YOM KIPPUR, WAR AND THE POWER OF DETERRENCE

Gilad Atzmon writes:

In the last week the Israeli papers have been saturated with articles and commentaries on Yom Kippur and the trauma that never fades away. Ynet and Haaretz both reflect on that event that shook Israel’s confidence and, for the first time, challenged its image of military omnipotence.

Two days ago I came across a very interesting story on Ynet (Hebrew edition). Apparently, just before hostilities began on October 6^th 1973, Israel became aware of a vast Soviet delivery of long range Scud missiles to the Egyptian army.  Seemingly, this piece of intelligence deterred Israel from its intention to raid Egyptian governmental and civilian infrastructure in Egyptian cities.

 Ynet Writes:

“Three days later, on 9 October, the [Israeli] Air Force (IAF) launched a series of deep raids on Damascus military headquarters in an attempt to put pressure on the Syrian government and leadership. One would expect the IAF to launch similar air raids on Egypt’s capital. Yet despite the Egyptian initial assault, and despite the tremendous pressure exerted by Egyptian armies on the Israeli forces in the Suez Canal, Israel was careful. It was fearful. Policy makers in Israel, headed by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, repeatedly rejected IDF’s suggestions to conduct deep raids against Egypt. It was the Soviet Scud missiles in Egypt that deterred Israel from conducting such aerial bombardments.”

I guess the meaning of this paragraph is simple yet crucial for the understanding of Israel and its politics. Israel restrained itself from pounding Egypt only because it was aware that the Egyptians had the means to retaliate. 

In other words, Israeli leaders knew all along that Egypt possessed the capacity to inflict pain to Israel’s cities. 

But it also means that Israel’s enemies: Arab countries, as well as Iran, must pursue every possible means to posses the kind of weaponry that deters Israel.

It seems this is the only way to bring Israeli aggression to an end.   

Israel and Iran’s Nuclear Program

MOHAMMED AYOOB states,

First, the charge against the Iranian nuclear program is led by Israel, which is the sole nuclear weapons power in the Middle East. This defies any logic except the logic of Israeli exceptionalism. Israel’s current rhetoric would have made sense had Israel put its own nuclear weapons on the table, accepted the idea of a NWFZ in all of the Middle East including Israel and Iran, and offered to sign the NPT and then made the point that it had the right to attack Iran if the latter did not accept this offer. But, denying Iran’s right to go nuclear (assuming that that is what Tehran desires) while holding on to its own nuclear arsenal and delivery systems makes Israel appear self-righteous and devious at the same time. The argument that Israel needs nuclear weapons because enemies surround it makes little sense in light of the fact that Israel is the dominant military power in its neighborhood and perpetuating this dominance is an integral part of American policy toward the Middle East.

Second, the case gets even curiouser if one scrutinizes the argument that an Iran in possession of rudimentary nuclear weapons poses an existential threat to Israel which is in possession of several hundred nuclear weapons of varying sophistication and size plus multiple, some of them state of the art, delivery
systems. Iran’s rulers would have to be desperate morons, which by all accounts they are not, if they decide to launch a first strike against Israel in the context of this nuclear reality. Iran’s mullahs, however unpalatable their rule may appear to be to many in the West, are not in the business of committing national suicide.

Third, the argument that Iran will be able to enhance its political influence in the Middle East especially in the Persian Gulf by acquiring nuclear weapons capability also makes little sense. Nuclear weapons may have deterrent capacity but are of little use as instruments of influence or of warfare. In fact, as current reports about the Gulf states acquiring anti-missile defense capability from the West testify, a nuclear Iran is likely to drive Iran’s Arab neighbors further into the arms of the United States thus increasing its isolation.

Moreover, of late Iran’s political stock has been falling among the neighboring countries both because of its ruthless suppression of the democratic movement in the country in 2009 and because of its current support to the Assad regime engaged in suppressing the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people. Adding a few rudimentary nuclear weapons to its arsenal is not going to buy Iran political influence in this context and may, in fact, turn out to be counterproductive politically.

Fourth, and the “curiousest” of them all is the fact that one member of the United Nations – Israel – is repeatedly threatening a military attack on another – Iran – without any fear of negative repercussions from the members of that august body for threatening international peace and security. Such repeated aggressive rhetoric by any other member of the UN would have led the Security Council go into overdrive and pass resolutions threatening the state expressing such aggressive intent with action, including military action, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

In this case, on the contrary, every escalation in the aggressive Israeli rhetoric has led to senior American officials rushing to Jerusalem not to warn it of dire consequences if it attacked Iran but to plead with the Israeli government to give the P5+1 more time through economic sanctions and by other means to prevent Iran from going nuclear. The curious thing about these episodes is that they take place while the American intelligence is nearly unanimous that Iran is not about to go nuclear any time soon.

Israel’s rhetoric makes much about the fact that Iran is in violation of UN Security Council resolutions by continuing with its uranium enrichment plan and that this justifies an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. If this logic goes unchallenged it would allow member states to appropriate the powers of the UN Security Council and determine what actions individual states or groups of states can take to implement Security Council resolutions that they find desirable. This is a recipe for mayhem and anarchy in the international system.

Just imagine if Iran or Egypt made the case that Israel is in violation of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 by not withdrawing from occupied Palestinian territories and that this gives them the right to bomb Tel Aviv. Would Defense Secretary Leon Panetta be rushing to Tehran or Cairo to plead with Khamenei or Morsi to give the US and its allies more time to force Israel to withdraw by imposing ever more stringent economic sanctions on it? Or would the United States immediately convene a meeting of the UN Security Council to undertake harsh measures under Chapter VII of the Charter against Iran or Egypt for threatening international peace and security? One can reasonably assume that the latter would be the course of action followed by Washington and other members of the P5+1. If this conclusion is correct, then should the same logic not apply to Israeli threats against Iran’s nuclear facilities?

Via: "CounterPunch"

U.S. Strategic Nuclear Policy, 1945-2004

Sandia Labs Historical Video Documents History of U.S. Strategic Nuclear Policy

Washington, D.C., October 11, 2011 Twenty five years ago, when President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met at Reykjavik, Iceland on 11-12-October 1986, their far-reaching discussions involved proposals to abolish nuclear weapons by first moving toward a zero ballistic missiles option. Weighed down by mistrust and competing objectives, the discussions on ending the nuclear arms race collapsed. That Ronald Reagan supported nuclear abolition atReykjavik is a lacuna in an otherwise informative and highly professional video documentary on the history of U.S. nuclear policy produced by Sandia National Laboratories obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and published today for the first time by the National Security Archive.

One of the most distinctive productions of the Department of Energy, "U.S. Strategic Nuclear Policy," is a four-part nearly four-hour long oral history/video documentary.

Completed in 2005 by Sandia under the direction of staffer Dan Curry (scriptwriter and interviewer), this is an engrossing piece of work that that will be a significant resource for historians, social scientists, students, and the interested public. Starting with World War II and the atomic bombing of Japan, this policy-oriented documentary takes the story of U.S. nuclear policy, with a focus on the history of nuclear deterrence through the course of the Cold War, and then from the early post-Cold War period to the aftermath of 9/11.

