(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

This is probably old news to some of you.

"WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Senate Armed Services Committee has voted to lift a ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons in the United States.

"A provision repealing the 10-year-old ban was included in the 2004 national defense authorization bill, which the Senate committee passed Friday."

from US Senate committee agrees to lift ban on development of small-scale nukes

Comments

Re: missing something perhaps but

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I can see your point -- I suppose if I had to choose between having the US military using a large nuke vs. using a small nuke, a small nuke would be better. But to my mind the idea of "acceptable nuclear weapons" is a step in the wrong direction. I'd just as soon see my leaders invest more energy in peaceful means of achieving their goals than convincing themselves they have the right to achieve goals by filling the rest of the world with terror.

Re: missing something perhaps but

[donwulff.livejournal.com]

The traditional doctrine says that WMD's, and nuclear weapons in specific, act as a deterrent threat. They're never intended to be used, that would be unthinkable (Except for USA in Nagasaki & Hiroshima, I guess, but I digress;). The development of smaller nuclear bombs is a clear detraction from this policy. Saying that developing smaller nuclear bombs is okay because then you have option to not use the big ones is akin to saying that letting killers run free is okay because it might prevent serial killings. (Hmm, lost train of that comparision...) You might argue that the smaller nuclear bombs are still intended as a deterrent - after all, conventional bombing runs have killed more than Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the MOAB creates nearly similiar explosion effect as the smallest nukes, and most importantly conventional bombs don't create fallout and contaminated areas to worry about. But even if you argue that the current adminstration with their adjusted nuclear first strike doctrine doesn't intend to use them, the threshold for their use has certainly been lowered for all future adminstrations/contingencies.