"America's Nuclear Posture"
by J. R. Nyquist

According to classified documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the Bush administration recently directed the Pentagon to devise nuclear war contingency plans against Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Lybia and Syria. For those who have followed this column since September, the administration's directive should come as no surprise. The "axis of evil" listed by President Bush in January did not include all the players. In fact the biggest players were left out. But they were not left out of U.S. nuclear war plans.

Perhaps the most fascinating item in the secret Pentagon report (obtained by the Los Angeles Times) is the suggestion that U.S. nuclear weapons should be used "in the event of surprising military developments." In this regard, the Pentagon must have known in advance that the report would be leaked. Was the Bush administration signaling the Chinese, North Koreans, Iranians, Syrians and Iraqis that America will not tolerate a sudden and simultaneous offensive against Israel, Taiwan and South Korea that would endanger the West's oil supplies and America's strategic position in the Pacific? Was the United States also signaling Russia, the chief military supplier and backer of these aggressor regimes?

The situation must be serious, indeed, for the United States to risk the diplomatic ire of the world. With untold economic interests at stake, military threats are frowned upon in Washington - a place where economic interests have long been facilitated at the expense of security interests. (One only has to look at the Cox Report on trade with China for proof of this.)

Consider, as well, the ire of peace advocates, liberals, socialists, anarchists, environmentalists and conspiracy theorists. America's malcontents will bustle and fret over the L.A. Times' revelations. Many in Europe will also use this as an opportunity to criticize the United States. After all, much of Europe is up to its economic eyeballs in Russia and will be eager to distance itself from a U.S. foreign policy that embraces nuclear war-fighting.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Pentagon report says that U.S. forces will use nuclear weapons to defend Israel, Taiwan and South Korea (if necessary). Here we find the triple threat spelled out. Readers may remember that during the Cold War, U.S. policy was to deter Russian conventional superiority in Europe with American tactical nukes. Now the U.S. is applying this same logic to stabilize three areas where tensions are building. Clearly, U.S. ground forces may be too few and far between to deter simultaneous attacks in the Middle East and Far East. Today's United States Army is only the ninth largest army in the world. North Korea, China and Russia (among others) deploy more ground forces than the United States. In fact, it is comical to hear complaints about U.S. global hegemony when a few hundred U.S. soldiers deploy to the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Central Asia. Hundreds of thousands of Russian troops are operating nearby. How could such laughably small U.S. forces pose a threat?

Meanwhile, in the Western Hemisphere, the United States no longer defends the most strategic waterway in the Americas, but leaves the Panama Canal in the hands of companies that front for the People's Liberation Army. At the same time, Colombia faces a growing communist insurgency that is spreading its tentacles into Ecuador and Peru. A Castro-loving Marxist president is usurping power in Venezuela. Much of sub-Saharan Africa has fallen to the communists. (The Congolese uranium mines that fueled the first U.S. atomic bombs are now slated to feed China's military industry.) At the same time, the Cape sea route is controlled by the communist-dominated ANC in South Africa.

The control of strategic resources and key waterways by communist powers is not mere chance. Arguably, the Cold War did not end in 1991. And that is something the Pentagon's classified "Nuclear Posture Review" doesn't fully recognize. While American strategists plan to deter aggression against Israel, Taiwan and South Korea, these same strategists are prepared to junk the bulk of America's strategic nuclear arsenal. According to the Pentagon, "the Nuclear Posture Review puts the Cold War practices … behind us." This is due to "the new relationship between the U.S. and Russia." The report further states: "As a result of this review, the U.S. will no longer plan, size or sustain its forces as though Russia presented merely a smaller version of the threat posed by the former Soviet Union."

It's a funny thing. While the United States is still prepared to attack Russia with nuclear weapons, it nonetheless hopes to unilaterally reduce its nuclear forces from 7,000 down to a level of "1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed strategic warheads."

Many Americans erroneously believe that large numbers of nuclear weapons are unnecessary to deter a nuclear surprise attack from Russia. But anyone studying the voluminous literature on the subject (from Russian and U.S. military sources) will be shocked to learn that nuclear exchanges could be far less destructive and catastrophic than novelists and movie producers would have us believe. According to a two-volume study by the CIA's award-winning nuclear war expert, Peter Vincent Pry, "the belief that nuclear war is not survivable is false." If nuclear weapons are used strictly against military targets (i.e. in counterforce strikes that do not target major cities) Russia might successfully disarm the U.S. with a surprise attack. Pry argues that, "the possibility of nuclear victory, the glimmer of hope that nuclear war just might have a favorable outcome, cannot be made entirely to disappear." Because nuclear victory exists as an idea, especially in the anti-Western mind, the United States cannot afford to unilaterally reduce its deterrent force to 1,700 deployed warheads in the face of a much larger Russian threat. As Pry explains, "best estimates for U.S. casualties in a counterforce nuclear war range from a low of 1.5 million, according to a U.S. Defense Department study, to a high of 34 million, according to Frank von Hippel of Princeton University. These estimates indicate that 85 to 99.35 percent of the U.S. population and social infrastructure would survive a counterforce nuclear war. Soviet survivals would be higher."

If strategic weapons are used in a precise way, limiting the collateral damage to an absolute minimum, then victory in a nuclear war is indeed possible. Pry carefully outlines, in two volumes, the methods that could be used to achieve such a victory. Soviet works on the subject have long taught these same principles. In 1985 Soviet General M. M. Kiryan wrote: "The existence of nuclear weapons … in a high state of readiness … if they are used unexpectedly, make possible, as never before, the achievement of results at the very beginning of a war which would decide the whole course and even the outcome of the war. If strategic forces are used with complete surprise … the war might end after the first massive attacks."

How can the Bush administration justify making us vulnerable to a Russian counterforce attack while attempting to check the advance of Russia's allies in the Middle East and Korea? It is absurd to unilaterally reduce your own stock of weapons. It is absurd to say that Russia is no longer your enemy even as Russia supports and supplies your enemies in China, North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Even more telling, the arms control inspection regime between the United States and Russia has long been a farce. As the last decade shows, even when Russia is caught violating a treaty there are no consequences. To borrow a phrase from former CIA official Robert Baer, it is a case of "See No Evil."

Watching the Bush administration, it is obvious they're worried about Russia. But their worries are small worries. What they have forgotten is the brutality of Russia's rulers and the remarkable capabilities of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces.

I am reminded of something an American once told the young Andrei Navrozov shortly after he came to the U.S. from Russia. The American boasted that the U.S.A. has something called "the pursuit of happiness." Andrei replied that in Russia they have something much better, called "the hydrogen bomb."

Many pundits are going to shake their heads and wag their fingers at "the warmongers in Washington." But stop and reflect for a moment. Consider what is really taking place. America is eliminating two-thirds of her nuclear arsenal and somehow she is depicted as the world's foremost nuclear bully.

© 2002 Jeffrey R. Nyquist
March 11, 2002 

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Past Columns  l  Geopolitical News in Focus l  Storm Watch  l  Weekly Update

Also see: The Sudan-Iraq-Afghanistan Alliance: and The Russian Connection - America's Enemies Unveiled

J. R. Nyquist has been a guest on Financial Sense Newshour
and is the author of Origins of the Fourth World War

Real Audio Interview  l  Transcription

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