Among the topics covered are:

• The atomic bombings of Hiroshima-Nagasaki
• The impact of World War II bombing operations on nuclear strategy
• The Cold War and the origins of deterrence
• The creation of the Strategic Air Command
• The invention and impact of thermonuclear weapons
• Debates over massive retaliation and flexible response
• The origins and development of the Single integrated Operational Plan (SIOP)
• The Cuban Missile Crisis
• Détente and arms control
• The search for limited nuclear options
• The end of the Cold War and the reform of nuclear targeting
• Concern during the 1980s that nuclear targeting was "out of control"
• "Rogue states," nuclear proliferation, and missile defense
• The impact of 9/11 and debates over deterrence during G.W. Bush administration

Curry interviewed a number of key decision-makers and mid-level officials from the Cold War years, some more recent (as of 2004) defense officials and advisers, and academic specialists, including a few skeptical and dissident voices (See annex C for the list).

Providing multiple perspectives on a variety of issues, the interviewees include a variety of senior and mid-level officials such as former Secretaries of Defense Robert McNamara and James Schlesinger, Eisenhower administration officials Robert Bowie and Andrew Goodpaster, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, and the last commander-in-chief of the Strategic Air Command, General Lee Butler. Also interviewed were university researchers including Stanford University professors Lynn Eden, Scott Sagan, and David Holloway, University of Pittsburgh professor Janne Nolan, University of Wisconsin professor Paul Boyer, and the late Randall Forsberg, a peace activist/scholar affiliated with the City College of New York.

Many of the issues covered by the interview subjects and the narrative will be familiar to students of nuclear history. Nevertheless, the use of interview material and film footage makes for some fascinating viewing. The coverage of nuclear war planning and targeting, from war plans during the early Cold War to the creation of the first SIOP are particularly arresting. Besides using film footage of nuclear tests, summit meetings, and the like, the producers use, to good effect, images of government documents produced during all the phases of U.S. nuclear history, from the Cold War into the 1990s. Viewers even see the cover pages of documents that remain classified, such as the SIOP of the 1980s, although sometimes blurring the text to preserve secrecy.

Sandia director Thomas Hunter explains at the beginning of the film that one of the purposes of the documentary was to promote discussion of two questions: 1) what will be the role of nuclear weapons, and 2) what will be future requirements for nuclear weapons?

The language on the film box, referring to the "timeless" relevance of nuclear deterrence, suggests that the producers of the film assumed that the answers would take for grant

ed the necessity of nuclear weapons. This affirmative approach plainly fits Sandia's objective of assuring the reliability, safety and security of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. That the likely audience for the documentary was government and military officials might have reinforced the "don't rock the boat" approach, although such audiences probably have diverse views about the worth of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, even after taking into account institutional bias, the limits of oral history, and inevitable errors and omissions in the coverage, the four disks achieve credible results in using interviews and other source material to recount a complex and consequential story.

Sandia also produced a classified version of "U.S. Strategic Nuclear Policy," for which the National Security Archive has submitted a declassification request. It probably includes information on targeting policy, nuclear weapons, warning systems, and strategic intelligence collection that the producers considered too sensitive to discuss in a public release. Certainly, viewers of the non-classified version will notice a few gaps, such as the non-discussion of satellite intelligence, although the CIA and the National Reconnaissance Office have declassified some of the basics years ago.

The following material is reproduced with the permission of Sandia National Laboratories.

Part-1



Part-2



Part-3

Annex A. Reproduction of DVD Box (front and back)

Annex B. Table of Contents

Annex C. List of Interviewees

What follows is a subjective report on some highlights of the 4 DVDs with a sometimes critical assessment of the coverage. Viewers should skip (or postpone reading) the report, so they can see the documentary without preconceptions. Some may find the commentary useful later as they consider what they have seen and revisit some of the chapters.

Disk 1, 1945-1954: Chapters 1 through 9

These chapters cover the story of nuclear weapons policy from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the emergence of "massive retaliation" during the first years of the Eisenhower Administration. Besides the atomic bombings, some of the key moments in the chapters are the Berlin Crisis (1948), the origins of nuclear deterrence policy, the impact of the Soviet atomic test (1949) and the Korean War, Eisenhower's "Basic National Security Policy" the development of thermonuclear weapons and the implications for "nuclear plenty."

U.S. Army Air Force bombing operations during World War II usefully frame the early chapters, with Lynn Eden and Robert McNamara explaining how they informed nuclear strategy, including basic concepts of deterrence. For example, Eden discusses the impact of World War II on target categories and the calculation bombing damage, with blast effects becoming the chief measure of destruction. Taking the generally accepted view that the fire bombings of Japanese of Tokyo helped to legitimate the strategy of atomic strikes against more Japanese cities, the narrative treats the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a "culmination." According to George Quester, the "basis of deterrence" can be found in the atomic bombings. He argues that some Japanese government officials would have said to themselves, "I can't stand seeing that many people killed." In other words, the prospect of further destruction deterred Tokyo from continuing the war.

The coverage of the atomic bombings includes an oversight and an error. The only observation about the impact of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings is Admiral Wertheim's assertion that they were decisive for ending World War II in the Pacific--"tipped the scale" as he put it. Wertheim is entitled to his opinion, but letting his words shape the narrative makes one wonder what happened to the Soviet declaration of war on Japan, 8 August 1945, Historical debate continues over what exactly led to the surrender of Japan, but no one disagrees that the Soviet declaration had a critically important impact¹ and it should have been mentioned to avoid perpetuating a myth. An error creeps in when the narrator refers to—and the viewer sees---a memorandum from Truman to Secretary of War Stimson, 31 July 1945, as the "release order" for the use of the bombs. This memorandum was, in fact, a reference to a press release that was to be issued after the first bomb was detonated.²

To put the history of U.S. nuclear strategy in context, the film's narrator points to three major variables. The first is the impact of successive presidential administrations. The second is the pressure caused by changing world events. The third is the evolutionary development of nuclear weapons systems. These are relevant to understanding the history, but the editor could have taken into account an additional variable: the concepts of national security that influenced policymakers and helped shaped their decisions. While a film like this cannot go into this matter very deeply, it could have acknowledged the ideological, economic, and strategic concerns that made U.S. top officials believe that the United States had to play a major role in world politics and which shaped the diplomatic and military strategies of presidential administrations throughout the Cold War. Indeed, without taking into account the strategic interests which U.S. policymakers had already fought world wars to secure it is difficult to understand why they would even consider making the threats that comprised nuclear deterrence.³

On the context for nuclear policy immediately after World War II, Paul Boyer helpfully captures the "ambivalence" of U.S. security policy and diplomacy. That the U.S only had a handful of "functional" nuclear weapons during 1945-1947 exemplified the ambivalence. So did the Truman administration's proposals for international control of atomic energy, although the degree to which the Baruch Plan set back the possibility of control goes unmentioned.⁴

David Holloway makes fine contributions on Stalin and Soviet policy, but the narrative on the origins and early phases of the Cold War is workmanlike and traditional. It is largely a story of Soviet expansion with little hint of the considerations (concern about European stability and other national security objectives) that led the Truman administration to engage in a Cold War with the Soviet Union. The coverage of nuclear strategy is stronger, with the Berlin crisis treated as a "driver" (and as David Holloway explains, Stalin's reaction to Western moves to create a separate West German state). The emergence of the Strategic Air Command as a force that was being prepared to fight a nuclear war gets appropriate weight as does the key role of General Curtis LeMay in building the new organization.

The discussion of early nuclear planning is fascinating and so are the details on the early war plans--Half-Moon and Offtackle, and their relationship to World War II targeting. Lynn Eden explains the major target categories (Bravo: nuclear forces, Delta: urban-industrial, and Romeo: mobilization capabilities), although her explanation should have been used in a post-1950 context when those categories became integral to SAC planning. The chapter on "How Much is Enough for Deterrence" shows how "keeping ahead" of Moscow became important and why momentum for the H-bomb decision became compelling at the White House level.

