America is engaging in a new Nuclear Arms Race, under the guise of a more “competitive” nuclear weapons strategy, against Moscow and Beijing.
The new approach centers on President Biden’s warring stance and perhaps warmongering commitment in increasing America’s Nuclear arsenal, further deployment of strategic nuclear weapons, and redevelopment of the whole fleet for faster, more specifically targeted, and multi hypersonic delivery of instant death and wanton destruction of the whole world…
The administration’s seemingly muscular stance is juxtaposed by the frailty of the chief executive of our nation, whose mental fugue guides him to want to project his non-existent strength by giving-in to the military’s nuclear brass, to their atomic weapons building cronies, to the atomic energy lobbyists and to the chiefs of the military industrial complex, all that they wet-dreamed about…
Starting from the down payment on a humongous nuclear weapons buildup, as seen in the recent report mandated by Congress, and traversing over ten years, to the culmination of the Atomic lobby’s Dr Strangelove flying the missile — we are in for a bloodbath.
Recall what the ancient Romans said: That is what happens, when you have a series of bad emperors… You even lose the Republic after the Empire has already been lost.
The fact of the matter is that the US is going to be spending Two Trillion USDs in the greatest expansion of the Nuclear Arsenal ever, with the only goal of destroying the planet. That is a money tsunami — well above and beyond anything the world has seen in any kind of Military waste, let alone in Nuclear expenditures, and Pentagon brass follies.
And with the single aim of annihilating the planet — all the environmentalists must get up in arms and stop that… but they are looking as always in the wrong direction…
Yet while this gigantic project is undertaken, the public has been kept in the dark, regardless of the fact that we all, have a rather compelling interest in participating in this discussion right now, just before the tax bills, the blowback, the local circumstances, the global risks, and the Nuclear Winter — all come home to roost.
Some of us clearly say: Enough is Enough.
Yet for all others, “How much is enough” regarding America’s nuclear forces is a new question.
And the old tired adage about the “Chickens that invariably, always come home to roost” has been deliberately obfuscated by our political, military and scientific leaders, today, much more than when the first two nuclear weapons were used to end the Second World War against Japan, almost 80 years ago.
Yet, today, the United States, and our two main muscular nuclear adversaries, Russia and China, are all enlarging their nuclear arsenals in an illogical arms race.
Perhaps the lack of any logic behind this Nuclear Expansion, comes from the knowledge that military’s lack of intelligence and it’s involvement, is what accounts for the grift, corruption, and subterfuge, in poor relations that lead to war.
Just take a look at Ukraine, and you can easily see why the advancement of new technologies such as supersonic missiles, artificial intelligence, and cyber warfare, and all the rest of the novel Nuclear weapons improvements, are all emerging in these questionable battlefields on earth in the phony proxy war of Eastern Europe with Russia, as well as in space with China.
And it is all our doing…
Yet it has been decades since the American public has weighed in en masse on nuclear policy, leaving the discussions to a small number of government, civilian and military bureaucrats and members of Congress.
The rest of us have practical and existential reasons to get engaged. To begin, the resources required to maintain or expand our nuclear arsenal are substantial — hundreds of billions of dollars for new land-based nuclear missiles, bombers and submarines. This will come at a substantial cost to other defense capabilities and domestic priorities. Even more profoundly, a more aggressive nuclear policy and the mere existence of more weapons may increase the risk of nuclear use, which poses an existential threat to us all.
As the former CIA deputy director for intelligence rightly said to then-national security advisor Henry Kissinger decades ago, “Once nuclear weapons start landing, the response is likely to be irrational.”
Based on research by independent experts published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the United States today deploys more than 1,700 nuclear weapons. Roughly half of these warheads are on “day to day” alert, ready to be launched within minutes. Half of these are deployed at sea, immune from attack. Any rational nuclear adversary — say Russia or China, alone or together — must conclude that the use of even one nuclear weapon against the United States or its allies in Europe or Asia would likely trigger a massive American nuclear response that could obliterate an aggressors’ leadership, military forces and industry.
And the sobering reality is that a rational U.S. president must conclude the same with respect to Russia, which deploys roughly the same number of nuclear weapons as the U.S., and China, with a much smaller but growing nuclear inventory.
Yet my question still persists:
When and where, will the American people voice their dissent in this matter ?
When are we going to have a reasonable parliamentary debate?
And who is going to foster the decision making actions, after the debate is concluded?
Do we have the kind of Democratic Republic where “Vox Populi Vox Dei” remains the erudite lever of Good Government as Seneca once advised all of us, and his words resonate to this day?
Historically, there have been moments when public opinion has driven nuclear policy, and not simply through elected representatives in Congress voting on defense appropriations.
Widespread concerns over radioactive fallout helped drive negotiations that banned atmospheric nuclear testing in the early 1960s. In the early 1980s, millions turned out in the United States and Europe to protest the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear weapons, which put pressure on President Reagan and the USSR.’s Mikhail Gorbachev to negotiate a ban on these systems.
The START treaties ensued…
Yet today, adding more nuclear weapons, missile silos, bombers or submarines to the mix in China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Israel, India, Pakistan, and many other upstarts, all led by the US’s intransigence, and applying new technologies, in speed of response via A.I., in awesome & ferocious power, as well as in useless expansion into space, will not change the most basic nuclear fundamentals of illogical and world shattering response.
Because when anyone uses, even one nuclear weapon against any adversary — be assured that the Doomsday scenario will unfold, and the nuclear retaliation, engulfing a wider nuclear war, will surely lead into nuclear winter that would not only destroy nations — but the whole of our Civilization.
Therefore, it seems to me that the wiser course for the US, would be to ensure an adequate nuclear deterrent that places a premium on survivability, which means firepower and totals limited to the current arsenal, or even fewer.
Everyday Americans can and should campaign against this dangerous nuclear expansion. And beyond that, we can support what the United States has slowly been doing, reducing the risks of a nuclear use by reducing global nuclear arms through sound security policies and diplomacy.
We can also support efforts to make the stockpile we have safer. In a rare but laudable bipartisan initiative, Congress directed the Biden administration to conduct an internal review of America’s nuclear command-and-control systems, including “fail-safe” steps to strengthen safeguards against cyber warfare threats and the unauthorized, inadvertent or accidental use of a nuclear weapon. The review is due out in the fall, and it will almost certainly call for new investments to securely maintain a nuclear deterrent for as long as one is needed. That would be money well spent by Washington — and something that should be encouraged in every nuclear-armed state.
No question, the U.S. is now in an across-the-board competition with China and Russia. In Europe, it is centered on the war in Ukraine and deterring any further attacks by Russia on our NATO allies. The competition with China is much broader: There is an increasing military component in the South China sea and Taiwan, but the economic and technology race is as consequential.
Yours,
Dr Churchill
PS:
“Winning” this competition will require a number of increased investments and initiatives, such as shoring up our conventional military capabilities, leading the artificial intelligence revolution, developing defenses against cyber attacks and expanding clean energy alternatives. Making expensive investments in nuclear capabilities beyond what is adequate for deterrence would mean running this race carrying a heavy sandbag on our shoulders.
When it comes to nuclear weapons, less is more.