How the End Begins

Some people were skeptical when I outlined a potential nuclear war scenario in the opening chapter of How the End Begins.

But what do you know, the Prime Minister of one of the two largest nuclear powers on earth, Dmitri Medvedev had almost precisely the same scenario in mind according to today’s New York Times:

“The recent, hasty military operations inside foreign states usually end with the arrival of radicals in power, Mr. Medvedev said. He went on to add that: “At some moment, such actions, which undermine sovereignty, can end with a full-fledged regional war, or even, and I don’t want to scare anybody, the use of nuclear weapons.”

Good thing he doesn’t “want to scare anybody”!

But frankly, I do. The purpose of my book is to scare people (with grim and alarming facts) into caring about the danger that almost nobody wants to talk about.

Read the whole thing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/business/global/candid-comments-shake-russian-stock-market.html?_r=1&ref=world

The U.S. Russian anti-missile talks are breaking down apparently because of a mysterious U.S..turnaround on willingness to put in writing key telemtry data from its anti-missile systems that would reassure the Russians that NATO anti-missile systems aren’t aimed at Russian missiles.

Read the report at Global Security Newswire

Here’s some Thanksgiving morning news that should send a chill down the spine of the complacent. From Politico via AP:

Russia threatens U.S. missile shield

By ASSOCIATED PRESS | 11/23/11

MOSCOW – Russia threatened on Wednesday to deploy missiles to target the U.S. missile shield in Europe if Washington fails to assuage Moscow’s concerns about its plans, a harsh warning that reflected deep cracks in U.S.-Russian ties despite President Barack Obama’s efforts to “reset” relations with the Kremlin.

Happy holiday!

From London’s Literary Review:

‘Mixing sharp questioning with a touch of gonzo journalism, [Rosenbaum] builds his urgent argument from interviews with nuclear specialists and journeys into the system itself. He talks with Cold War Warriors and the ‘wizards of Armageddon’, as well as missile crewmen, and enters the surreal subterranean ‘war room’ of US Strategic Command. He peeks behind the often antiseptic language of the subject, repopulating the universe of nuclear doctrines and weapons with real people and dangerous contingencies, and shows how insanity – both systemic and even in the form of a hypothetical ‘mad ruler’ – leaves us vulnerable. At a time when disarmament has faded from strategic debate, Rosenbaum reminds us why it must be argued through’
Literary Review, July 2011

Try to find out the official nuclear-use strategy the Pentagon has put in place. Fo a long time we have put it about that we have a deterrence policy rather than a first strike policy. Although we have not renounced the first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict, a holdover from our Cold War pledge to defend Western Europe, our “doctrine” has been that we have nuclear weapons to prevent, deter, a first strike on us.

There have been periods of ambiguity but the declared policy is that we have nuclear weapons mainly as defense–a threat to commit genocide to prevent a genocidal attack.

But buried in plain sight in another valuable report from Global Security Newswire is a fairly clear statement that we are a first strike oriented nuclear nation. It came to light when House Republicans introduced some resolution designed to make sure any further cuts in nuke numbers after the START Treaty goals would not force us to go to a defensive deterrence posture for lack of first strike numbers of warheads:

“The [House GOP] demand apparently stems from lawmaker concerns that a new round of strategic arms control reductions below current treaty ceilings could require a change in nuclear targeting approach in which Washington focuses strikes on population centers, rather than on an adversary’s military installations.
The thinking is that some sort of alternative targeting scheme might be required if much deeper cuts are taken in the stockpile because fewer weapons would be available for hitting enemy assets.”

In other words the House GOP thinks we’re a first strike nation, the official policy is “second strike retaliation” or calculated ambiguity.

The reason first strike takes more warheads is because its primary aim is to kill weapons, and to be sure you’ve destroyed a silo buried weapon you ned several missiles to strike it at close range and that’s a lot of missiles just to take out one other missile.

With deterrent strategy it takes fewer warheads that don’t need to be especially accurate to exact genocidal retaliation. First strike is known as ‘counter force” retaliatory strikes are “counter-value” (value=human lives).

Some have argued “counter force” is paradoxically more ” moral” since even though it involves a first strike, its targets are weapons (and of course no collateral damage and poisoned planet would result from such “surgical” strikes) while counter value targets unarmed civilians concentrated in cities.

Others would say either is a crime against humanity. But isn’t it amazing that we don’t even know. The Pentagon, as you can see in Ch. 3 of my book, seems to have adopted a policy of “ambiguity” on the surface, but this new item seems to say that it’s just a cover for a first strike policy. I don’t think the House GOP knew what it was doing in revealing this, but it’s a major, disturbing disclosure.

…then read this paper by a British nuclear weapons security expert.

Then check out this quote from a Global Security Newswire dispatch in which another expert ,extrapolating from recent terrorist attacks on Pakistani military bases, tells us an attack on Pakistani nuclear weapons depots and launch facilities “is no longer an implausible event”.

In fact it’s a likely next step. I’m not the only one who has been warning about the consequences, According to some wargamers there are contingency plans in the Pentagon for US special-ops teams to “take custody” of Pakistani nukes in the event of a coup by Taliban or al Qaeda-friendly forces.

Sure, that’s going to work. We don’t even know where they all are. We thought we knew how many they had (60-100 was the conventional wisdom). Then we learned they have as much as two times more than that. Somebody’s going to set one of those warheads off, or steal a few for the Taliban and all hell is going to break loose. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I don’t want to say I told you so, but I’ve argued in my book and in that the continued pursuit of unilateral deployment of anti-missile missiles on Russia’s borders could well lead to Russia withdrawing from the Treaty. And now look what’s happening..

Today’s Wall Street Journal nearly buries a disclosure of the secret fear that underlies the new hostility that has entered into our previously troubled relations with our “ally”, Pakistan.

The story recounts the reaction of Pakistan’s top General, Kayani, when he heard copters had crashed in Abbottabad.

“His most immediate concern” the WSJ’s source told them, “was for the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear missile installations.”

This is The Big fear fear that Obama’s capture has set smoldering in Defense Ministries around the world. Pakistan’s already unstable, Taliban infiltrated, al Qaeda-sheltering government will collapse–it is already one coup, one bullet away from placing it–and its 90 plus nuclear warheads, in Taliban hands. The Heneral feared a pre-emptive custody raid on his nukes.

I’ve spoken to nuclear strategists and war gamers about this possibility, written abou it in my book: there are plans on the drawing board to try to deal with that nightmare scenario by “taking custody” of Pakistan’s nukes should that happen.

Multiple Navy SEAL missions perhaps. But because of the magnitude of the task–combined with uncertainty of their location, how they’re defended and defused–plans that are unlikely to succeed with anything near perfection. And knowing of such plans would put the new owners of the nukes in a “Use ‘em or lose ‘em” situation. A regional nuclear war would be hard to escape.

This how the end begins to come closer.

bin Laden and “nuclear concerns”, something I alluded to in my previous post, before the capture.

Did you catch the report that one reason the U.S. used stealth copters and didn’t tell the Pakistanis we were coming that night was that they might be afraid we were coming to “secure” their nukes, a scenario less and less fanciful considering 90 plus nuclear warheads are now one coup away from falling into the hands of the Taliban.

That’s the subject of this evening if you’re in Brooklyn May 9. Even if you’re not.