The Korean War and the decisions on NSC 68 increased pressure for "Building the 'Super.'" John S. Foster credits Edward Teller as the "driving force" in the thermonuclear weapons program, although he does not show how stymied Teller and the H-bomb project were before Stanislas Ulam introduced the concept of compressing deuterium. Nevertheless, Ulam's contribution is made clear enough. The major focus is not on the inventors, but the impact of the H-bomb on the weapons stockpile. As Richard Garwin points out, with the H-bomb it became "possible to have vastly more weapons with a limited stock of "fissional material. The film footage of H-bomb tests illustrates their terrifying power, but what nuclear planners thought they would do does not get clear treatment. Nevertheless, a major Project RAND report declared that "thermonuclear weapons will be killers and fantastically destructive." "The heat will be sufficient to kill people and start fires miles from the point of burst."⁵

The discussion of "Basic National Security Policy" and nuclear deterrence during the Eisenhower administration cites NSC 162 for the position that nuclear weapons were "available for use as other weapons." This amounted to a repudiation of Truman's firm conviction that the atomic bomb was an "an instrument of terror and a weapon of last resort." Truman's post-Nagasaki revulsion to nuclear weapons use is not spelled out very sharply except for references to his "apprehension" and his "personal understanding of the damage" that nuclear weapons would do. Nevertheless, Truman's thinking would become typical as a "taboo" against nuclear use became institutionalized owing to the impact of world and domestic opinion, alliance politics, and the moral concerns of policymakers. Indeed, by the end of the 1950s, a more experienced Eisenhower had come to believe that nuclear weapons could not be used as "other weapons." As he put it in 1958, "when you use nuclear weapons you cross a completely different line."⁶

Disk 2: 1954-1964: Chapters 10 through 17

These chapters cover the rise of formative concepts for Cold War nuclear strategy: the debates over massive retaliation and flexible response, the impact of the RAND Corporation on strategic planning, Air Force thinking on the need for a preemptive strategy, the emergence of "assured destruction" and the second strike force concept, and the origins of the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), the U.S.'s first comprehensive nuclear war plan.

The influential role of the RAND Corporation is spelled out clearly, from the debates over massive retaliation to Robert McNamara's early tenure as Secretary of Defense. The late William Kaufmann, RAND consultant and MIT professor, explains why he thought Eisenhower-Dulles nuclear strategy was not only "horrendous" but incredible. The discussion of the RAND base vulnerability study demonstrates the close connection to Air Force interest in preemptive strategies. As Eden and James Schlesinger observe, the problem of survivability would raise pressure, during a crisis, to preempt and "get in the first blow."

The concept of a "survivable second strike force" is important to the history of nuclear deterrence by demonstrating the futility and risk of a first strike and preemptive attacks. The chapter on a "survivable second strike force" gives credit to RAND and the 1955 Killian Report for stimulating thinking along those lines, but credit should also go to the Navy.

Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) launched from a virtually undetectable platform epitomized the possibility of retaliation by a survivable reserve force. The chapter provides useful background on the development of a SLBM warhead and the development of low frequency radio systems to maintain command and control of SLBMs. Polaris's key role in as deterrent force is well explained, but not mentioned is the concepts of finite deterrence developed by Navy leaders. CNO Arleigh Burke argued that the Polaris force could provide the basis for a more stable and safer deterrent than the Air Force's quick-reaction, preemption-oriented, and vulnerable land-based missiles and bombers.

The chapters on "Fear of Thermonuclear Attack" and the evolution of massive retaliation evoke the atmosphere of the late 1950s in both the larger society and in the world of the policymakers and the nuclear planners. The nearly direct line from the terrifying Castle test series in the Pacific to the emergence of arms control policy later in the decade is manifest.

The coverage of the debates over massive retaliation is interesting, but William Kaufman never gets a chance to explain that the Air Force hated his counterforce strategy because it was inconsistent with their plans for a comprehensive nuclear onslaught. The chapters also cover anxieties over a bomber gap and the missile gap, but the Air Force's inclination for worst case analysis is handled with kid gloves (and that the Soviets tricked Air Force intelligence with repeated over-flights during an air show is not mentioned)⁷. The discussion of the U-2 is interesting but does not make it clear what its role was in clearing up the bomber gap.

"Integrated Planning" provides good coverage for the development of the first SIOP. Due attention is given the "shock" that top Kennedy administration officials felt when they became aware of the huge size and inflexibility of the first SIOP, but the plan's scale and scope is muted. The viewer gets no sense of the numbers of weapons assigned to the initial strike or the numbers of designated ground zeros (DGZs) that they targeted. Yet, those numbers have been available for years, in Fred Kaplan's and David Rosenberg's classic accounts of early nuclear strategy. Moreover, the chapter tiptoes around the concept of "overkill," although Rosenberg demonstrates why it is central to understanding SIOP-62.

Exemplifying the "overkill" is that using SIOP-62 damage criteria, SAC target planners estimated that destroying a target like Hiroshima would require 300 to 500 kilotons, 20 to 30 times the yield of the weapon used in 1945.⁸

The discovery that "missile gap" favored Washington, not Moscow opens the chapter on "flexible response," but the viewers do not learn that what made that possible is the Corona photographic reconnaissance satellite, declassified back in the 1990s. Robert McNamara's "whiz kids" had RAND connections and their role in the development of flexible response, including SIOP options, receives due prominence; so does William Kaufmann's "no cities"/counterforce (although the preemptive aspect of is not spelled out). McNamara describes flexible response as a strategy of "withholding," and further recounts his famous advice to President Kennedy: "it would be contrary to the interests of the US and NATO to initiate the use" of nuclear weapons. While Western European objections to conventional strategies are clear enough, the debate over a deterrence based on a higher or lower threshold for nuclear weapons use does not come across. Notwithstanding the U.S. interest in more conventional forces, the U.S. deployed 7,000 theater nuclear weapons as "symbols of American support."

"Assured Destruction" begin with the Cuban Missile Crisis. The emphasis for Khrushchev's motivation is on the Jupiter missile deployments in Italy and Turkey (although confused with the Thors deployed in Great Britain), but Moscow's concern about U.S. threats to Cuba are not mentioned. The presentation on why Kennedy rejected an airstrike is sharp, but how the crisis was settled is not. We never learn what happened to the Jupiters; some judicious editing would have created room for the basics of the secret deal. The missile crisis quickly segues into discussion of the concept of "Assured Destruction," a tool used for "sizing" or measuring the adequacy of strategic forces. What measured "assured destruction" was whether U.S. strategic forces had a second strike capability to destroy 30 percent of the Soviet population and 50 percent of industrial capability.

Disk 3: 1965-1983: chapters 18 through 23

The chapters on this disk cover anti-ballistic missiles [ABM], "mutual assured destruction" [MAD], the emergence of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), détente and Strategic Arms Limitations Talks [SALT], strategic targeting from Nixon to Carter, the "Second Cold War," strategic policy during the early Reagan administration ("From Countervailing to Prevailing"), and the controversy over the Strategic Defense Initiative [SDI].

The discussion of the Soviet ABM system and early U.S. missile defense programs, Sentinel and Safeguard, leads to the momentous decision to MIRV ballistic missiles. MIRVs would enable the offense to work around and strike targets defended by ABMs. Because MIRVs greatly improved "offensive capabilities" by creating thousands of new warheads, they created a serious arms control problem. Thus, Robert McNamara retrospectively says "I think I was wrong" to support MIRVs when he was Secretary of Defense.

