{"id":46944,"date":"2019-06-27T07:12:11","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T12:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46944"},"modified":"2019-06-27T07:12:14","modified_gmt":"2019-06-27T12:12:14","slug":"dont-leave-nukes-on-the-shelf-use-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46944","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Leave Nukes on the Shelf. Use Them!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Don\u2019t Leave Nukes on the Shelf. Use Them!<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Photograph Source: United States Department of Energy \u2013 Public Domain<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On June 20, the London Guardian<\/em><\/a> ran a curious headline: \u201cNuclear Weapons: Experts Alarmed by New Pentagon \u2018War-Fighting Doctrine.\u201d Last week, a report from the Joint Chiefs of Staff was briefly available to the public on the Pentagon\u2019s website. Titled \u201cNuclear Operations,\u201d the report describes nuclear war in such upbeat terms that you will almost look forward to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before it was yanked, the report was captured and is available on the website<\/a> of the Federation of American Scientists. A Pentagon spokesman told the Guardian<\/em> that the report had been deleted because of a decision that the publication should be available \u201cfor official use only.\u201d Translation: the public got to see the report because somebody in the Pentagon goofed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Guardian<\/em>: \u201cArms control experts say [the report] marks a shift in US military thinking towards the idea of fighting and winning a nuclear war.\u201d No, it doesn\u2019t. Although the US has not used nuclear weapons since its bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, it has come close several times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

General Douglas MacArthur, the UN commander during the Korean War, asked for\u00a0atomic bombs<\/a>\u00a0a mere two weeks into the war. Later, MacArthur asked President Truman for fifty or so atomic bombs to be dropped on the border between North Korea and China to create an impassable\u00a0cordon unsanitaire<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Truman wisely said no, but at a November 30, 1950 press conference, Truman had said that the atomic bomb had always been under \u201cactive consideration\u201d for use in the war. In July 1950, shortly after North invaded the South, Truman had sent two B-29 bomber groups to the UK and Guam. Once armed with their fissile plutonium cores, which remained in the US until needed, the atomic bombs on board the B-29s could be dropped on the USSR and China. (US tactical nuclear weapons would be stationed in South Korea from 1958 to 1991.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t Leave Nukes on the Shelf. Use Them! Photograph Source: United States Department of Energy \u2013 Public Domain On June 20, the London Guardian ran a curious headline: \u201cNuclear Weapons: Experts Alarmed by New Pentagon \u2018War-Fighting Doctrine.\u201d Last week, a report from the Joint Chiefs of Staff was briefly available to the public on the Pentagon\u2019s website. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5493,3771,11226],"class_list":["post-46944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-counterpunch","tag-guardian","tag-us-pentagon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46945,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46944\/revisions\/46945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}