Nuke Rules

Bill Sweetman reports on US Strategic Command’s symposium on deterrence, where our new undersecretary for arms control was talking about a “path to zero,” which she said would be “one of the leading accomplishments of the 21st century.” The rest of the delegates then proceeded to talk seriously about deterrence policy while Tauscher read a choose your own adventure book in the back of the room. The French seem to have the most ambiguous policy on the use of nuclear weapons:

If you didn’t know that France regards nuclear weapons as a retaliatory weapon to inflict unacceptable damage in case of an attack (not necessarily nuclear) on its vital interests, but deliberately refrains from outlining what those “vital interests” might be, and that French policy is “skeptical” about no-first-use and accepts the use of a “nuclear warning strike”, you should have listened to Lt Gen Paul Fouilland, commander in chief of the French strategic air forces. France also expects, later this year, to become the first nation to field a nuclear warhead developed without testing – the TNA for the Air-Sol Moyen Portee Avancee (ASMP-A), which is due to arm Mirage 2000Ns from this fall.

Liberals seem to forget that the whole point of building a massive inventory of nuclear weapons was to weaken the military-industrial complex and reduce spending on tanks, aircraft, and other materiel. Of course the Obama adminsitration wants to spend less equipping our conventional forces and eliminate entirely our nuclear arsenal. What could go wrong?

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