The coverage of détente necessarily focuses on the relationship with deterrence and arms control, capturing well the ambiguity of the U.S.-Soviet relationship. As Kissinger's former deputy, General Brent Scowcroft observed, the purpose was to "calm things down" while allowing both sides to "keep on building systems." The presentation does not clearly show what made that possible: the SALT [Strategic Arms Limitation Talks] I agreement froze numbers of ICBMs for both sides, allowing the Soviets to catch up with the United States in deploying thousands of MIRVed nuclear warheads on the latest generation of Minutemen ICBMs. That the Minuteman force was on a highly risky quick-reaction, launch-on-warning posture is never discussed.⁹

A major element in these chapters is the growing interest in limited nuclear options, which became codified in National Security Decision Memorandum 242 and then updated and modified in Jimmy Carter's Presidential Directive 59. A key issue was the credibility of deterrence, with advisers from Kissinger to Brzezinski worried that even the "smaller" SIOP options were so huge that they reduced the credibility of deterrence. Although Michael Nacht notes that some worried that creating smaller options could make the use of the weapons more likely, Schlesinger counters that this was "not our view" because the new policy made war less likely (presumably by increasing the dangers).

Interviews with former top officials on strategic targeting policy during the late 1970s provide interesting results. Senior Pentagon nuclear planner Frank Miller argues that U.S. policy had fallen into an "intellectual trap" by taking "what would deter us" and "mirror imaging" it on Soviet policy. Statements by the late Leon Sloss, a State Department official who directed the Carter administration's strategic targeting review, suggest what Miller had in mind: evidence that the Soviets were building underground shelters in the Moscow area suggested that "the leadership was plainly serious to survive a nuclear war." The Kremlin believed that it could "survive and control a nuclear war." Thus, the Carter administration sought to disabuse the Kremlin of that notion by creating "pre-planned" strike options that directly targeted the Soviet leadership. James Schlesinger was critical of the new approach because attacking leadership targets would "destroy all possibilities of restraint," but secretary of defense Harold Brown suggested that the Soviets would be impressed and deterred by the reminder that "they would never survive nuclear war."

The narrative and interviews reproduce the outlook of nuclear strategists during the 1970s and 80s, but do not probe the claims that Moscow saw nuclear war as "survivable." Years after the end of the Cold War, it ought to be worth exploring whether Soviet-era sources confirm, modify, or refute such assumptions, but no such effort is made here. Had the Sandia researchers looked into it, they might have located an unclassified contract study for the Pentagon from the mid-1990s, based on interviews with former Soviet generals. It concluded that the U.S. government "[Erred] on the side of overestimating Soviet aggressiveness" and underestimated "the extent to which the Soviet leadership was deterred from using nuclear weapons." According to the study, the Soviet military high command "understood the devastating consequences of nuclear war" and believed that nuclear weapons use had to be avoided at "all costs." In 1968, a Defense Ministry study demonstrated that Moscow could not win a nuclear war, even if it launched a first strike. Although Soviet ideology held that survival was possible, no one in the leadership believed it. In 1981, the General Staff concluded that "nuclear use would be catastrophic."¹⁰

The Pentagon study was buried in relative obscurity until released through the FOIA in 2009. Nevertheless, a valuable and telling summary by John Battilega, an authority at SAIC on the Soviet military, was published in 2004.¹¹ The use of Battilega's evidence could have encouraged a more nuanced presentation of Soviet strategic thinking and facilitated a better understanding of the "intellectual trap" created by misunderstanding Soviet policy. This problem may point to a problem with the interview selection. Although Sandia tried to compensate by including experts like David Holloway, interviews with a few Russians with personal knowledge of Soviet nuclear history may have brought even more credibility to the enterprise.

The Carter administration saw its "countervailing" strategy as one that could terminate hostilities but never saw "winning" nuclear war as a possibility. By contrast, the Reagan administration's initial emphasis was on "prevailing" in nuclear war, which, Frank Miller concedes, was "unfortunate rhetoric." Acknowledging Reagan's anti-nuclear inclinations, the final chapters on the disk show that his administration's strategic modernization programs "fuel[ed] public fears," triggering a nuclear freeze movement at home and a Euromissile crisis abroad, also sparking debate over "nuclear winter." The coverage of Reagan's 1983 SDI proposal is evenhanded, with critics noting that there were "no deployable systems" or a possibility for "comprehensive defense." The last chapter ends with the crisis of the fall of 1983, the "lowest point" in the Second Cold War.

Disk 4: 1984-2003, chapters 24 through 29

These chapters cover the story of the "quiet revolution" in nuclear strategy from Ronald Reagan to George H. W. Bush, the end of the Cold War, arms control during the Clinton administration and the emergence of "new threats," the impact of 9/11, and the prospects for nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence.

The "quiet revolution" is a fascinating account of the internal debates and decisions over nuclear targeting policy during the 1980s and early 1990s, sparked by the concern of civilian and military defense officials that strategic targeting at was getting out of control. Following assumptions about damage expectancies that were quite severe, SIOP planners argued that "we did not have enough warheads" to destroy threatening targets. General Lee Butler (the last commander-in-chief of the Strategic Air Command), among others, concluded that "something was quite wrong here." Recognition of these problems led to major reform during 1985-1988 so that nuclear war plans actually reflected presidential guidance. Further changes, including more "reasonable damage expectancies," took place under Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney during the early 1990s. Of particular interest is the coverage of Trident II whose ballistic missile took on counterforce missions, thus adding to the lethality of U.S. strategic forces.¹² As Harold Brown observes, Trident II RVS had a "fair chance of destroying land-based missiles and bomber bases" in 15 minutes.

The impact of ABLE ARCHER '83, a NATO nuclear command post exercise, is central to the coverage of the end of the Cold War. According to the narration, the Soviet "overreaction" to what was considered a routine NATO operation had a "sobering" impact on President Reagan, who began to drop his combative rhetoric during and after 1984. The real impact of ABLE ARCHER on Moscow remains a matter of debate, but there is no question that after the war scare of the early 1980s, détente got "back on track."¹³ Nevertheless, Reagan's commitment to SDI complicated the relationship with the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, undermining any possibility for sweeping arms control proposals discussed at Rykjavik in 1986. Significantly, the narrative cites Gorbachev's support for nuclear abolition, but Reagan's parallel interest in abolition and his Zero Ballistic Missiles proposal are never mentioned.

With the events of 1989-1991 bringing the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact to an end, "Changing Priorities" led to restructured nuclear forces and reorganized command structures as well as new strategic arms control deals with the Russian republic. The "Emerging Threats" chapter also chronicles restructuring: the Nuclear Posture Review, the ending of underground nuclear tests, and the closing of obsolete and hazardous fissile materials production facilities.

"Emerging Threats" also recounts emerging concerns about ballistic missile and other threats from "rogue states." After citing the 1998 Rumsfeld Commission report on prospective ICBM threats from Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, the narrator declares that a North Korean missile test three weeks after the report's publication "dramatically confirmed the Commission's findings." This is a debatable claim about an alarmist report which concluded that Iran and North Korea "would be able to inflict major destruction on the U.S. within about five years of a decision to acquire such a capability." Plainly, the Iranians and Koreans have needed more than 5 years to acquire an ICBM capability.¹⁴ This is an issue where the Sandia history would have benefited from multiple perspectives instead of ex cathedra statements.

