Why The Next Shooting War Could 'Accidentally' Go Nuclear

Zack Brown, National Interest: Why the Next Shooting War Could Go Nuclear

Too many dual-use systems could confuse an enemy in wartime who might think a nuclear (not conventional) attack was underway.

Nuclear expert James Acton believes that we are entering into an era of what he calls “nuclear entanglement,” one that promises to be different from anything we’ve seen before. Its main characteristic: an increasingly blurry line between nuclear and conventional weapons.

“During the Cold War, the nuclear and non-nuclear domains were largely distinct,” said Acton in an interview for the podcast, Press The Button. “Most delivery systems were nuclear or they were conventional, but they couldn’t accommodate both types of weapons.” The same goes for the threats facing nuclear weapons themselves. The majority of these, he explained, “came from other nuclear weapons.”

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WNU Editor: How do you know if an incoming cruise or hyper-sonic missile is nuclear or conventional. You do not until it lands.

Is The Danger of A Nuclear Catastrophe Greater Now Than During The Cold War

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Arms Control Association

Hunter DeRensis, National Interest: The Danger of A Nuclear Catastrophe Is Greater Than During the Cold War

Will the Democrats seriously debate "no first use" policy?

“Why should the U.S. tie its own hands with that policy?” CNN correspondent Jake Tapper asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

This leading question during last week’s Democratic debate immediately opened up a longtime policy fissure over U.S. nuclear strategy. The policy in question is the venerable “no first use” pledge, in which the United States would forswear being the first nation to deploy nuclear weapons during a military conflict. Under the pledge the United States would still reserve the right to massive retaliation.

While President Barack Obama privately mulled over the pledge, he decided against officially endorsing it. The United States has always retained a “first use” option that preserves Washington’s ability to launch nuclear weapons at any time, even unprovoked.

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WNU Editor: Being one who lived the Cold War, I can say this unequivocally. Today's nuclear tensions are nowhere near what my generation had to live through during the Cold War.

All You Wanted To Know About Nuclear War

Julian Borger and Ian Sample, The Guardian: All you wanted to know about nuclear war but were too afraid to ask

The use of a nuclear weapon is now more likely than any time since the cold war, but the probability of humanity being wiped out entirely has diminished.

Which countries have nuclear weapons?

There are nine countries that possess nuclear weapons. Five of these (the US, Russia, the UK, France and China) are members of the official owners club, who made their weapons early and had them legitimised in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signed in 1968, the key piece of international law governing nuclear weapons possession.

NPT has arguably been quite successful. In the 1960s it was widely anticipated that dozens of countries would get the bomb, as it appeared to be the fast track to clout and status on the world stage. But so far there have only been four rogue nuclear weapons states who ignored the NPT and made their own bombs. In order of acquisition, they are Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

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WNU Editor: A good summary.

The Growing Threat Of Nuclear Annihilation

New York Times: ‘This Is Not a Drill’: The Growing Threat of Nuclear Annihilation

If you were in elementary school in the early 1950s, chances are that you had the fear of nuclear holocaust drummed into you with fair regularity. Children were taught “duck and cover” techniques, which typically meant hiding under their desks as if that would save them from an atomic bomb landing nearby.

In big cities like New York, many pupils received military-style dog tags bearing their names and addresses — to help parents identify their bodies, they were told. (Of course, Mom and Pop had to survive themselves.) Some recall that the tags also listed the family religion. That, a teacher explained to one class of second-graders, was to guarantee their burial in an appropriate cemetery. Somehow, this was supposed to reassure them.

Those days are long gone. Or are they?

On a Saturday morning in January, Hawaiians scrambled for shelter after a state government bulletin that a ballistic missile was headed their way. Many of them were already on edge at the thought of a possible nuclear attack by North Korea. “This is not a drill,” a cellphone alert said.


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WNU Editor: The more things change .... the more they stay the same.

Did A Government Report And The Movie 'The Day After' Push Back The Possibility Of Nuclear War In The 1980s

Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic: The People Who Would Survive Nuclear War

How an appendix to an obscure government report helped launch a blockbuster and push back the possibility of atomic war

Somehow, some way, nuclear war is once again a live possibility. The most startling incident came earlier this month when a state employee accidentally clicked the wrong choice in a piece of emergency-alert software, sending a notice of imminent destruction to everyone with a phone in Hawaii. But what’s striking is that people believed the message. For much of the past 30 years, it would have been implausible enough to be received as a likely mistake. But 2018 has already seen President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un trade barbs about their nuclear buttons. People are buying potassium iodide pills again. The December 2017 issue of Harper’s magazine featured seven writers “taking stock of our nuclear present.” Atomic weapons—and their horrifying effects—are back in the national consciousness.

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WNU Editor: A government report and a movie on nuclear war did not push back the possibility of nuclear war. To begin .... no one in the former Soviet Union saw this movie, and I doubt that anyone in the Kremlin even bothered to look at it. What changed the dynamics on nuclear disarmament and nuclear weapons was when the leadership of the Soviet Union realized that they did not have the resources to continue a nuclear arms race .... and that it was in their interests to pursue another direction.

