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President Obama can resist the pressure from the military industrial complex

President John F. Kennedy, who finally became obstinate in his refusal to resort to nuclear weapons……In fact, the pressure Kennedy faced from the military to use nuclear weapons was much stronger than that which Obama has thus far faced about remaining in Afghanistan or, for that matter, dialing down our nuclear-industrial complex.

Picture Obama Authorizing a Nuclear Attack,  THE HUFFINGTON POST, Russ Wellen:, 6 July 2010, Since the end of the Cold War, the circumstances under which a U.S. president might authorize the launch of nuclear weapons have changed. First, it bears mentioning that, even though he or she is always accompanied by the “nuclear football,”* a president’s ability to exercise complete command over the response to a nuclear attack has long been overrated….

..a nuclear attack is less likely to be the result of another state dropping bombs from above or launching missiles than a non-state actor (terrorist group) detonating a weapon without warning on American soil. If there’s an upside to such an occurrence, it’s that it allows a president time to consider his response.

Most assume that a nuclear attack is automatically met by nuclear retaliation. But that might prove equally uncalled for and unfeasible. Andrew Krepinevich, director of defense think tank the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, makes that clear in his 2009 book 7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century (Bantam Books).

The second of Krepinevich’s seven eye-opening and plausible scenarios is titled “War Comes to America.” In 2011, a Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapon is detonated in San Antonio, home to several major Air Force bases and an intelligence center. Krepinevich writes:

Strategic Command’s nuclear forces are placed on high alert . . . military specialists pore over incoming satellite imagery to determine if they somehow missed a missile launch indication . . . and to detect any additional missile launches that would indicate a follow-on strike. … That evening President David Reynolds . . . informs the American public that [they’ve found] no indication that the weapon was delivered by any kind of missile or aircraft. Simply stated, the bomb was prepositioned in the city covertly and then detonated, perhaps remotely.

Thus, neither was it possible to initiate a retaliatory strike at the time nor mount an attack in the aftermath. For better or worse, the situation rendered launch on warning and hair-trigger alerts useless…..

….Scenario 2, were it to come to pass, would be our second object lesson in that unique way nuclear weapons have of fast-tracking us into crisis mode while leaving us without the means to retrace our steps back to a steady state. The first, of course, was the Cuban Missile Crisis…..President John F. Kennedy, who finally became obstinate in his refusal to resort to nuclear weapons……In fact, the pressure Kennedy faced from the military to use nuclear weapons was much stronger than that which Obama has thus far faced about remaining in Afghanistan or, for that matter, dialing down our nuclear-industrial complex. Russ Wellen: Picture Obama Authorizing a Nuclear Attack

July 7, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear technology, nuclear weapons