None of the three witnesses had
anything to offer.
Corker, despite his earlier protest against Trump’s
movement toward world war, would not support legislation
to try to prevent such a debacle, lest any change in
procedure “reduce our deterrence of adversaries or
reassurance of allies.”
(Did he think those allies were reassured by his
reluctance to limit Trump’s war-making capacity, as the
latter boasts of his nuclear power and threatens to
demolish a country not one-twelfth our size if it won’t
do his bidding? As for “deterrence,” the International
Court of Justice found it unlawful, as part of its 1996
decision. Just as using a nuclear weapon would
violate international law, so does threatening to
use that weapon, which entails plans to massacre a
population.)
* * * * *
In
January 2017, Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA) introduced
S. 200 to prohibit a president from using the armed
forces “to conduct a first-use nuclear strike” unless a
congressional declaration of war has specifically
authorized it. Meanwhile Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Los Angeles)
introduced an identically worded bill, H.R. 669, in the
House of Representatives. Lacking much Republican
support, neither bill has progressed in Congress. (See
on this site “Don't let
the president start a nuclear war!”)
“…
Donald Trump can launch nuclear codes just as easily as
he can use his Twitter account,” remarked Senator
Markey, a Foreign Relations Committee member, at the
hearing. He commented further:
I don't
think we should be trusting the generals to be a
check on the president … relying on a group of
individuals to be resisting an illegal order when
they have all been hired by the president.
There
could be plans in place, right now, in the White
House, given to the president, to launch a
preemptive war against North Korea using American
nuclear weapons, without consulting [or] informing
Congress. … No one human being should ever have that
power.
* * * * *
“How long will Congress remain a bystander regarding
war?” That question headed a Washington Post piece by
the conservative writer George F. Will (12/10/17). He
wrote:
North
Korea’s nuclear bellicosity coincides with the
incontinent tweeting, rhetorical taunts and other
evidence of the frivolity and instability of the
13th president of the nuclear era … .
As a
practical matter, President Trump can unleash on
North Korea “fire and fury” without seeking the
consent of, or even consulting, Congress. This, even
if North Korea has neither attacked nor seems about
to attack America. …
It would
be interesting to hear the president distinguish a
preventive war against North Korea from a war of
aggression. The first two counts in the indictments
at the 1946 Nuremberg trials concerned waging
“aggressive war.
* * * * *
“Trump
has an apparent long-standing affinity for the
impressiveness of nukes,” wrote Garrett M. Graff,
journalist and historian, in Politico Magazine
(“The Madman and the Bomb,”
8/11/17). And the president “has proved a master of
distraction from scandals a plenty.”
Graff
imagined a nuclear attack on North Korea to distract
attention from the Russia investigation. He would add a
second voice — the
vice-president, the defense secretary, or a
congressional leader — to the nuclear command system. He
quoted Joseph Cirincione, head of the antinuclear, San
Francisco-based Ploughshares Fund:
We
have a system that makes the president a nuclear
monarch… .
If you decide for whatever reason that you don’t
want Congress involved, that you don’t want the
body that is supposed to have sole authority in
war-making have a say in the war that matters
most, well at least have it be two monarchs — have
it be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs who has to
weigh in as well.
There should be an institutional barrier to an
insane president launching nuclear war.
___________________________________________________________________
By Paul W.
Lovinger, Jan. 30, 2018