WAS ANY One LISTENING ? Scanners anyone ? Hell ow! I Dare-you to read this!
MIRVman
This is a long read, but worth it ! I spent the better part of a Day to
catalog this data.....give it a go............!
'''U.S. Rep. Robert C. Scott and J. Robert Bray, executive
director of the Virginia Port Authority, suggests spending $1 billion
to buy 1,000 high-tech scanners for cargo coming into U.S. ports-this
is a start.....
http://www.talkingproud.us/ImagesIntlrelationships/CongoUranium/RodContainer.jpg
Attention refocused on cargo security recently when a company from the
United Arab Emirates was approved to purchase a British firm that had
contracted to manage several major U.S. ports.
Opponents feared that ports would be more vulnerable to terrorism if a
Mid-east company managed the facilities. The deal collapsed under a
barrage of criticism.
Virginia ports are not operated by a private company but rather through
a semi-public authority set up for that purpose. There are several
layers of security at U.S. ports, and federal agencies are responsible
for much of it.
Port operators provide security within their own facilities. The U.S.
Coast Guard approves those security plans and ensures they are carried
out.
http://www.emediawire.com/prfiles/2004/10/28/173019/Gammasight.jpg
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection oversees security of the more
than 20,000 containers that pass through U.S. ports daily. Nationally,
the agency scans 5 percent of boxes through two types of equipment:
radiation detectors and gamma ray image readers.
In Hampton Roads, 5 percent go through image readers and nearly 100
percent go through the radiation detector. Mr. Scott and Mr. Bray say
all cargo should receive full inspection.
Mark Laria, Customs and Border Protection's port director for the
Norfolk region, says full inspection isn't necessary because all
containers that are thought to pose a risk are thoroughly examined. He
also said that scanning 100 percent of cargo would lead to port
congestion and "choke the economy." Mr. Scott and Mr. Bray
disagree.
Terrorists could find a way to make cargo appear to be not dangerous
and avoid an image scan.
"It doesn't take a whole lot for someone to pull out one case [from
a container of cargo], and put a backpack in there that has a dirty
bomb," Mr. Bray said.
http://www.ganet.org/gbi/images/others.jpg
They also said technology already exists to allow inspections to be
conducted without causing significant delays.
If we can better protect ourselves without significant downsides to
port efficiency, then we should do so.
If we are willing to pay for it. The federal government is "running a
$400 billion budget deficit," Mr. Scott said. "How about $401?"
A $400 billion deficit might signal the opposite to some people: It's
time to re-trench. Not: It's OK to spend more money.
Since national security is one of the paramount duties of a national
government, improved cargo inspections ought to be pursued. Government
might not be able to buy 1,000 of the million-dollar machines, but it
could buy more - and significantly raise that 5 percent inspection
rate.
But we don't want Washington to spend our money wildly. We expect
leaders to make hard choices when funding programs - including forgoing
some pork - in order to free money for more important priorities.
So far, to our detriment, Congress has been reluctant to make such
choices.
On the Vietnam War, the Department of Defense commissioned a study to
determine the feasibility and advisability of the use of tactical
nuclear weapons in that conflict.
This is not a repeat...Keep reading. (The MIRVman) A copy of that 1967
study, 'Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia', was declassified
in February 2003, and lays out in terrifying detail what did happen if
the United States had used tactical nuclear weapons during the Vietnam
War..
The bottom line of the study is that the use of nuclear weapons in
Vietnam - to block the Ho Chi Minh trail, kill large numbers of enemy
soldiers, or destroy North Vietnamese air bases and seaports - would
have offered no decisive military advantages to the United States, but
would have had grave repercussions for US soldiers in the field and US
interests around the world.
The study was prepared by four physicists associated with the Jason
Division of the Institute of Defense Analyses, a group of scientists
who met frequently to provide classified advice to defense officials.
The study's conclusions were presented to then-Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara.
