[Peace-discuss] The next step in "pre-emptive" war?

[ppatton at uiuc.edu]

Published on Wednesday, May 4, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
New US Plan for Nuclear Intimidation
by Ira Chernus
 
“The U.S. military is considering allowing regional combatant
commanders to request presidential approval for pre-emptive
nuclear strikes against possible attacks with weapons of mass
destruction on the United States or its allies, according to a
draft nuclear operations paper.”

That’s the opening paragraph of a report from Japan’s Kyodo
News Service. Yes, you read it right: pre-emptive nuclear
strikes. “The paper identifies nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons as requiring pre-emptive strikes to prevent
their use.”

But that’s not the most horrifying part of this draft paper.
(Remember, this isn’t policy yet. It’s just what the Pentagon
is considering.) There is a lot more that the Kyodo News
Service didn’t mention. The document wants regional commanders
to be able to “request Presidential approval for use of
nuclear weapons for a variety of conditions.”

For example, we wouldn’t have to know for sure that someone is
threatening us with a WMD attack. In fact, the paper admits
that “the United States may not know with confidence what
threats a state, combinations of states, or nonstate actors
pose to US interests.”

But a good soldier assumes the worst, as the paper quite
explicitly points out. So, according to the plan, it should be
just fine to use nukes “to demonstrate US intent and
capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary use of
WMD.” If we even suspect that they might threaten us, we’d
nuke ‘em first, to show them we mean business. How can they
know we’ll use the weapons unless we actually use the weapons?

There is more. Under this plan, we could use nukes even
against an enemy that has no WMD. Once war starts, commanders
can ask permission to use their nukes “for rapid and favorable
war termination on US terms,” or just “to ensure success of US
and multinational operations.” We could nuke any “critical
war-making and war-supporting assets and capabilities that a
potential adversary leadership values most.” In other words,
nuke ‘em anytime, anywhere. Winning is the only thing.

The DOD draft paper talks a lot about integrating nuclear and
conventional weapons into a single battle plan. What they used
to call the “firebreak” -- the huge step from conventional to
nuclear weapons -- is gone now. We’d go back to the days when
President Eisenhower said that he planned to use nuclear
weapons “exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else”
on the battlefield.

But this plan might take us beyond anything Eisenhower or the
other cold war presidents imagined. Now, even against an enemy
with no WMD, we might use nukes before war starts. The
document calls for regional commanders to ask for permission
to use nukes “to counter potentially overwhelming adversary
conventional forces, including mobile and area targets (troop
concentration).” With all this talk of pre-emptive attacks,
what does “potentially overwhelming” mean? Who knows? It
sounds like, if the “bad guys” have a very big troop
concentration, we just might nuke ‘em even before the fighting
starts, to make sure we win.

Or at least they are supposed to think we might. “The US does
not make positive statements defining the circumstances under
which it would use nuclear weapons,” the document explains.
“Maintaining US ambiguity about when it would use nuclear
weapons helps create doubt in the minds of potential
adversaries, deterring them from taking hostile action.” So
all options have to be open.

Could we nuke not just their troops and military bases, but
the power plants or water supplies that civilians also depend
on? What about their factories in densely populated cities?
Commanders do have “the responsibility to attempt to minimize
collateral damage to the greatest extent practicable,” the
document says. But we are talking about hydrogen bombs here.
How much damage limitation is really “practicable”?

Not to worry. Apparently they’ve run this past the Pentagon
lawyers, who decided that “such damage is not unlawful so long
as the anticipated loss of life and damage to property
incidental to the use of force is not excessive in relation to
the concrete and direct military advantage expected to be
gained by the attack.” Of course, it’s the people dropping the
bombs who get to decide what’s “not excessive.” With language
that loose, anything could be justified.

If you are a military strategist, you might see the next big
problems. If we nuke ‘em, how can we fight ‘em? How can we be
sure friendly troops would be safe from the effects of the
bomb? The battlefield would be a hotbed of nuclear radiation.
How can we invade and conquer an irradiated nation?

