Wondering if they’ll soon answer to a madman
A series of tweets yesterday by John Noonan. Here’s his current Twitter blurb:
Did national security for
@JebBush,@MittRomney. Bourbon helps. Sell your bonds and pray for America.#NeverTrump
Here’s what he said (I expanded a few of them from Twitter shorthand):
I can’t get this in one tweet. So bear with me as I air some laundry here on Scarborough’s claim Trump’s interested in nuclear First Use
Pulled 300 nuclear alerts, 100 ft under the Wyoming turf. Job is serious and full of serious people.
When we went into ICBM training, we went through a battery of tests and interviews. Are you sane? Are you willing to turn your key?
I see how those might sound at odds.
But the whole idea behind nuclear deterrence is that you don’t use the damn things. So I thought the mission credible and worthy.
There are a hell of a lot of bad actors out there who have nukes. They are restrained only by our ability to instantly lay waste to them.
The nuke triad, which Trump doesn’t have a clue about, has been the single greatest contributor to global peace for decades. You heard me.
I dont know if Scarborough is telling whole truth here. Anonymous sources suck. BUT… if he is… buckle the hell up.
Because Trump would be undoing 6 decades of proven deterrence theory. The purpose of nukes is that they are never used. Trump disagrees?
This would be the single greatest strategic shift in US national security in decades. In a Trump Presidency, our foreign policy would be this. “Leave our alliances, fall back on a nuclear first use policy.” Does he understand just how fucking dangerous that is?
But what really concerns me, as a former nuke guy, is the idea of a narcissist walking around with nuclear authenticators.
I could sit 100ft underground, on alert, knowing that the POTUS would not make me do my duty — not unless it was absolute last resort.
But imagine having to turn launch keys not knowing if we were under attack or if it was because a foreign leader said a mean thing on twitter.
The power is there to kill millions. Permanently alter the geopolitical landscape. It is a sacred, sobering responsibility.
Idea that nukes would be used, say over Raqqa or Mosul, simply because we have no more allies and it’s a simple, easy fix is nauseating.
Simply signaling that you’re open to using strategic weapons as a tactical solution rewrites the rule book. Russia, China, others will respond. Nuclear deterrence is about balance. Trump is an elephant jumping up and down on one side of the scale. So damn dangerous.
But geopolitics aside, I can’t get my mind off the young officers on nuke alert right now. Wondering if they’ll soon answer to a madman.
And be asked to do a duty that should morally be asked of no human being, ever.
Don’t worry, everything will be alright. Anything could happen between now and the election, anything.
Or perhaps I should have written ‘something’.
Nicholas Nassim Taleb takes a risk management view on nuclear “peace”. I’ll try and sum it up.
If the six decades “peace” can turn into absolute annihilation in an instant (perhaps due to a system error and we’ve had some close calls) it isn’t really peace.
Low risk means: given enough iterations or time, it will happen. Applied to MAD, if we keep the arsenals long enough MAD will happen.
Sea Monster, I agree that in the long run we have to eliminate the arsenals. But we can’t do that this year or next. Meanwhile, we should avoid anything that massively increases the risk.
The nuke triad, which Trump doesn’t have a clue about, has been the single greatest contributor to global peace for decades. You heard me.
I’m sure the inhabitants of many Third World countries would disagree about the post-World War II decades being particularly peaceful ones.
If the six decades “peace” can turn into absolute annihilation in an instant (perhaps due to a system error and we’ve had some close calls) it isn’t really peace.
This puts me in mind of a claim I’ve heard that dictatorships have far fewer problems with crime and terrorism than democracies. My response to that is “That may well be, but who wants to live in a dictatorship?”
The thought of Trump getting his hands on the US nuclear arsenal is one of the reasons I’ve long been skeptical of the idea that nuclear weapons keep the peace. Maybe they do if rational actors are in charge of them (which I believe is one of the assumptions underpinning the whole (aptly abbreviated) MAD doctrine), but what if they come under the control of someone who isn’t? It’s not just Trump who’d be dangerous in that regard either; I’m sure plenty of the fundamentalist Christian wackaloons currently infesting the Republican party would just love the chance to kick-start this whole Armageddon thing that their Lord and Saviour seems to be dragging his feet on.