"The political effects of US first use of TNW (tactical nuclear
weapons) in Vietnam would be uniformly bad and could be
catastrophic," the scientists wrote. They warned that US first-use of
tactical nuclear weapons could lead China or the Soviet Union to
provide similar weapons to the Viet Cong and North Vietnam, raising the
possibility that US forces in Vietnam 'would be essentially
annihilated' in retaliatory raids by © 2006 Media General
Terms and Conditions
In the mid-1960s during the height of nuclear-armed guerrilla forces,
And I was a member of that Force in 1972, As that happened, they wrote,
'insurgent groups everywhere in the world would take note and would try
by all available means to acquire TNW for themselves.
First-use of nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia, the scientists warned,
was 'likely to result in greatly increased long-term risk of nuclear
guerrilla operations in other parts of the world,' including attacks on
the Panama Canal, oil pipelines and storage facilities in Venezuela and
the Israeli capital of Tel Aviv.
'US security would be gravely endangered if the use of TNW by guerrilla
forces should become widespread,' they concluded.
Thirty-nine years later some American officials are, according to press
reports, once again contemplating the use of nuclear weapons, and
seeking to repeal US prohibitions on the developments of smaller
nuclear weapons, including so-called 'low-yield' bombs and
deep-penetration 'bunker-busters.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1590000/images/_1593734_bunker_buster2_300.gif
Writing in February 2003, Los Angeles Times, military analysts
disclosed the US Strategic Command in Omaha and the Joint Chiefs of
Staff are secretly drawing up nuclear target lists for Iraq. 'Target
lists are being scrutinized, options are being pondered and procedures
are being tested to give nuclear armaments a role in the new U.S.
doctrine of preemption,' they reported.
There have also been reports that tactical nuclear weapons,
particularly 'bunker busters,' have been considered by Pentagon
planners in the context of the escalating nuclear crisis with North
Korea. Moreover, many US analysts believe there is a great danger that
North Korea, if its survival was at stake, would be willing to sell its
nuclear arsenal to the highest bidder.
North Korea itself apparently believes the United States may be
planning nuclear strikes of its own, and on March 1, 2003 warned that a
war on the Korean peninsula would quickly 'escalate into a nuclear
war.'
Keep going this is old territory. but relevant to the discussion ad
hoc,
I sincerely believe that any first use of nuclear weapons by the United
States can not and should not be sanctioned. As the Jason scientists
argued in the 1960s, US nuclear planning could serve as a pretext for
other countries and, worse, terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, to build
or acquire their own bombs.
If we are not careful, our own nuclear posture could provoke the very
nuclear-proliferation activities we are seeking to prevent.
This study, 'Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia', was released
February 17, 2003 by the Nautilus Institute of Berkeley, California,
and I would urge those with an interest in reading it in full to
contact them directly.
http://www.nautilus.org/VietnamFOIA/report/report.html
More and that...The conclusions of the Jason report are as valid,
realistic and frightening today as they were in 1967. As we contemplate
the future course of our nation's national security policy, I believe
that it is important to look at past events, to learn from them, and to
benefit from the counsel of history."
group of scientists studied the possible use of nuclear weapons in
Vietnam. Here's why their report advised against it.....
By Peter Hayes and Nina Tannenwald
May/June 2003 pp. 52-59 (vol. 59, no. 03) © 2003 Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists
The Vietnam War escalated in spring 1966, a high-ranking Pentagon
official with access to President Lyndon Johnson was heard by scientist
Freeman Dyson to say, "It might be a good idea to toss in a nuke from
time to time, just to keep the other side guessing." [1]
Dyson was a member of the "JASONs"--a group of some 40 scientists who
had met each summer since 1959 to consider defense-related problems for
the Pentagon. [2] Four of their number--Dyson of Princeton, Robert
Gomer and S. Courtenay Wright of the University of Chicago, and Steven
Weinberg, then on leave from Berkeley at Harvard--were so appalled by
the remark that they decided to respond with a study that would
systematically explore the utility of tactical nuclear weapons in the
Vietnam War
The study looked at the effects of using tactical nuclear weapons
against a variety of targets, as well as the likely political effects
of a nuclear campaign. Many of the study's conclusions seem relevant
today, given the ongoing conflict in Iraq and other possible conflicts
the United States could face and the Bush administration's newly stated
policies of preemption and willingness to use nuclear weapons against
"rogue states."
