(Excerpt) The President may direct the use of nuclear weapons through an execute order via the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the combatant commanders and, ultimately, to the forces in the field exercising direct control of the weapons.
Category: Nuclear Weapons
May in Korea
Tom Nichols Makes His Case. Strategic Demands’ editor responds… Former US Defense chief, William Perry, weighs in… Negotiating horizon? Time to prep? Two months. Negotiating prep to date? No visible prep. Korean Ambassador? No US Ambassador. Nuclear weapons experts? Arms Control team? Questionable at best. Winging it? Admittedly. Other options? War. Nuclear war. Dead-Hand Disaster.
Nuclear Ratcheting II
March 1st : Russian president Putin addresses the nation. Accompanied by large screen animated demonstrations, he talks of a new generation of nuclear weapons. In the US, strategic experts question the weapons. Others begin debating the rising danger of a nuclear arms race. The US president reacts, angrily tweeting before dawn
Renewed Nuclear Arms Race
This is what ratcheting up looks like. This time ratcheting is three-sided. China’s in the nuclear game and the new nuclear arms race extends from cruise missiles with ‘usable’ nuclear warheads to hypersonic nuclear re-entry vehicles. The US, Russia and China — and alliance partners — are racing, each pushing the other, toward strategic disaster
US Nuclear Posture Review Released
The new Nuclear Posture Review signals a new nuclear arms race. Luck of the draw. “Do you feel lucky?” The question of generational, existential risk takes on new dimension as strategic arms experts ask deadly end game questions. Nuclear tensions are turning to nuclear threats, an international ramp up of nuclear weapons development, ‘usable’ nukes, […]
February 2018: Nuclear Weapons Time, ‘Usable’ Nukes on the Horizon
Making America Nuclear Again Trump’s Gamble Inside the Doom Factory “Fire & fury like the world has never seen“
Two Minutes to Midnight
Green Politics / Nuclear Weapons
At the front lines of the Cold War, a green political movement was launched in Europe. Today, green parties exist in over 1/2 the countries of the world — as nuclear nonproliferation education continues at the front of a green agenda
Doomsday Machine
Updated: January 1, 2018 The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. A look back at Dan Ellsberg… 1969 / 70 / 71 in Los Angeles… memories of Rand and the McNamara “history project”… Vietnam’s reality he shared with your editor as he prepared to reveal it to a nation at war. Now, again, […]
Let Us Warn of Consequences
The U.S. needs oversight on presidential authority now. The unlimited power of the president to order nuclear use on any day at any moment for whatever reason this one person has, is an extreme and potentially cataclysmic authority. Now is the time for a sane nuclear launch system
Another Missile Test, Another Ratchet Up
Deterrence in nuclear capabilities? North Korea’s gamble, and the world’s gamble, is that their offensive force will deter devastation in the vein of the first war in North Korea, when the US air campaign of General LeMay leveled nearly every building. Today’s NK ‘gamble’, ratcheting up, is in no country’s interest
Nuclear Debate on First Use
In the US Congress survival is being debated. Nuclear weapon use, first use, is up for debate for the first time in over 40 years. A point of view brought forward by StratDem before the presidential election and more actively since July 2016 is now world news. Now is the time to change first-use policy […]
Corker’s Next Step?
Today we wake to the US President touting his own IQ, having been called a “moron” by the US Secretary of State, and complaining via Tweets that US Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) gave a recorded interview to the NY Times, as the Senator and his staff previously acknowledged, questioning the President’s mental fitness
US President Threatens at the UN
In what is arguably one of the more threatening addresses since the creation of the United Nations, the US president lays out his vision of nations, “sovereignty”, and what he sees as “America First” within the international community. He goes on, lecturing, warning, threatening the use of US force
A Nuclear Meme
Thermonuclear? North Korea Sends a Message
We’ll see … President Trump says “we’ll see” whether he’ll order strikes on North Korea in response to its nuclear test… a barrage of news stories on a Sunday morning does nothing to address the question of the hour… One person has #hairtrigger power to order US forces to attack North Korea, potentially initiating nuclear war […]
Oversight of the US Nuclear Arsenal
Questions of command and control are circulating. The former US Director of National Intelligence goes on record to worry about the President’s access to nuclear codes. Erratic decisions, speeches, and behavior of the US Commander in Chief are continuing to produce concern as the public and international community react