The last two chapters "New Context for Deterrence" and "Strategic Redirection" overlap, with both covering developments during the early George W. Bush administration and the role of nuclear weapons and deterrence. "New Context" has interesting interview excerpts, e.g., Robert McNamara on "no role for nuclear weapons except to deter," General Butler on the "half century tradition of non-use of nuclear weapons" (one of the few references to the "nuclear taboo" concept), and General Ellis's contrasting view that nuclear weapons will "lose their deterrent value if they can't be used."

Some statements demonstrate the risk of including predictions in an historical documentary. Frank Miller, then serving as a White House adviser, asserted that the 2002 Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions "would be [the] last treaty that would be central to US-Russian relations." The centrality of the recent New START Treaty to the Moscow-Washington relationship can be debated, but it demonstrates that the Moscow Treaty was not the "last" important arms control treaty. A statement by Linton Brooks that he's "not worried about arms races anymore" also sounds overconfident.

"Strategic Redirection" focuses on the implications of 9/11 for deterrence looking at such issues as whether non-state actors or rogue states can be deterred, as well as the direction of relations with Moscow and Beijing (e.g., whether China will be a "status quo" or "aggressively upwardly mobile country"). The question of preemptive and preventive options gets examined and so does the possibility of substituting advanced conventional weapons for nuclear weapons. Robert McNamara and Randall Forsberg suggest that the Bush administration's position on nuclear weapons invited further proliferation: "we will maintain our weapons in perpetuity, but you don't need them (McNamara)." Not surprisingly, the film concludes affirming the status quo, with Frank Miller implying that nuclear deterrence is necessary and will be available as long as the United States has the "policy, plans, forces, the wherewithal to carry out the plan, and the will to do so."

It is worth noting that some of the documentary's interviewees, including Lee Butler, Randall Forsberg, and Robert McNamara, have been (or had been) outspoken proponents of nuclear abolition, but any statements they may have made about that to the interviewer (and it would have been surprising if they had not) are not included (there are only hints). It may have been difficult for the producers to include such testimony because it would have been inconsistent with the documentary's purposes and U.S. policy at the time it was produced. Yet two years after the film was produced the "Gang of Four "(Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry, and Sam Nunn) published their abolitionist op-ed in The Wall Street Journal and in 2008, the victor in the presidential campaign supported that goal. If the film had been produced more recently, Sandia may have felt obliged to take this issue into account.

Via: "The National Security Archive @ George Washington University"

Why Iran Should Get The Bomb

Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability


Kenneth N Waltz, Emeritus Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley and Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University, writes: Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly, which has proved remarkably durable for the past four decades, has long fueled instability in the Middle East. In no other region of the world does a lone, unchecked nuclear state exist. It is Israel’s nuclear arsenal, not Iran’s desire for one, that has contributed most to the current crisis. Power, after all, begs to be balanced. What is surprising about the Israeli case is that it has taken so long for a potential balancer to emerge.

Of course, it is easy to understand why Israel wants to remain the sole nuclear power in the region and why it is willing to use force to secure that status. In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq to prevent a challenge to its nuclear monopoly. It did the same to Syria in 2007 and is now considering similar action against Iran. But the very acts that have allowed Israel to maintain its nuclear edge in the short term have prolonged an imbalance that is unsustainable in the long term. Israel’s proven ability to strike potential nuclear rivals with impunity has inevitably made its enemies anxious to develop the means to prevent Israel from doing so again. In this way, the current tensions are best viewed not as the early stages of a relatively recent Iranian nuclear crisis but rather as the final stages of a decades-long Middle East nuclear crisis that will end only when a balance of military power is restored.

One reason the danger of a nuclear Iran has been grossly exaggerated is that the debate surrounding it has been distorted by misplaced worries and fundamental misunderstandings of how states generally behave in the international system. The first prominent concern, which undergirds many others, is that the Iranian regime is innately irrational. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, Iranian policy is made not by “mad mullahs” but by perfectly sane ayatollahs who want to survive just like any other leaders. Although Iran’s leaders indulge in inflammatory and hateful rhetoric, they show no propensity for self-destruction. It would be a grave error for policymakers in the United States and Israel to assume otherwise.

Yet that is precisely what many U.S. and Israeli officials and analysts have done. Portraying Iran as irrational has allowed them to argue that the logic of nuclear deterrence does not apply to the Islamic Republic. If Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, they warn, it would not hesitate to use it in a first strike against Israel, even though doing so would invite massive retaliation and risk destroying everything the Iranian regime holds dear.

Although it is impossible to be certain of Iranian intentions, it is far more likely that if Iran desires nuclear weapons, it is for the purpose of providing for its own security, not to improve its offensive capabilities (or destroy itself). Iran may be intransigent at the negotiating table and defiant in the face of sanctions, but it still acts to secure its own preservation. Iran’s leaders did not, for example, attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz despite issuing blustery warnings that they might do so after the EU announced its planned oil embargo in January. The Iranian regime clearly concluded that it did not want to provoke what would surely have been a swift and devastating American response to such a move.

Nevertheless, even some observers and policymakers who accept that the Iranian regime is rational still worry that a nuclear weapon would embolden it, providing Tehran with a shield that would allow it to act more aggressively and increase its support for terrorism. Some analysts even fear that Iran would directly provide terrorists with nuclear arms. The problem with these concerns is that they contradict the record of every other nuclear weapons state going back to 1945. History shows that when countries acquire the bomb, they feel increasingly vulnerable and become acutely aware that their nuclear weapons make them a potential target in the eyes of major powers. This awareness discourages nuclear states from bold and aggressive action. Maoist China, for example, became much less bellicose after acquiring nuclear weapons in 1964, and India and Pakistan have both become more cautious since going nuclear. There is little reason to believe Iran would break this mold.

As for the risk of a handoff to terrorists, no country could transfer nuclear weapons without running a high risk of being found out. U.S. surveillance capabilities would pose a serious obstacle, as would the United States’ impressive and growing ability to identify the source of fissile material. Moreover, countries can never entirely control or even predict the behavior of the terrorist groups they sponsor. Once a country such as Iran acquires a nuclear capability, it will have every reason to maintain full control over its arsenal. After all, building a bomb is costly and dangerous. It would make little sense to transfer the product of that investment to parties that cannot be trusted or managed.

Another oft-touted worry is that if Iran obtains the bomb, other states in the region will follow suit, leading to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. But the nuclear age is now almost 70 years old, and so far, fears of proliferation have proved to be unfounded. Properly defined, the term “proliferation” means a rapid and uncontrolled spread. Nothing like that has occurred; in fact, since 1970, there has been a marked slowdown in the emergence of nuclear states. There is no reason to expect that this pattern will change now. Should Iran become the second Middle Eastern nuclear power since 1945, it would hardly signal the start of a landslide. When Israel acquired the bomb in the 1960s, it was at war with many of its neighbors. Its nuclear arms were a much bigger threat to the Arab world than Iran’s program is today. If an atomic Israel did not trigger an arms race then, there is no reason a nuclear Iran should now.  [Continue reading...]

Via: "War In Context"

Egypt Must Possess Credible Strategic Deterrent Against Israel

By Khalid M. Amayreh
July 3rd, 2011
Courtesy Of "The People's Voice"

One of the main but little-known restrictions imposed on Egypt by the United States during the era of former President Husni Mubarak prevented Egypt from trying to develop or acquire a reasonable deterrent against Israel's formidable nuclear arsenal.