The Vietnam context
In 1966, the concept of mutual strategic deterrence was less than a
decade old. The dominant military viewpoint was that nuclear weapons
were simply one more arrow in the quiver--and after the Korean
stalemate, the U.S. military was determined never again to conduct a
ground war without using decisive force, including the use of nuclear
weapons
Consequently, both the service and unified command war plans to counter
Chinese military action in East and Southeast Asia relied heavily on
nuclear weapons. After the Chinese nuclear test in 1964, nuclear
planning would have had to take into account the possible Chinese use
of nuclear weapons in a military conflict.
In contrast, most American strategists, many political leaders, and
scientists who had participated in the Manhattan Project or had studied
under its leading physicists, had long since realized that nuclear
weapons were in an awesome category of their own.
Dyson believes the remark about using nukes that led to the study was
made at a briefing at the State Department or at an informal party, but
Steven Weinberg recalls a rumor circulating that someone in the
Pentagon or the National Security Council was pushing to use tactical
nuclear weapons in Vietnam or Laos.
[3] In any case, the four scientists were persuaded that they should
work together at the JASONs summer session in 1966 on a study of the
possible outcomes of using nuclear weapons in Vietnam. "I think I was
the main instigator," Robert Gomer said recently. [4]
The group that took on this task was not responding to specific nuclear
war plans or threats, nor to a request from the Pentagon (although
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara agreed to the topics the JASONs
proposed to study each year). [5]
http://www.you-are-here.com/aerial/gp.jpg
And to this day, Dyson says he has no evidence that the use of nuclear
weapons was seriously considered in prosecuting the Vietnam War. But,
he adds, "We had no way to tell whether the speaker was joking or
serious. Just in case he was serious, we decided to do our study." [6]
"I, and I believe others as well," Weinberg wrote later, "felt that the
use of nuclear weapons would make the war even more destructive than it
had already become; it would create a terrible precedent for the use of
nuclear weapons for something other than deterrence; it wouldn't help
much with the war;
and it would open up the possibility of nuclear attacks on our own
bases in Vietnam. All this was an immediate reaction, not based on any
careful analysis. So we decided to do the analysis, and write a
report." [7]
http://www.splinegod.com/foundation/maxsteel/nuclear_bomb_concept.jpg
Thus was born the only known systematic official study of the role of
tactical nuclear weapons in the war. [8]
Military utility
After obtaining permission from the Defense Department for the study,
and "three man-months" of work, the authors produced a 55-page, highly
classified report titled "Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia,"
which presented their analysis and conclusions in what Dyson later
described as "a deliberate hard-boiled military style." [9]
They defined tactical use "in the strict sense"--that is, use on
"military targets, only within the theater of ground combat, and while
avoiding civilian casualties so far as practicable." The reason for
this focus, the authors explained, was "that we wish to stay as much as
possible in the realm of technical military analysis and to avoid
involvement with political and moral judgments."
"We didn't have to look far for military reasons against the use of
nuclear weapons," says Gomer. "The Viet Cong [VC] were widely
dispersed, our troops concentrated in encampments designed to minimize
the perimeters which had to be defended so that we, rather than the VC,
were extremely vulnerable to attack by small nuclear weapons."
The authors focused on the suitability of enemy targets for a nuclear
strike and the likely effects on enemy ground operations.
