Crackpot Realism
A Reuters dispatch on p. A12 of the NYT reports that a Pentagon commission headed by former defense secretary James Schlesinger is worried that the U. S. (in the words of the headline) is "Inattentive to Deterring Nuclear War." In what respect? Because the U. S. hasn't conducted nuclear tests since 1992. "Mr. Schlesinger warned of a new wave of nuclear proliferation if nations in Europe and Asia that rely on the American nuclear umbrella were prompted to start their own arms programs because of flagging confidence in the United States."
"Flagging confidence" is code for the theory that the-American-nuclear-weapons-may-be-rusting-so-they-may-not-deter-an-enemy. Such musings suggest the flagrant unreality of Hard-Headed Thinking in these times. In theory, an aggressor, call it A, thinks better of launching a nuclear attack because it fears that the U. S. will retaliate in kind. "Flagging confidence" suggests that A might just launch its attack if it thinks that America's old, untested nuclear weapons might not work.
Think about that proposition for, oh, three seconds. In effect, it posits that somewhere out there is a country (call it Randy Newmania) calculating: "Let's drop the big one and see what happens." The odds that Randy Newmania exists are zero. This "flagging confidence" argument is one of those threadbare scarecrows trundled out every so often to get a hunk of the military budget for the nuclear testers. Obama needs to stand fast against this fantastical thinking. Even paranoids have real enemies but they're better off when they face those rather than phantoms.
On the other hand, it's encouraging that the commission thinks there need to be command-and-control improvements in the light of revelations that "a B-52 bomber flew nuclear weapons across the continental United States by accident and that fuses for nuclear weapons had been mistakenly shipped to Taiwan." You think?
As a resident of Nevada, I'd like to recommend that the first nuclear test be conducted in a shaft drilled 1500 feet underneath James Schlesinger's primary residence, and that the ensuing caver it creates be used as a Nuclear waste dump facility.
January 9, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Nuclear Testers" is one of many "constituents" of the Black Budget. It has been the largest single black program at times.
I think we know why the Black Budget started with the Manhattan Project: Germany had a small atom bomb project as early as 1917. We did not want to encourage a nuclear arms race that Germany might, save for their self-inflicted race problem, might have won.
And, there was some thought, during the Cold War, that we could and should keep strategic technology secret or, failing that, enforce an export embargo.
That was a much more complex argument, and I am not sure it was ever really settled since it involved huge controversies between and within both political parties as well as discrimination among allies. I think strategic export embargo ended up being more corrupt and ineffectual than not.
We ended up with a GOP nuclear ordnance establishment at LRL and a Democratic one at LASL. In addition, rivalries between the Army, Air Force, and Navy were frozen into the Treaty of Miami by Congress. And, we have a non-proliferation regime which the executive has asserted, only to subvert, in the case of Israel.
It is not clear that the Soviet Union was ever fooled or impeded by any of the secrecy or that, say, France or South Africa were inconvenienced by the embargo.
Still, the Black Budget was supposed to work-around some of all of that and provide executive flexibility in the face of Congressional rigidity or ... the old-fangled constitution.
Bi-partisan Congressional leaders have now been entranced, too. A few have acquired power over the rest by becoming sponsors of bloated black programs they never have to account for in any respect.
That is, I think, why we still have a Black Budget even there is no need for strategic, only operational, security.
Color me skeptical of the renamed Congressional "accountability" office and the new executive "performance" office. These are buzz-words now, which may mean the opposite of what we are supposed to think.
January 9, 2009 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Abolition is the only permanent solution besides, you know, the permanent vacation.
January 10, 2009 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink