Obama Unveils New Nuclear Doctrine

Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that under Obama's new 'Nuclear Posture Review,' released today, the US will foreswear the use of the nuclear weapons against nonnuclear countries, in contrast to previous administrations, which indicated they might use nuclear arms against nonnuclear states in retaliation for a biological or chemical attack. But the new policy included a major caveat: The countries must be in compliance with their nonproliferation obligations under international treaties. The problem for Iran and North Korea is that the pledge does not cover them because the US regards them as in non-compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The new policy will also describe the purpose of US weapons as being fundamentally for deterrence. Some Democratic legislators had urged Obama to go further and declare that the United States would not use nuclear weapons first in a conflict, but officials worried that such a change could unnerve allies protected by the US nuclear 'umbrella.' The president of the Ploughshares Fund said of the new stance, 'It orients US policy towards dramatically fewer weapons and greatly reduced roles.'"

Re:Heres the thing...

[Wyatt Earp]

The US is crazy dynamite monkey.

Re:HAMs

[Locke2005]

Why go all the way to Haiti? Catrina did a great number on the US, and there is always a minor sizemic activity, flood, forest fire, or lost persons... yes, HAM are the ones that go out there in those situations and run communications, often with their own equipment and on their own time. Even that parade you watch, the car race, space flight, or other local event may have been fully or in part orchistrated with the aid of HAM Radio operators. There is also significant technology brought out by HAM Radio experiementers--do you like the idea of Lo-Jack? APRS was the pattern for it.

Been writing in English long?

Re:Translation for your average homeowner...

[LostCluster]

Yes there is, The Hague, The UN, and NATO. When 9/11 happened, we had the whole world willing to help us clean up Afghanistan. When Bush 2.0 said "Now let's go after Iraq!" without a sufficient case, they started looking at him funny.

Re:Weak on National Defense

[GeodesicGnome]

Honestly! You feel threatened by Venezuela?! Good thing we've had those nukes keeping Venezuela from attacking us!

Re:Good and Bad

[Xoltri]

So when the SSBN fires an SLBM with 12 convention MIRVs

I think you should use more acronyms next time.

Re:Good publicity move

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear weapons have turned into something of a penis waving contest.

Hence why we need more women in leadership. Just think what they'd wave.

Re:Good and Bad

[Wyatt Earp]

We are talking about nuclear weapons. Acronyms are part of the business, its like computers and networking with RAM, CPU, NIC, Eth0, SATA, IDE, RAID-0...

OK. So, when the Nuclear Powered Strategic Missile Submarine fires a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile with 12 conventional Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles...

Re:So, that's why!

[causality]

I work for an extended warranty company

How do you sleep at night?

Re:Good and Bad

[amicusNYCL]

OK. So, when the Strategic Submersible Booming Nuker fires a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile with 12 conventional Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles...

Fixed that for you.

Re:Good and Bad

[Captain Splendid]

Obligatory. [whatisdeepfried.com]

Re:Good publicity move

[Anonymous Coward]

Trench warfare? Very ugly...

Re:Good and Bad

[amicusNYCL]

I read the wiki article before I posted, Mr. No Sense Of Humor. I even called it a Boomer, sheesh. I'm not the one who shit in your cereal this morning, I promise.

Re:Good and Bad

[Runaway1956]

Alright - I hate pedantic clods - but, where did you get "submersible ship"? Subs aren't ships, they are boats. No one in the US Navy has ever referred to a sub as a ship, that I'm aware of. I've done a few googles now, and I can't find any reference to "submersible ship". I find no readily available definition of "SS" as used by the Navy, and most other sources say that a ship designated as "SS" is a steam ship. Obviously, that doesn't apply to the Navy. DD's and FF's were almost exclusively steam powered, today many are powered by gas turbines. Most larger warships are nuclear powered. As for power, SS's were traditionally diesel powered, today they are exclusively nuclear powered.

Anyway - I'm curious where you got that term, and how credible the source is. Military terms and acronyms aren't always obvious, after all. :^)

Re:Good and Bad

[Alphathon]

Strategic Submersible Booming Nuker

I even called it a Boomer, sheesh.

No you didn't - you fail again sir.
Seriously though, it was just really unfunny.

Re:Good and Bad

[Alphathon]

where did you get "submersible ship"?

...(from wikipedia)

I think I was fairly clear.

Subs aren't ships, they are boats

Apart from the fact that that is how the US Navy designates them, how are you defining ship and boat? As far as I'm aware the only distinction that you can make with any certainty is that ships are bigger than boats. By that definition, I would personally say that military subs classify as ships (I think they're big enough).

Also, see Q-Hack!s reply.

Re:Good publicity move

[ultranova]

When you're talking about losing Seoul temporarily along with tens of thousands of US soldiers, you don't want to be playing what-ifs later on, especially if you could stop the flow of DPRK soldiers almost instantly with nuclear weapons.

And since Seoul is "right next to the DMZ", you'd have to drop those nukes right next to the city and the troops you're trying to save.

This plan appears to have a flaw that should be corrected before implementation.