Successive U.S. administrations sought to "compensate" Egypt for its inherent strategic inferiority vis-à-vis Israel in a variety of ways, including economic and military aid and also by turning a blind eye to the regime's severe violations of the Egyptian people's human rights and civil liberties.

One of the main tacit understandings governing the unequal relations between the U.S. and the Mubarak regime was that Egypt must remain in a state of perpetual strategic inferiority vis-à-vis Israel.

This meant that Egypt would be utterly unable to defend its people and sovereignty if Israel decided to embark on the unthinkable, e.g. use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction to bully Cairo into a total submission and surrender.

This strategic inferiority enabled Israeli supremacists, like the thuggish Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, to threaten to bomb the Aswan Dam. One other Israeli leader went as far as threatening the Gaza Strip's 1.6 million Palestinians with "a real holocaust."

There is no doubt that the enduring strategic imbalance in the Middle East has served to embolden Israel to reject every peace overture coming from the Arab world. It is also making the achievement of a just peace unlikely, if not impossible, especially in the foreseeable future.

Moreover, the nearly total control by Jewish lobbyists and pressure groups of the American government has made Israel feel it has a carte blanche to exercise characteristic insolence and arrogance of power as manifested in its unmitigated territorial expansion at the Palestinians' expense.

To convince Arab states of the futility of embarking on nuclear programs that might eventually enable the Arab world to possess a nuclear deterrent against Israel, the U.S. repeatedly sought to assure unelected, subservient and often obsequious Arab tyrants that Israel would never ever contemplate using its nuclear power against her neighbors.

However, given U.S. subservience to the pro-Israeli pressure groups, such as AIPAC which tightly controls Congress, any American assurances to this effect should be treated as worthless.

It is true that the Israelis don't indulge in a lot of blathering and saber-rattling with regard to their huge nuclear arsenal. However, it is also true that Israeli nuclear missiles and war heads are trained toward Cairo, Amman, and Damascus, not Rome or Athens or Addis Ababa.

I am not a prophet of doom and gloom and I do believe that only true peace that is based on justice and human dignity constitutes the ultimate guarantee for security for states and peoples alike.

However, when one watches the Israeli Jewish society moving rather menacingly toward a sort of Jewish jingoism or worse, one cannot solely rely on Israel's good intentions or, indeed, American assurances.

In the past, Israel did contemplate using nuclear weapons against Arab states as acknowledged by Israeli military historians. Likewise, there should be no doubt as to Israel's presumed willingness to resort to threatening its neighbors with a nuclear holocaust, especially if the latter sought successfully to recover their land occupied by Israel.

The Israel of today is not the same Israel of the 1960s, when a certain semblance of rationality and logic governed its nuclear doctrine. The Israel of today is more Talmudic, more fanatical, and even more genocidal.

Just imagine if control over Israel's nuclear arsenal is passed to Talmudic, religious fanatics, Dov Lior, Ovadia Yosef or other Talmudic sages who believe that annihilating a million or two million non-Jews shouldn't raise any eyebrows since non-Jews are effectively animals walking on two legs according to some influential rabbinic authorities.

The strategic inferiority facing the Arab world vis-à-vis Israel is a constant motivating factor driving Israel to blackmail and bully Arab states, individually or collectively.

And if and when bush comes to shove, nothing, absolutely nothing would help the Arabs.

As to the western world, countries which wouldn't support Israel with a messianic zeal would be either silent or call on both sides to show self-restraint!!

This is not a far-fetched scenario, especially in a world that has been effectively morphed into a real jungle, thanks to America's diabolic embrace of Zionist depravity. Needless to say, in a jungle one would have to be wolf or a fox or a venomous cunning snake in order to survive.

We saw recently how the bi-cameral US Congress gave multiple standing ovations to an Israeli Prime Minister who is essentially a pathological liar who thinks peace with the Palestinians can be achieved by stealing more of their ancestral homeland and by transferring hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers to live on a land that belongs to another people.

This shows that the U.S., a country deprived of its free will and national decency by Zionist money and power, would support anything done by Israel.

In light, it is imperative that the largest Arab country must see to it that hundreds of millions of Egyptians and Arabs not remain at the mercy of Israel's genocidal whims.

The current strategic situation between Israel and Egypt is a real scandal. Accepting this scandal as a perpetual fact of life is a real crime against the dignity and sovereignty of Egypt.

It is really hoped that the future governments of Egypt would be more answerable to the will of the Egyptian people than to U.S. administrations that are more or less at Israel's beck and call.

Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) kept the peace between the Soviet Union and the West during the Cold War era. However, in the Middle East where one aggressive, fascist, even Nazi-like state based on the policy of lebensraum could threaten all its neighbors with instant extinction, peace is the last thing that comes to one's mind.

We who have been living under the Israeli rule for many decades know rather too well the Zionist Jewish mindset. It is a mindset based on the subjugation and enslavement of the non-Jew.

It is no wonder that some influential partners in the Israeli coalition government of Benyamin Netanyahu make no secret of their ideological agenda vis-à-vis non-Jews living under Israeli rule. They say goyem (non-Jews) have three choices: enslavement as water carriers and wood hewers, expulsion, or physical extermination following Biblical style. (end)

The Changing Middle East Landscape

Turkey’s switch from Israeli ally to Israeli opponent will have profound consequences for the balance of power in the Middle East

By Patrick Seale
First Published 2010-06-07
Courtesy Of "Middle-East-Online"

Israel’s commando attack on 31 May on the flotilla bound for Gaza has had three immediate consequences: Turkey has become Israel’s bitter adversary; international pressure is mounting on Israel to lift the siege of Gaza; and Western governments are being forced to review their decision to boycott Hamas -- a decision they took under American and Israeli pressure after Hamas’ electoral victory of 2006.

In a clear challenge to Israel -- as well as to Europe and America -- Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week described Israel’s attack on the aid flotilla as “state terrorism.” In a striking contrast, he declared that Hamas was not a terrorist organisation but a resistance movement struggling to recover its land. This is not news in the Arab world, but in the West it represents the breaking of a taboo.

Erdogan’s cry has been taken up in Europe. To quote a single example, Dominique de Villepin, a former prime minister of France, wrote in Le Monde on 5 June that the siege of Gaza must be lifted as a first step, and that -- “as everyone knows very well” -- Hamas must be brought into the peace process leading to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Turkey’s switch from Israeli ally to Israeli opponent will have profound consequences for the balance of power in the Middle East. It deals a severe blow to Israel’s military supremacy in the region, which has been the central plank of is security doctrine since the founding of the Jewish State in 1948.

Israel now faces a formidable combination of adversaries, consisting of Turkey and Iran, the two regional heavyweights, as well as Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas. Rarely has Israel’s strategic environment been so unfavourable -- largely as a result of its own aggressive policies.

The regional landscape is changing. Following its overwhelming victory in the 1967 war, Israel enjoyed unchallenged supremacy for the next forty years. This supremacy was seriously threatened only once -- that is to say by the October war of 1973, which was an attempt by Egypt and Syria to reverse the verdict of 1967.

The war started well from the Arabs’ point of view, but its outcome restored Israel’s advantage. In particular, Israel’s peace with Egypt in 1979 removed the most powerful Arab state from the Arab line-up. This allowed Israel to concentrate its forces in the north. The consequence was Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which was aimed at bringing that country into Israel’s strategic orbit. Had this aim been realised -- had Israel been able to install a friendly government in Beirut under its protection -- Syria would have been neutralised. Syria and is allies fought back, and the danger was averted.

