The Obama nuclear doctrine just reaffirms what I have personally thought about him and his followers who now occupy such high positions of power (after we foolishly voted him in) – that there are no grown ups in the White House – just a bunch of would be college political science professors, community organizers, social workers, and careerist civil servants. To unilaterally tell rogue regimes that they need not worry about a nuclear attack if they launch chemical or biological warfare against us, possibly killing tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans, borders on criminal stupidity or even treason.
by Charles Krauthammer
Nuclear doctrine consists of thinking the unthinkable. It involves making threats and promising retaliation that is cruel and destructive beyond imagining. But it has its purpose: to prevent war in the first place.
During the Cold War, we let the Russians know that if they dared use their huge conventional military advantage and invaded Western Europe, they risked massive U.S. nuclear retaliation. Goodbye Moscow.
Was this credible? Would we have done it? Who knows? No one’s ever been there. A nuclear posture is just that — a declaratory policy designed to make the other guy think twice.
Our policies did. The result was called deterrence. For half a century, it held. The Soviets never invaded. We never used nukes. That’s why nuclear doctrine is important.
The Obama administration has just issued a new one that “includes significant changes to the U.S. nuclear posture,” said Defense Secretary Bob Gates. First among these involves the U.S. response to being attacked with biological or chemical weapons.
Under the old doctrine, supported by every president of both parties for decades, any aggressor ran the risk of a cataclysmic U.S. nuclear response that would leave the attacking nation a cinder and a memory.
Again: Credible? Doable? No one knows. But the threat was very effective.
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Read the rest here: U.S. Shouldn’t Play Nice on Nukes
Tags: Charles Krauthammer
