Pre-emptive nuclear strike NATO Option
Posted by: McQ
At least it should be an option according to 5 former senior NATO generals:
The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.
Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".
I come from the school, that when confronted with avowed enemies who will use anything to include nuclear weaponry (even if they don't yet have them) to advance their agenda, you don't take anything off the table to include the possibility of first use.
Note the word. "Possibility". I think we have to at least lead our enemies to believe that we're capable of the same level of ruthlessness as they are - after all the enemy's entire premise of attack is to strike first by whatever means available and, of course, to try to get the biggest bang for the buck.
Some would argue that NATO nukes have no real future in the war we're most likely to fight over the coming decades. They will argue it is a low intensity conflict by NGOs. I disagree citing the role of Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria as sponsors of those NGOs at some level or another. At some point, a nuclear threat against the state sponsor of an NGO attempting nuclear terrorism may be the only way to stop such an act.
Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund thinktank in Brussels and a former senior US state department official, described the manifesto as "a wake-up call". "This report means that the core of the Nato establishment is saying we're in trouble, that the west is adrift and not facing up to the challenges."
Naumann conceded that the plan's retention of the nuclear first strike option was "controversial" even among the five authors. Inge argued that "to tie our hands on first use or no first use removes a huge plank of deterrence".
Reserving the right to initiate nuclear attack was a central element of the west's cold war strategy in defeating the Soviet Union.
What they're arguing, of course, is that the preservation of that option may still will have a deterrent effect, at least in terms of the use of nuclear weapons. And while it can be argued it may not, what can be argued with certainty is that without that option, no deterrent effect is possible.
And the critics?
Critics argue that what was a productive instrument to face down a nuclear superpower is no longer appropriate.
Robert Cooper, an influential shaper of European foreign and security policy in Brussels, said he was "puzzled".
"Maybe we are going to use nuclear weapons before anyone else, but I'd be wary of saying it out loud."
Another senior EU official said Nato needed to "rethink its nuclear posture because the nuclear non-proliferation regime is under enormous pressure".
Of course much of the deterrent effect comes from "saying it out loud". The threat is the point. And frankly, I see nothing in the posture which effects nuclear non-proliferation. In fact, it makes the stakes of ignoring those treaty obligations a little higher.
There's more to the paper by the 5 generals than just the nuclear piece. They talk about the state of NATO and its future, and they're not particularly pleased with what they see.