Over the past three decades, Israel has acted repeatedly to maintain its regional military supremacy. In 2003, it was instrumental in pushing the United States into war against Iraq, a country Israel saw as posing a potential threat to the east. But the destruction of Iraq had the unintended consequence of promoting Iran as a regional power. Since then, Israel has campaigned tirelessly for Iran, in turn, to be brought low. It has pressed for harsh international sanctions against it and has repeatedly threatened to attack its nuclear facilities, if the United States did not do the job itself.

At the same time, Israel has reacted violently to attempts by two non-state actors, Hizbullah and Hamas, to challenge Israel’s supremacy by acquiring a minimal deterrent capability. It tried to destroy Hizbullah by its 2006 assault on Lebanon, and Hamas by its assault on Gaza in 2008-9.

Although, Israel did very considerable damage to both Lebanon and Gaza, one might argue that both Hizbullah and Hamas have emerged stronger from these conflicts.

Turkey has since consolidated its position as a regional power by developing a vast network of relations in the Balkans, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Among Arab states, its relations with Syria have become particularly close. In contrast, Turkey has decided to review all its military and economic agreements with Israel, and to reduce its relations to a minimum, according to its deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc.

The present situation is fraught with danger but also with hope. An attempt by Israel to restore its battered supremacy by some great military strike cannot be excluded. On the other hand, the world has become increasingly impatient with Israel’s contempt for international law and its readiness to resort to force.

Condemnation of Israel has opened a rare window of opportunity for the Palestinians. Will they have the wisdom to seize it? It is today more vital than ever for the Palestinians to end their internal quarrels and close ranks. Their aim should be to form a government of national unity, and seek recognition of it from the United States and the European Union.

Without Palestinian unity there can be no real progress on the peace front. And without peace, the region will be condemned to more violence.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).

© 2010 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

Planning The Peace & Enforcing The Surrender

Deterrence In The Allied Occupations Of Germany and Japan

By Melissa Willard-Foster

What exactly did the United States plan to do in the case of resistance? This study seeks to address the gap in both the historical and political-science literature by examining policy designed for the initial period of occupation in Germany and Japan.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xl:1 (Summer, 2009)

Buzz ItShare

Russia`s Military Doctrine

Nukes as Most Weighty Argument in Strategic Deterrence

"Moscow military doctrine relies on the likelihood of large-scale wars"

by Yuriy Rubstov
Source: Strategic Culture Foundation
December 11, 2009
Courtesy of Global Research

Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev, says Russia will soon unveil its draft military doctrine and submit it to the President for consideration till the end of the current year. The statement proves that Russia is finally close to having its military doctrine which would define all the threats the country is facing nowadays and the ways to neutralize them.

The military doctrine has been considered by its authors (an inter-agency working group involves state officials, members of the parliament and the Federation Council, the President's plenipotentiaries, academicians, experts and public figures) as a set of core documents defining a common mechanism of ensuring national security.

In May 2009 Dmitry Medvedev approved a brand new document-the Russian National Security Strategy until 2020. Among the major strategic national priorities- alongside with state and public security- the notion of national defense is mentioned, its goals primarily achieved through the use of force. Quotation: “Military security is ensured through the development of the state military system and defence potential, and also by allocating enough financial and other resources for the implementation of these goals”.

Thus, the logics of the national security strategy requires a detailed analysis of the whole range of issues related with military security-after all, this is what makes the core of the military doctrine.

This doctrine is not something new for modern Russia. This document was first unveiled in 1993. Its authors insisted that any kind of war conflicts involving the Russian army were inadmissible, which demonstrated in full the illusions of the Yeltsin rule. The Kremlin had to learn two bitter lessons afterwards: two Chechen campaigns and NATO`s war against Yugoslavia.

Russia`s latest version of the military doctrine was released in 2000. It relies on the likelihood of large-scale conflicts and wars Russia might be involved in, and also allows the use of nuclear weapons to repel aggression if an enemy applies conventional weapons in a large-scale war.

Undoubtedly, this is a more realistic view. However, some disadvantages became evident with time. For example, this version of the doctrine focuses mainly on the issues of military security, points to military threats and how to counteract them using force. But we should be aware that as a result of radical changes there also appeared such threats that could be implemented through non-military means. So, military security must be ensured not only by the army but also through the use of economic, diplomatic and other resources.

The latest doctrine differs from its previous versions. It mentions those external and internal threats that had not been taken into consideration before, including a war for energy resources, the proliferation of the weapons of mass destruction, international terrorism, territorial claims, ethnic conflicts and separatism. The new doctrine also pays attention to the use of high-precision weapons, unmanned aircraft, autonomous underwater vehicles, biocybernetic system, e.t.c.

Prevention of any military conflicts is proclaimed a high priority for Russia. At the same time, it says that Russia sees it legitimate to use force to repel aggression, protect its allies, take part in the peacekeeping operations sanctioned by the UN Security Council and other organizations dealing with collective security. The doctrine also quotes the amendments made in October to the Law on Defence which stipulate the use of military force abroad.

What is especially important about Russia`s new military doctrine is that it allows to use nuclear weapons to repel aggression if an enemy applies conventional weapons in a large-scale war. If the national security happens to face a serious threat, Russia does not rule out a possibility of a nuclear attack, including a preemptive one, against an aggressor in either large-scale or regional war. Actually, we see that Russia has lowered a threshold of nuclear deterrence.

Thus, Russia`s nuclear strategy starts to resemble more that of the United States. I would even assume that the aforementioned amendments to the doctrine are first of all addressed to Washington after it had made a few steps to impel Moscow to reduce its nuclear arsenal and at the same time ensured its strategic superiority with the help of high-precision weapons, including naval cruise missiles. In other words, the US has been trying to undermine Russia`s ability for strategic deterrence.

So, ahead of the final round of Russo-US talks on a new START treaty, Moscow demonstrates it has no intention to reject nukes as one of the most important means of strategic deterrence. That is why the Security Council of Russia has been taking every effort to complete the work on the new military doctrine by the time the new START treaty is ratified.

Global Research Articles by Yuriy Rubstov

The US, Iran and Nuclear Terror

It would not be surprising if the Iranian regime decided at some point - perhaps in the near future - that it needed to develop nuclear weapons to protect itself from the belligerent rhetoric and threats of the US and Israel

By Anthony DiMaggio
First Published 2009-09-29,
Last Updated 2009-09-29 11:21:01
Courtesy Of Middle-East-Online

Iran's admission that it is enriching uranium at a second nuclear site was greeted with alarm in the halls of Washington and in American newsrooms on Friday. Obama has long warned about the "existential threat" that Iran poses to the US and its allies. Concern over a nuclear Iran is understandable for those who are committed to the abolition of nuclear weapons, and for those who worry about the danger that nuclear proliferation poses for human survival. It should be noted, however, that the Obama administration does not share those concerns. US officials have always been preoccupied with how to prohibit enemy states from developing these weapons, while ensuring maximum US and allied maneuverability in keeping such weapons, and even in using them when deemed necessary.