Military obstacles
The analysis highlighted numerous obstacles, including the difficulty
of target acquisition, and the fact that even when good targets existed
the use of tactical nuclear weapons would not substantially affect
enemy operations. In some cases there were more effective alternatives.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2004-01-16/cover_big.jpg
The report identified a number of targets against which, in principle,
tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) might be useful. "Bridges, airfields,
and missile sites make good TNW targets." [10] Airfields were also
"ideal targets for TNW and are expensive targets for conventional
bombing." [11] The introduction of tactical nuclear bombing would
quickly render the 10 remaining operational airfields in North Vietnam
inoperable.
Other potential targets were large troop concentrations, tunnel
systems, and Viet Cong bases in South Vietnam. "TNW can be very
effective if the position of bases are known accurately, especially if
attacks can be delivered without warning." Still, the report concluded,
using tactical nuclear weapons in South Vietnam would be "helpful, but
in no sense decisive.
It would be equivalent to a major increase in the strength of B-52
bombardments." For instance, it would take 3,000 tactical nuclear
weapons per year to interdict supply routes like the Ho Chi Minh trail.
More problematically, U.S. forces might become vulnerable to a
Soviet-orchestrated counterattack; ''
And the first use of tactical nuclear weapons against guerrillas might
set a precedent that would lead to use of similar weapons by guerrillas
against U.S. targets.
In reality, the report concluded, few highly suitable targets or
effective uses could be found. "The use of TNW on troop targets would
be effective only in stopping the enemy from moving large masses of men
in concentrated formations.
http://kalaniosullivan.com/OsanAB/Pics/PyeongtaekHarborOpeningofContainerFacity.jpg
So long as the enemy moves men in small groups and uses forest cover,
he would offer few suitable troop targets for TNW." Using
"bomblet-canister ordnance" would be more cost-effective than using
nuclear weapons on troops in the open.
Viet Cong base areas in South Vietnam might be destroyed with tactical
nuclear strikes, "but this would require large numbers of weapons and
an accurate location of targets by ground patrols."
Tactical nuclear weapons could also block roads and trails in forested
areas by blowing down trees, but fallen trees could be relatively
easily cut through and cleared.
Finally, using fallout from ground-burst weapons to make trails
impassable would require repeated use of nuclear weapons and "would not
by itself provide a long-lasting barrier to the movement of men and
supplies, without endangering civilian populations at up to a distance
of 200 miles." [12]
http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/images/TibbetsEnolaGay.jpg
In conducting their analysis, the authors drew in part on the findings
of nuclear war-gaming studies performed by Rand and the Research
Analysis Corporation in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as well as the
U.S. Army Combat Development Command's 1965 Oregon Trail studies, which
demonstrated that it was extremely difficult to target troops in a
timely manner
.
Counterattack
The second half of the report considered the vulnerability of U.S.
forces to tactical nuclear attack. This was based on the assumption
that if the United States used tactical nukes first, either the Soviet
Union or China might decide to supply the Viet Cong with the same.
U.S. bases, harbors, and staging areas in South Vietnam were vulnerable
to Soviet bombers and infiltration by guerrillas, and would "offer
attractive targets for [the retaliatory use of] TNW." In fact, they
were far more vulnerable to the effective use of nuclear weapons than
were the smaller, relatively mobile, and difficult-to-find enemy
encampments.
In addition, the authors emphasized the "tremendous long-range
importance" of avoiding "setting a precedent for the use of TNW by
guerrilla forces." [13] U.S. forces, they wrote, would always be much
more vulnerable than insurgents to nuclear attack:
The dangers posed by increased guerrilla activity around the world in
the future "will certainly become more acute if the United States leads
the way by initiation of tactical nuclear war in Southeast Asia." [14]
http://www.you-are-here.com/aerial/gp.jpg
Overall, the report concluded, using TNW "in Southeast Asia would offer
the United States no decisive military advantage if the use remained
unilateral, and it would have strongly adverse military effects if the
enemy were able to use TNW in reply." [15]
Political consequences
Although the study stated at the outset that it was intended as a
purely technical analysis, in fact it included strong judgments about
the political costs and consequences of using nuclear weapons. The last
section, "Political Consequences," listed possible scenarios in which
the response to the U.S. use of tactical nuclear weapons was
escalation, although it did not estimate the relative probability of
these scenarios.
