Smaller Atomic Weapons

E-Mail to Congress:

EIN News says, "Obama Administration Pledges Not to Build New Nuclear Weapons.
April 7, 2010 – Ahead of the signing of a new arms reduction treaty with Russia, the Obama administration has introduced a new nuclear weapons policy accompanied with a pledge that the US will no longer build new nuclear weapons.
The policy translates into no new testing of nuclear weapons and no building of new warheads."

This is a silly pledge on the part of the Obama administration. We keep many countries of the world in line by our military might, including nuclear capability. When I say "in-line", I mean in a cooperative mode, contrary to what we see with North Korea and Iran. These latter two are primarily uncooperative, primarily because they are calling our bluff. In this case "our bluff" means threats of economic sanctions and military action, none of which have significantly come to pass. This approach is also seen by other potential aggressors, and is likely to lead to an increase in the number of non-cooperatives.

If we wish to contribute to maintaining world stability with a decrease of military violence, we can best do so by claims and demonstrations of our military might. Think back to various movie and television newscasts involving the military might parades of Hitler's Germany, the Soviet Union, North Korea, and even Cuba. Those military parades were not just a vain attempt to spend money. They were calculated and effective in convincing their own populace and the leaders of other countries of their power. Each parade said, :This is our military. Don't mess with us." Fear is a powerful motivator. Do not underestimate its use in maintaining stability. Sweetness and light are interesting in their place. This is not necessarily true in international politics.

On the technical side, most people and probably members of the Administration and Congress think of atomic weaponry in terms of hydrogen bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles, which will wipe out a million or 2 people at a time. This has led to the development of capability to eliminate the population of an entire country 1000 times over by having tremendous stockpiles of these massive weapons. This then led to the philosophy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), which said, "If we see intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying many of these weapons in our direction, we will immediately retaliate and thereby assure that both countries will be mutually destroyed". This policy has been effective to avoid atomic weapon use for it least 50 years. That effectiveness was based on only several large countries having tremendous weaponry and also the probability that there would be no insane use by leaders of those countries. It did not take into consideration the fact that atomic weapon capability would be expanded to smaller, possibly more insane countries, such as Korea or Iran.

Although president Obama is proposing this new agreement with Russia, which will effectively reduce the atomic arsenals of both countries to about a third, this is not significantly different than previous actions of the last two US Administrations. The remaining US arsenal would be easily sufficient to wipe out either the entire population of Korea or Iran. The likelihood is that it would not be done, because of humanitarian feelings. For the smaller cases, it is obvious that more strategic surgical strikes might more effectively accomplish control, as opposed to eliminating an entire population.

This leaves then the necessity to develop smaller atomic weapons, with power greater than that available from conventional explosives, considering also the payload for delivery. Unfortunately, Pres. Obama has intention to tie our hands in this area, by now allowing atomic weapon research testing and subsequent production.

International agreements, such as the one with Russia, can be made, changed, and eliminated, but the latest with Russia has not yet been established. I strongly suggest that Congress apply its efforts to change the proposed Russian agreement, such that the US can proceed with proper atomic weapon development to the benefit of controlling world peace.