F.E. Warren's nuclear future could be in jeopardy

[bananas]

http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2013/04/14/news/01top_04-14-13.txt

F.E. Warren's nuclear future could be in jeopardy

By Trevor Brown

CHEYENNE -- Nuclear launch crews stand ready every minute of every day within underground bunkers spread out over 9,600 square miles of Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado.

The 150 intercontinental ballistic missiles maintained by F.E. Warren Air Force Base rest quietly, just waiting for the moment that no one wants to happen.

This is the way it has been for 50 years.

But anti-proliferation groups, some world leaders and even some top military commanders are increasingly questioning the base’s mission and whether the land-based portion of the country’s nuclear triad should be downsized or eliminated altogether.

“There is a growing political and cultural influence of nuclear abolitionists … along with powerful political agendas that are driving forcefully for further and immediate reductions in our strategic nuclear forces,” said Retired Maj. Gen. Timothy J. McMahon, who is a former commander of the 20th Air Force, which is responsible for the nation’s ICBM arsenal. “Absent immediate, thoughtful and public support, I believe the ICBM forces are not facing just another significant reduction, but the real possibility of elimination all together.”

<snip>

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. The peace symbol as we know comes from the nuclear abolitionist movement.

I've heard that the symbol was a human, with its arm thrown down in despair - what can somebody do against that kind of destructive force?

Holtom later wrote to Hugh Brock, editor of Peace News, explaining the genesis of his idea in greater depth: "I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad.


source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_symbols#The_peace_sign

The bottom line is there always is a degree of hypocrisy in demanding North Korea and the rest disarm while America doesn't take meaningful steps in the same direction, and long term this will perpetuate the proliferation problems we all know will lead to disasterous outcomes for future generations. We're in a time where good people, in different countries all over the world, connect through the Internet and talk. Bad people do the same, from the same geographic locations. These weapons which indiscriminately take out all the people in a geographic location are thus useless, and all policies need to reflect this fundamental reality.

[bananas]

4. We recently retired the last nuclear Tomahawk cruise missile

We're putting the genie back in the bottle, step by step.

http://blogs.fas.org/security/2013/03/tomahawk/

US Navy Instruction Confirms Retirement of Nuclear Tomahawk Cruise Missile

By Hans M. Kristensen
March 18, 2013

<snip>

The U.S. Navy is finally out of the non-strategic nuclear weapons business.

<snip>

(Update 21 Mar: FY12 Pantex Performance Evaluation Report states (p.24): "All W80-0 warheads in the stockpile have been dismantled." (Thanks Jay!)).

The End Of An Era

The retirement of the TLAM/N completes a 25-year process of eliminating all non-strategic naval nuclear weapons from the U.S. Navy’s arsenal.

<snip>

I only wish the Obama administration and its allies were not so timid about the achievement. The unilateral elimination of naval non-strategic nuclear weapons is an important milestone in U.S. nuclear weapons history that demonstrates that non-strategic nuclear weapons have lost their military and political value. Russia has partly followed the initiative by eliminating a third of its non-strategic naval nuclear weapons since 1991, but is holding on to the rest to compensate against superior U.S. conventional naval forces.

<snip>

[napoleon_in_rags]

5. That's awesome, I did not know that.

I've been pretty outspoken about what I see as long term threats from the drone program, but you put it side by side with indiscriminate nuclear killing, and that tactic of intelligent targeted strikes is clearly superior, both morally and tactically.

Its just the information age. Ideology, religion, national allegiances, race, politics, are all now geographically non-local in 90% of the world. People connect with their own through the Internet. Any strike which takes out a whole area is pretty much garanteed to take out people with the same ideology as you, as well as opposing ideologies. So its incapable of making any point, of accomplishing anything real in the modern world. The only countries that are remotely vulnerable to a meaningful strike are those who practice such extreme milleu control that all the people in the area are forced to have the same ideology, but places like this are an endangered species, all the real powers have evolved to become globally distributed forces.

Now that I hear America's on track, I have to aim my ire at North Korea. There's all this noise about America's nuclear defense missile shield, a massively expensive project that took decades to develop. But all over the world, smart countries have developed a much cheaper version that works damn well: The poor man's nuclear defense shield is diversification. Moscow for instance has capitalists, communists. Russian companies, Chinese companies, American companies, all have interests there. Some people speak English and love America, some speak Arabic and love Mecca, and more. Everybody is represented. All a country like NK has to do to build their own poor man's nuclear defense shield is identify capitalists in their midst, and give them a voice in an open debate. Let free speech reign, so the people diversify in their ideas. Let some other countries develop business interests there. Its cheap, cheap, cheap and it works well.

[kristopher]

2. Off to the greatest!

I'd love to see this downsizing happen.

Tell me, if you were a missile launch officer and it was your job to turn a key that would kill a million people, would you do it if the order came down?

[Volaris]

3. Thank God and it's about time.

That particular sword of damocles needs to come down. Those damned things are Lucifer Incarnate, and they should all be destroyed.