Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Loren B. Thompson — The Hidden Defect In U.S. Nuclear Strategy That Could Spell America's Doom

Russia currently has over a thousand nuclear warheads aimed at America. Just one of those warheads could kill more Americans than died in the Vietnam War. A dozen could collapse the nation's power grid and other vital networks.
So any kind of nuclear exchange, even a "small" one, would be a catastrophe without precedent in American history. Unfortunately, the strategy that Washington has fashioned to avert such a catastrophe is so focused on preventing a cold, calculated act of aggression that it largely ignores other ways nuclear war could unfold -- and maximizes losses the nation would suffer no matter what form the conflict took....
The National Interest
The Hidden Defect In U.S. Nuclear Strategy That Could Spell America's Doom
Loren B. Thompson, Chief Operating Officer of the non-profit Lexington Institute and Chief Executive Officer of Source Associates, a for-profit consultancy, formerly Deputy Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University.

1 comment:

Andrew Anderson said...

Yes, we need a minimal defense to defend against crazies like North Korea and an accidental launch of a few missiles.

But it's crazy given the portability and power of nuclear weapons to think we can ever be adequately defended against a sophisticated nation such as Russia.

And if we ever had a system that gave us the illusion of safety, we can't at all be sure the US would not launch a first strike against Russia since we can hardly claim to be sane ourselves given the current Presidential choices and given the disgraceful expansion of NATO up to Russia's borders after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Btw, I used to be a "defense" hawk myself before I read the entire Bible and learned fear of the Lord - at least wrt violence.