Why Hasn't There Been A Nuclear War?

Amos Zeeberg, Nautilus: Why Hasn’t the World Been Destroyed in a Nuclear War Yet?

When opposing nations gained access to nuclear weapons, it fundamentally changed the logic of war. You might say that it made questions about war more cleanly logical—with nuclear-armed belligerents, there are fewer classic military analyses about morale, materiel, and maneuverings. Hundreds of small-scale tactical decisions dissolve into a few hugely important large-scale strategic ones, like, What happens if one side drops a nuclear bomb on its nuclear-armed opponent?

Using a dangerous weapon like a nuclear bomb can of course provoke dangerous responses. If one country crosses the nuclear line, what will its opponent do? What will its allies, or other nuclear-armed states do? The decision to use a nuclear weapon is practically nothing next to the chain reaction it begins. The act of one nation simply developing a nuclear weapon can provoke a “nuclear proliferation cascade,” as other nations, concerned about new nuclear-armed rivals, rush to follow suit. This is cited as one reason why it’s so important to prevent Iran from building its own nuclear weapons.

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WNU Editor: Mankind since Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been incredibly lucky.

Here Are 5 Ways That A Nuclear War Can Happen

DF-5B ICBM

Tom Nichols, Warrior Maven: 5 Ways a Nuclear War Could Go Down

Nuclear war, the exchange of nuclear weapons between two or more states in open conflict.

It’s unthinkable.

It can’t happen.

Right?

Wrong.

Of course, nuclear war is extremely unlikely. Although the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [3] has placed the hands of its famous clock at five minutes to midnight, that doesn’t mean very much and never has [4]. The fact of the matter is that world nuclear inventories, led by reductions in the United States and Russia, have never been lower, and none of the major powers expects a nuclear conflict in the way they did during the Cold War. To crib a line from Captain Jack Sparrow, however, nuclear war is not impossible, it’s improbable, and a nuclear war could take place in more ways than you might think, sparked by any number of occurrences from a pure accident to an intentional strike.

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WNU Editor: I good review on how a nuclear war can occur.

The Return Of 'Duck and Cover'

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, The Atlantic: The Unexpected Return of 'Duck and Cover'

Sixty years ago, in 1951, Ray Maurer and Anthony Rizzo produced a film for the federal government's Civil Defense agency in response to Soviet nuclear tests. Featuring an animated turtle named Bert and real-life schoolchildren from New York, the film, Duck and Cover, became an icon of the Cold War, seen by many as evidence of the absurdity of the government's response to the nuclear threat. Against the threat of a nuclear attack, how much good would diving under a desk really do? Originally aimed at teaching children how to respond to a surprise nuclear strike, by the 1980s Duck and Cover was a piece of 1950s kitsch, mocked in such anti-nuclear films as The Atomic Cafe.

But now "duck and cover" is back, not as kitsch but once again as serious advice from the federal government. Faced with growing concerns about a nuclear attack on one or more major cities -- this time from terrorists, or bombs smuggled instead of dropped by countries like Iran or North Korea -- authorities are once again looking to educate citizens about what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. And that advice sounds a lot like what they were saying in my grandfather's day: Duck and cover.

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WNU Editor: It is hard to believe that we are now back to this .... Hawaii Tests Nuclear Attack Siren for First Time Since Cold War (December 1, 2017).

In The Event Of A Nuclear War, This Is What The U.S. Government Wanted To Feed The Survivors

An ideal fallout shelter layout. NARA

Eater: The Doomsday Diet

Meet the all-purpose survival cracker, the US government's Cold War-era nutrition solution for life after a nuclear blast

Shortly before noon on December 1, an ominous wail pierced the air throughout the Hawaiian Islands. The state’s emergency management agency had flipped the switch on its “Attack Warning Tone,” a foreboding siren that heralds an imminent nuclear attack. Not heard in decades, the tone will now ring out on the first business day of each month — one of a series of measures the state is undertaking to adjust to life in the shadow of North Korea’s ongoing ballistic missile tests and the bizarre gamesmanship between the “Rocket Man” and our own explosively tempered president. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Vladimir Putin sat down last month to practice the forgotten art of nuclear war, personally pushing the button to launch three ballistic missiles during a military drill, a step further than any U.S. president has ever gone in a nuclear exercise. In response, the Swedish government has begun updating shelters untouched since the fall of the Soviet Union. As governments around the globe dust off moldering contingency plans for an atomic sunset, it’s official: Nuclear Armageddon is hovering over the world once again.

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WNU Editor:  Crackers .... yech!