I consistently stress that US national intelligence and international intelligence provide no evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. While I stand by this conclusion, it is worth noting that Iran's declaration this week that it was quietly developing nuclear fuel (fuel that it had not reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency) is troubling for those committed to transparency in the development and use of nuclear fuel. Indeed, it would not be surprising if the Iranian regime decided at some point - perhaps in the near future - that it needed to develop nuclear weapons to protect itself from the belligerent rhetoric and threats of the US and Israel. It is also at least theoretically possible that Iran already decided to proceed with a weapons program, although the uranium disclosed at Iran's two nuclear plants is clearly unfit to be used in developing such weapons. All of the uranium currently used in Iran - at least the uranium that has been reported to or found by the IAEA - is not of a weapons grade quality. The BBC reports that legally, Iran "does not need to inform the IAEA of any new [nuclear] site until 180 days before any nuclear material is placed in the facility." For the record, the second plant reported in the news this week is not yet operational. Hence it is not evidence - contrary to the claims of Obama - of an Iranian violation of the inspection process or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The major point that needs to be understood is that, as of today, there is still no hard evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

There is certainly good reason, however, for Iranians to be concerned with US aggression. Although the Obama administration indicates that it would sit down and negotiate with Iran without preconditions, it also refuses to take the military option off the table. The threat of a US attack (or an attack itself) threatens to throw an already volatile region into complete chaos. A review of the US foreign policy record is also a cause for concern when evaluating US threats against Iran. The review below is illuminating:

The number of major US invasions since World War II: 13

By conservative estimates, the US led over a dozen invasions of sovereign countries in the last 65 years - including attacks on North Korea (1950 and 1951), Cuba (1961), South Vietnam (1962), The Dominican Republic (1965), Cambodia (1970), Lebanon (1982-1983), Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991), Haiti (1994), Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq again (2003). US covert operations designed to overthrow foreign governments are about three times more common than invasions. As William Blum explains in his classic book Rogue State, "From 1945 to the end of the century, the US attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes." To that list of attempted overthrows in the post-2000 period one could add Venezuela, Iraq, Haiti, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iran - just to name the cases we know about.

The number of nuclear weapons that the US and allies possess, in violation of the spirit of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: 22,965

While Iran is a non-nuclear state, the number of nuclear weapons possessed by powers that either support sanctions or an attack on Iran is staggering (this list includes Russia, the US, UK, Israel, the UK, and France). The US is the only country to have used nuclear weapons against civilians, despite its claims that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a responsible act intended to reduce American lives lost and force an early end to the war.

The number of times the IAEA has successfully inspected the US and its allies' nuclear arsenals in order to force them to disarm: 0

This point remains absolutely vital. Nuclear states retain their "right" to keep nuclear weapons indefinitely, while forcing other countries into inspections with the threat of sanctions and war. In the case of Iran and Iraq, both countries were forced into inspections by the UN Security Council - a body the US has long used as a weapon against weaker non-nuclear states. Furthermore, the US does not even pretend to secretly reconstitute its nuclear weapons stockpile. US leaders contemptuously flaunt their disregard of the NPT's disarmament requirement by publicly announcing their intent to redevelop nuclear weapons. The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program is a case in point, which Secretary of Defense Robert Gates supported as a means of "modernizing" the US nuclear stockpile. The program's funding was eventually cut off by Congress in 2008, although that has not stopped the US from developing and using other radioactive weapons such as Depleted Uranium shells in the battlefield. While Depleted Uranium is clearly not the same as a nuclear weapon, we would do well to remember that the danger of radioactive weapons is cited as a major reason for detaining alleged terrorists such as Jose Padilla - the infamous Chicago "dirty bomber."

The number of times Iran has threatened another country with nuclear annihilation: 0

Much has been made of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's alleged claim that he will "wipe Israel off the map." Scholarly analysis of this incident reveals that this is likely an inaccurate reading of Ahmadinejad's statement. As Middle East expert Juan Cole explains, the statement was originally drawn from a speech from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which promised that the "[Israeli] regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." As those familiar with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict understand, there is a great difference between demanding that an illegal occupation come to an end and a threat to wipe the state of Israel off the face of the earth. Ahmadinejad is rightly condemned throughout the world as an anti-Semite, but denying the Holocaust is not the equivalent of supporting the nuclear annihilation of Israel. Even if Ahmadinejad does believe that Israel should be destroyed, US pundits and officials are hard pressed to explain how he would accomplish this task without the possession of nuclear weapons, and in light of the fact that Ahmadinejad does not hold the power to make decisions regarding Iranian foreign policy. As the supreme leader in Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has final say over foreign policy. Furthermore, the Iranian leadership indicated as recently as 2003 that it was willing to negotiate an easing of tensions with the US, in exchange for recognizing Israel within the pre-1967 Israeli-Palestinian borders. This fact rarely makes it into journalistic and political screeds framing Iran as an "existential threat" to Israel.

The number of countries the US has explicitly threatened with nuclear annihilation: 8

I am aware of at least eight instances in which the US threatened countries with nuclear weapons. As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2002, the Bush administration's Nuclear Posture Review included within it "contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, namely not only Russia and the "axis of evil" - Iraq, Iran, and North Korea - but also China, Libya, and Syria. In addition, the US Defense Department has been told to prepare for the possibility that nuclear weapons may be required in some future Arab-Israeli crisis. And it is to develop plans for using nuclear weapons to retaliate against chemical or biological attacks, as well as ‘surprising military developments' of an unspecified nature." The Bush administration's National Security Presidential Directive 17 reaffirmed the US commitment to using nuclear weapons against any country that might use weapons of mass destruction against the US and its allies. Some might discount these two documents as merely defensive posturing or as simple contingency plans that are not likely to be implemented by the US It is worth reflecting for a moment, however, on how US leaders would react to similar documents threatening nuclear war against the US if they were issued by Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Iran, or any other national enemy.

US plans for nuking other countries go beyond vague hypotheticals. The Nixon administration famously popularized the "madman theory," whereby the US might nuke countries that oppose capitalist interests. As Nixon explained to his Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, "I call it the madman theory. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the [Vietnam] war. We'll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry - and he has his hand on the nuclear button' - and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace."

Nixon's contemplation of nuclear blackmail was not an isolated incident. In 1995, the Strategic Command under the Clinton administration released a study speculating over the use of nuclear weapons for strategic purposes. Titled "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence," the document concluded that the goal of US foreign policy should center on creating fear in the heart of adversaries: "Because of the value that comes from the ambiguity of what the US may do to an adversary if the acts we seek to deter are carried out. It hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational or cool-headed. The fact that some elements may appear to be potentially ‘out of control' can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts in the minds of an adversary's decision makers. This essential sense of fear is the working force of deterrence. That the US may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be part of the national persona we project to all adversaries...nuclear weapons always cast a shadow over any crisis in which the US is engaged. Thus, deterrence through the threat of nuclear weapons will continue to be our top military strategy." While some might again point out that the document states that the US is "not likely to use [nuclear weapons] in less than matters of the greatest national importance," one can imagine how US leaders would react if they read a document from Iraqi or Iranian officials making similar claims about their "responsible" possession and use of nuclear weapons.

American political elites and journalists will predictably cast stones at Iran for the alleged danger the regime poses to world order. Those with a critical knowledge of US history and policy will be more hesitant to accept this hypocritical "defensive" posturing. We should not discount the danger that the spread of nuclear weapons poses to human survival; but at the same time, we should never exaggerate threats when there is little to no evidence of an immediate danger. Anti-proliferation efforts need to be driven by a sincere, even-handed effort to disarm all nuclear and potentially nuclear powers, whether they are big or small, and regardless of whether they're powerful or weak.

Anthony DiMaggio teaches American and Global Politics at Illinois State University. He is the author of Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (2008) and the forthcoming When Media Goes to War (2010). He can be reached at adimagg@ilstu.edu.This article appeared in CounterPunch.org.