"The ultimate outcome is impossible to predict," the authors noted. "We
merely point out that general war could result, even from the least
provocative use of [nuclear weapons] that either side can devise." [16]
Most significantly, they concluded, even if massive retaliation did not
result, a U.S. first use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam would
have serious long-range consequences:
"The most important of these is probably the crossing of the nuclear
threshold. As Herman Kahn points out, abstention from the use of any
[nuclear weapon] is universally recognized as a
http://www.pref.ishikawa.jp/harbor/image2/W04-2e.gif
political and psychological threshold, however rational or irrational
the distinction between 'nuclear' and 'non-nuclear' may be. Crossing it
may greatly weaken the barriers to proliferation and general use of
nuclear weapons.
This would be to the ultimate disadvantage of the United States, even
if it did not increase the probability of strategic war." [17]
Whether or not the Vietnamese National Liberation Front or its external
backers countered with nuclear weapons of their own, the authors
argued, the effect on world opinion, and on the opinion of U.S. allies
in particular, would be "extremely unfavorable."
And, "with the exception of Thailand and Laos, the reaction would
almost certainly be condemned even in Asia and might result in the
abrogation of treaty obligations by Japan." [18] The effect on public
opinion in the United States "would be extremely divisive, no matter
how much preparation preceded it."
"In sum," they concluded, "the political effects of U.S. first use of
TNW in Vietnam would be uniformly bad and could be catastrophic." [19]
>From a purely military perspective, therefore, even if the target
acquisition problem could be solved (and that was not evident), for
tactical nuclear weapons to be effective they would have had to be used
in such large quantities (and with such frequency) that the political
costs would outweigh their military benefits.
When the risk of retaliation was added in, along with the risk of
weapons spreading to guerrilla forces around the world, it amounted to
a strong argument against the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the
war
.
Was anyone listening?
The fate of this report and the role it played, if any, in influencing
the administration's thinking on the role of nuclear weapons in the
war, remain vague. The authors handed it to their sponsors in the
Defense Department, never to hear of it again. [20]
http://www.nti.org/db/china/nukemap.gif
However, Seymour Deitchman, who was at the time at the Institute for
Defense Analyses (IDA), a federally funded research center under
contract to the Defense Department and acknowledged in the JASON
report,
suggests the report went to Defense Secretary McNamara's office. IDA
provided administrative and technical support for the JASONs group.
Deitchman recalls briefings on the JASON studies of that summer to
three audiences: to the JASONs themselves; to John McNaughton-
-then assistant secretary of defense for international security
affairs, who managed the JASONs relationship with McNamara; and to
McNamara himself.
Deitchman recalls the briefing to the JASONs clearly: "I remember being
struck by the main conclusion, that if we started down that route
[using nuclear weapons] we risked being hurt much more than the North
Vietnamese and the Viet Cong." [21] According to Deitchman, McNamara,
who received briefings on the JASON studies every year, was likely
briefed in late August or early September 1966.
This may have included a briefing on the nuclear weapons study,
although neither Deitchman nor the JASONs involved in the briefings
remember what McNamara was briefed on other than the electronic barrier
study that year. Deitchman says that after the briefing, the report was
never circulated. [22]
Since the Defense Department had to sign off on the topics of JASON
studies (which were chosen by the JASONs themselves), why would it
agree to a study on tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam? Here we have
some faint but intriguing outlines. Deitchman recalls recurring talk
around the Pentagon that spring and summer about using tactical nuclear
weapons to block passes between North Vietnam and Laos, especially the
Mu Gia Pass, a key part of the supply route heading south.