This Is What A Chinese Nuclear Attack On America Would Look Like

Reuters

Lyle J. Goldstein, National Interest: Forget North Korea: This Is What a Chinese Nuclear Attack on America Would Look Like

As one can see from this discussion, there is ample reason for anxiety with many new Chinese nuclear systems now coming online, as well as substantial reason for optimism. As an author who frequently rides China’s high-speed rail, I am acutely aware that astronomical sums of money spent on that system could just as easily have been spent building an enormous arsenal of nuclear weaponry. That was not done and it’s certainly good that Chinese leaders have their priorities straight. American strategists need to keep this Chinese restraint in mind, especially as they weigh both new, expensive weapons systems (missile defense augmentation, the new strategic bomber, SSBN-X and also prompt global strike) and a set of measures to counter Beijing within the maritime disputes on its flanks.

When one reads enough Chinese naval literature, diagrams of multi-axial cruise missile saturation attacks against aircraft carrier groups may begin to seem normal. However, one particular graphic from the October 2015 issue (p. 32) of the naval journal Naval & Merchant Ships [舰船知识] stands out as both unusual and singularly disturbing. It purports to map the impact of a Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) strike by twenty nuclear-armed rockets against the United States.

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WNU Editor: When it comes to Chinese nuclear weapons .... for as long as I can remember .... nothing much is known about the Chinese nuclear stockpile, capabilities, doctrine .... and more importantly .... their future plans. The above post makes that point abundantly clear.

Can Two Nuclear Powers Fight a Conventional War?

B-2 Bomber. YouTube

Marcus Weisgerber, Defense One: Can Two Nuclear Powers Fight a Conventional War?

The Pentagon just wargamed that scenario as part of its effort to determine what it needs for 21st-century deterrence.

As the U.S. military reviews the makeup of its nuclear arsenal, among the questions being asked is: Can two nuclear powers fight a conventional war without going nuclear?

Just last week, this scenario was among the mock battles when U.S. Strategic Command ran its annual Global Thunder nuclear wargame, Army Brig. Gen. Greg Bowen, the command’s deputy director of global operations, said Thursday at the Defense One Summit.

“It gets into a very difficult calculus,” Bowen said. “It’s clearly a place that we don’t want to go.”

That’s because when one country begins to lose a conventional battle, there is a temptation to use those nuclear weapons.

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WNU Editor: In such a scenario .... where two nuclear powers are fighting a conventional war .... the temptation to use one's nuclear weaponry before the other ones does would be irresistible. Bottom line .... in such a war nuclear weapons will be used.

What Does The Total Destruction Of North Korea Mean?

Kori Schake, The Atlantic: What Total Destruction of North Korea Means

As Trump considers military options, he’s drawing unenforceable red lines.

Speaking before the UN General Assembly today, President Donald Trump announced that, unless North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, “the United States will have no choice but to totally destroy” the country. He sounded almost excited as he threatened, “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

North Korea is a serious problem, and not one of Trump’s making—the last four American presidents failed to impede North Korea’s progress towards a nuclear weapon. President George H.W. Bush took unilateral action, removing U.S. nuclear weapons and reducing America’s troop levels in the region, hoping to incentivize good behavior; Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush tried to negotiate restrictions; President Barack Obama mostly averted his eyes. North Korea defied them all.

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WNU Editor: This is a critical post on President Trump's U.N. remarks on North Korea yesterday .... but I think the author is missing the big picture, which is that North Korea's development of hydrogen bombs and a delivery system to carry them has completely changed the geopolitics of the region .... if not the world. President Trump's rhetoric was hard-core yesterday .... but a response had to be delivered in view of what is being said in North Korea. To put it bluntly .... using rhetoric promising the destruction of the U.S. if his (Kim Jong-Un's) demands are not met has crossed so many red-lines that I do not know where to begin. To put everything in context .... in the past the U.S., Soviet Union, China, etc. were very careful on the rhetoric that they used when it came to nuclear weapons. And if any country had used the rhetoric that Kim Jong-Un is using now, I can assure you that a nuclear war would have erupted very quickly. That is why I worry about the future .... if war breaks out on the Korean peninsula today the deployment and usage of nuclear weapons by the U.S. will happen very quickly. No leader in Washington, Tokyo, and I will even say Seoul itself .... is going to take the chance that in such a conflict North Korea may launch nuclear missiles at their cities. This is what it means when you become a nuclear state .... a conventional war with the U.S. and its allies is no longer an option .... because U.S. military doctrine will work under the assumption that such a conflict will quickly precipitate into a nuclear one. Is North Korea aware of this .... I do not know .... but they are certainly behaving in a manner where they do not care. My prediction .... if the DMZ explodes into war, expect dozens of U.S. battlefield nuclear weapons being deployed and used to destroy suspected North Korean command and control centers, and nuclear/missile storage sites. That is what the total destruction of North Korea will look like.

Update: Since his speech yesterday the pundits and politicians in Washington have been relentless in their criticisms of President Trump and his remarks on North Korea. But for those who are living under the threat of North Korea and who are aware of the extreme danger that we are now living under, a different reaction .... Donald Trump applauded by Japan, South Korea for brazenness on North Korea in UN speech (ABC News Online).