Well, those smart Pentagon planners are already one step ahead
of you: “Careful consideration [must] be given to the
potential impact of nuclear effects on friendly forces,” they
say. And “the US must be prepared to fight and win on a
contaminated battlefield following a US nuclear strike.” Of
course, they don’t explain just how these tricks can be pulled
off.

But they do add a sentence that sounds like the key to the
whole document: “The demonstrated ability of US forces to
survive and to sustain successful combat operations in WMD
environments presents a stronger deterrent force to potential
US adversaries.” The basic idea has not changed since the cold
war days. It’s still all about sending a message: “Executing a
nuclear option, or even a portion of an option, should send a
clear signal of United States’ resolve. Hence, options must be
selected very carefully and deliberately so that the attack
can help ensure the adversary recognizes the ‘signal.’”

So here’s the plan. We spread the word that we might use nukes
any time, against anyone we don’t like. To make the threat
believable, we drop one or two, we equip our troops to survive
in a radioactive environment, and we let the world know that
we think nuclear annihilation is perfectly OK. That ought to
send a signal loud and clear.

The Pentagon planners want the world to get another message,
too: the U.S. arsenal will be “so numerous, advanced, and
reliable that the US retains an unassailable edge for the
foreseeable future.”

All in all, as the paper says, the goal is to use the U.S.
nuclear arsenal to “deter potential adversary use of WMD and
dissuade against a potential adversary’s development of an
overwhelming conventional threat.” For those who need to hear
the message more poetically, the document is decorated with
this nice quote from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “It is a
doctrine of war not to assume the enemy will not come, but
rather to rely on one’s readiness to meet him; not to presume
that he will not attack, but rather to make one’s self
invincible.”

The U.S. as The Borg. Resistance is futile. Don’t even think
about messing with us. Just fall in line and take orders.
That’s what it’s all about.

It may be a coincidence that the Japanese news report about
this Pentagon paper came out the same day that the North
Koreans fired a missile into the Sea of Japan. White House
chief of staff Andrew Card complained that the North Koreans
are “looking to kind of be bullies in the world." Of course,
Card knows this is laughable. He knows who the real bullies in
the world are. He works with them every day.

It’s no coincidence, though, that Japanese journalists are
alerting us to the continuing dangers of nuclear weapons, just
as it’s no coincidence that the Japanese are taking the lead
in the struggle to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT). Japan, the first victim of the bomb, has always
been uniquely sensitive to its horrors. Meanwhile, the
president of the United States wants to weaken the NPT, so
that he can be even more free to build up the U.S. nuclear
advantage.

The plot thickens when you consider that only one U.S.
newspaper immediately picked up the Japanese press story --
the conservative Washington Times. It’s hard to resist the
suspicion that this story got out because someone in the
Pentagon wanted it out. With North Korea so close to Japan,
the signal would surely be transmitted to Pyongyang.

But the signal is surely meant to be heard at the UN too,
where the NPT is under review. If anyone is expecting the U.S.
to begin really living up to its NPT commitment to move toward
a nuclear-free world, forget about it. The Borg can’t disarm.
Intimidation is its very lifeblood.

That, of course, is just how the neocons in the Bush
administration want it. They want the U.S. to rule the world
for a long time to come, and they aren’t ashamed to say it. On
the contrary, they figure that you have to say it, loud and
clear. The Borg method (some call it the Al Capone method) is
the most efficient (and cheapest) way to stay on top of the
heap. The more you intimidate and bully, the less likely you
are ever to have to fight. That’s the theory.

Of course there was that guy Hitler who apparently believed
the same theory. So maybe, in the long run, it doesn’t work so
well in practice.

For now, though, the neocon Borg may very well get its way.
Nuclear intimidation may become an even bigger part of U.S.
foreign policy. Unless, that is, we raise our voices in
protest. You know how to do that, right?

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the
University of Colorado at Boulder and author of American
Nonviolence: The History of an Idea. He may be reached at
chernus at colorado.edu 
__________________________________________________________________
Dr. Paul Patton
spring semster 2005
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Biology, Williams College
Williamstown, MA
phone: (413)-597-3518

Research Scientist
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
home phone: (217)-344-5812
homepage: http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ppatton/www/index.html

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein
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