The pass was heavily and unsuccessfully bombed by B-52s, with heavy
losses for the United States. So when the JASONs proposed the nuclear
weapons study topic, McNaughton and McNamara might have found it a
useful device for putting an end to talk of using nuclear weapons in
Vietnam.
It remains unclear what effect the report had. When Deitchman returned
to the Pentagon in the fall of 1966, he heard no further talk of using
nuclear weapons in Vietnam. "Although I don't know," he recalls, "I
think it is reasonable to conclude from that, that if consideration had
been given to the idea before the study, Mr. McNamara simply dismissed
it as something not to think about seriously, and therefore the talk
simply went away."
http://www.fas.org/RLG/jsr-95-320.htm
It is possible that the report had little or no influence on McNamara
himself--in part because by that point in time (1966), he was already
adamantly opposed to the use of nuclear weapons. He was also
increasingly skeptical that the war could be won by deploying more
troops to South Vietnam and intensifying the bombing of North Vietnam.
(He offered his resignation to
Johnson in November of that year, largely over disillusionment with the
war.) McNamara does not recall either the study or the briefing on
tactical nuclear weapons, but concedes the briefing could have taken
place. [23] He states that he and McNaughton "were already totally
opposed to nukes, but that doesn't mean it [the study] wasn't useful."
The Joint Staff, at times during the Vietnam War, had developed plans
to use nuclear weapons against China, but McNamara didn't worry about
it "because there was no way either he or President Johnson would have
authorized their use." [24]
Ironically, McNamara was much affected by other JASON studies on the
Vietnam War conducted by other scientists. These included an analysis
showing that strategic bombing would not break the insurgents'
logistical support, because it did not depend on an infrastructure that
could be bombed; and another,
A notorious JASON study also completed in the 1966 summer session,
proposing the creation of an electronic, heavily mined barrier across
Vietnam and Laos like that in Korea ((if I get the traffic I expect
here I'll post those notes-just ask, quite a "Sack of Shit))
One analytical objection to the JASONs' study is that nuclear
counter-insurgency was never in the cards in Vietnam. [25] The focus on
a scenario in which the Soviets would supply tactical nuclear weapons
(the report mentions atomic mortars or recoilless rifles) ,,,,,,,,,,,,,
................to North Vietnamese forces was unusual because that
scenario was widely regarded as unlikely, given how tightly the Soviet
Union controlled its nuclear weapons. Rather, goes the argument, the
risk lay in the possible escalation of U.S. nuclear attacks to
urban-industrial areas in the North and ultimately to China, invoking
the operational plans to lay nuclear waste not just to Vietnam but to
China itself.
We know the U.S. military had detailed operational nuclear war plans to
respond to Chinese military action in Southeast Asia/Vietnam, as
revealed in the Pentagon Papers and recently confirmed in declassified
Pacific Command histories.
[26] Later in the war, in October 1969, President Richard Nixon put
U.S. strategic forces on alert to send a signal to Hanoi via Moscow
that it had better start to negotiate seriously or risk nuclear attack.
[27]
Still, the scientists had reason to be concerned that the use of
nuclear weapons was not "unthinkable" enough with respect to
battlefield use in Vietnam. After all, during the 1964 presidential
campaign, Barry Goldwater, campaigning for the Republican presidential
nomination,.....
.......... had suggested in a speech in May that tactical nuclear
weapons should be treated more like conventional weapons, and that
"low-yield atomic weapons" should be used for defoliation along South
Vietnam's borders. [28] A year later, on April 22, 1965, in comments to
a
New York Times reporter, McNamara refused to rule out the use of
nuclear weapons in Vietnam, even though he said their use was
inconceivable in the current circumstances. [29]
Dyson explains the scientists' focus on battlefield use as due to the
fact that at the time of the report, Johnson, not Nixon, was president.
"The danger we saw," he states, "was actual use of nuclear weapons, not
threatened use." [30] However, the scientists were undoubtedly
responding to loose talk about using nuclear weapons from lower-level
officials, rather than from Johnson himself,,.......
.... who was strongly opposed to their use. Johnson did not want to be
the president who set a new precedent for the use of nuclear weapons,
as he made clear in speeches in September 1964 responding to Goldwater.
Perhaps the moment of gravest risk of the kind anticipated by the
JASONs occurred in January and February 1968 when a conventional North
Vietnamese division was concentrated closely enough to form a lucrative
and "nukable" target.
It was also threatening to annihilate 5,000 U.S. soldiers under siege
at Khe Sanh.
At the time, Gen. William Westmoreland convened a nuclear study group,
the results of which have never been made public.
Johnson, however, was strongly opposed to even considering nuclear
options, and the study group was quickly quashed. At the same time,
Johnson took steps to ensure that the military had adequate
conventional forces to defend Khe Sanh. [31]
Are the conclusions relevant today?
How do the JASONs' conclusions relate to the Bush administration's
announced doctrines of preventive war and the preemptive use of nuclear
weapons against rogue states and insurgents such as Al Qaeda?
According to Dyson, "The general conclusions of our report are still
valid for any war in which the United States is likely to be engaged in
the future. The main conclusion is that the United States offers to any
likely adversary much better targets for nuclear weapons than these
adversaries offer to the United States.
This is even more true in the fight against terrorism than it was in
Vietnam." [32]
Since 1966, the notion of the strategic balance of terror ("mutual
assured destruction") and the underlying concept of "existential
deterrence" have been institutionalized in both national nuclear force
postures and a set of bilateral and multilateral arms
control/disarmament regimes.
But this framework is now challenged by new circumstances and new
declaratory policies that call for the expanded use of nuclear weapons
to prevent, or respond to, the use of chemical and biological weapons
as well as to the use of nuclear weapons by so-called rogue states and
state-sponsored or autonomous non-state actors (including terrorists).
The major issues that the JASON report addressed in Vietnam arguably
apply to the new circumstances today in two ways:
First, the JASONs carefully examined the same motivation that appears
to have driven the Bush administration to threaten potential
proliferators, and then to make war with Iraq--the possibility that a
state armed with weapons of mass destruction might transfer those
weapons to non-state actors willing to use state-scale terror.
As in 1966, adversarial states remain unlikely to use nuclear weapons
first because to do so would risk escalation or retaliation.
In the context of the Vietnam War, the JASONs noted that the National
Liberation Front's backers--China and the former Soviet Union--had
little interest in supplying insurgents with nuclear weapons for
purposes of a first use.
Chinese and Soviet leaders would be either self-deterred by the
prospect of loss of control, or would be deterred by the prospect of
U.S. retaliation. [33]
Second, the JASONs group recognized that any restraint felt by state
supporters of insurgents might end if the United States were to use
nuclear weapons first.
A U.S. first use against insurgents would provoke them--and future
insurgents--to seek to acquire their own weapons of mass destruction.
And whether for reasons of prestige or credibility,....
...... the need to counter overwhelming U.S. power or to demonstrate
their own nuclear strength, under those circumstances other states
might become more willing to provide weapons of mass destruction to
insurgents.
And once insurgents had acquired such weapons, they would have the
military advantage against the United States, because the United States
and its troop concentrations overseas present more suitable targets for
weapons of mass destruction than do insurgents.
lesson can be distilled from the JASONs' study of the applicability of
nuclear weapons to the Vietnam War--that it is a very bad idea to
attack insurgents and their state sponsors with nuclear weapons. Doing
so--and, we would argue today, threatening to do so--only legitimizes,
and makes more likely, the use of the only weapons that can really
threaten the United States on the battlefield.
I can and will post referenced footnotes (Many x Many) to any and all
who e-mail requests too....frankeedee2006@yahoo.com
PSS: I would entertain the possibly of working for "Homeland
Security" call me 607-692-4459 The MIRVman " I got information"