Thanks be to God that the risk of an all-out nuclear war has gone down dramatically since Ronald Reagan, Margret Thatcher, and Saint Pope John Paul II brought down the Soviet Union.
But with Chinese adventurism growing and Putin acting pushy America needs a President who understands nuclear war because the surest way to get a nuclear war is for the President to act in a way that makes our enemies think that they can get away with using nuclear weapons against us.
But in atalkto a tiny group Democrat presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand demonstrated that she knows so little about nuclear war and nuclear weapons that if she were elected president it would dramatically increase the risk of nuclear war.
While the #FakeNews media is ignoring the story and the real press is chortling over her calling tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) "tactile" nuclear weapons the real scary thing is that Gillibrand demonstrated a complete and total lack of understanding of how the world avoided nuclear war up till this very day.
The Soviet Union didn't take over all of Europe shortly after WWII because the United States had nuclear weapons and the Soviets didn't. They knew that any attempt to use the massive force they'd created to destroy Nazi Germany to expand their evil empire would be met with consequences so devastating that the man who killed around 60,000,000 people, Uncle Joe Stalin, wouldn't accept them.
That's why Uncle Joe, with the help of leftist spies in America, got the Bomb. At that point thinkers on both sides realized that nuclear weapons were so devastating that using them would be irrational because both sides would lose. That was the beginning of the MAD doctrine; Mutually Assured Destruction.
The MAD doctrine was mad because it depended on the fascist rulers of a totalitarian regime acting rationally to ensure that hundreds of millions of Americans wouldn't be murdered. Hence it's not surprising that America looked at ways to get out of that situation.
The Soviet leaders looked to get out of it because they were monstrous imperialists who cared only about gaining more wealth and power by whatever means possible.
The Soviets developed ways to strike America first and disable America's ability to retaliate--highly accurate multiwarhead ICBMs for example.
A first strike capability would defeat MAD because if one side believes that they can destroy the other side and prevent the other side from retaliating then they would no longer be deterred; rather they'd be incentivized to launch an attack on the other side as soon as was possible. That's why people talk about first strike capabilities as destabilizing MAD and incentivizing a nuclear war.
The left in America had no problem with that sort of thing so long as it was done by the Soviets.
The American approach was to defend the US from a Soviet attack. That wasn't destabilizing because as everyone knew such a defense would drastically reduce the number of Americans who died but the body count would still be in the tens of millions and hence no American President would consider launching a first strike.
The left in America had no problem with that sort of thing so long as it was done by the Soviets.
The American approach was to defend the US from a Soviet attack. That wasn't destabilizing because as everyone knew such a defense would drastically reduce the number of Americans who died but the body count would still be in the tens of millions and hence no American President would consider launching a first strike.
But when the US pursued ways to destroy most Soviet nuclear weapons in flight before they could destroy American cities the left saw a threat and did everything they could to stop America from protecting itself. Since they were leftists who viewed the communist dictator Gorbachev as the good guy and Ronald Reagan as the bad guy in their minds they were simply helping ensure world peace by keeping America hostage to the whims of the Kremlin's mass murdering masters.
One of the ways they used was to declare that even a limited Soviet first strike against US missiles would cause a nuclear winter and end all life on earth--Gillibrand invoked this theory. That "theory" was totally bogus; American scientific community knew it was but said nothing because they opposed defending America since they thought that would destabilize MAD and lead to Reagan starting a nuclear war.
Subsequent analysis indicated that if every city in the Northern Hemisphere was burned to the ground at the same time the dreaded nuclear winter might occur, in the Northern Hemisphere, but even that result is dependent on unverifiable computer models--much like the current climate change debate.
In any case when the nuclear winter argument was first used everyone who knew anything about the science knew it was unverified speculation based on a one dimensional model of the Martian atmosphere.
But what really mattered is what the leaders of the Soviet Union thought about it-- sane thinkers realized that no US President would ever consider launching a nuclear first strike in order to conquer the Soviet Union.
Well it turns out the Soviet leaders laughed at it. They kept on building first strike weapons which they wouldn't have done if they believed in nuclear winter. They also liberalized their economy in order to generate the money it would take to compete with Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI); the plan to protect Americans from a Soviet first strike.
That liberalization led to the fall of the Soviet Union.
It's clear that the Soviet leadership didn't think nuclear war was unthinkable or unwinnable. In their minds they just hadn't managed to assemble the right tools to make it work.
But if Reagan had thought the way that Gillibrand thinks he wouldn't have started SDI and the Soviets would have developed a first strike capability which they could have chosen to use at some point. Oh and the Soviet Union would probably still be around threatening the world.
Interestingly the Soviets found another way around MAD. They deployed thousands of TNWs in Europe. The idea was that despite US claims to the contrary no US president would use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union, thereby risking the destruction of America, in retaliation for the Soviets using nuclear weapons against Western Europe--France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain, etc.
When Reagan moved to establish a mini Mad at the European level leftists in Europe and America started the nuclear freeze movement. They demanded that the US not deploy weapons to counter the new class of TNWs the Soviets had already deployed and they didn't demand that the Soviets eliminate their new weapons; once again the left viewed Reagan as the monster and the communist dictator as the saint.
The nuclear freeze movement failed and as expected the Soviets then negotiated with the US and both side's weapons were removed making Europe safer; or so we thought.
When the Soviet Union collapsed and the people of Eastern Europe were freed from communist tyranny the Soviets left so quickly that they forgot to take some of their classified documents with them.
Among them were Soviet war plans which indicated that they would start any invasion of Western Europe with the massive use of TNWs even though the prevailing winds would bring radioactive contamination back to the USSR. That's not surprising given the Soviet response to Chernobyl; civilian deaths were an acceptable cost to furthering the Soviet Union's rulers objectives.
The bottom line is that if someone like Gillibrand who believes that first strikes could never occur and that TNWs are useless as a deterrent became President the odds of nuclear war would go way up.
If China or Russia thinks that we believe they would never strike first and hence we don't ensure that there is no way they could destroy our ability to retaliate against them they will be incentivized to find a way to safely strike first which will increase the risk of nuclear war.
If China or Russia think that they can use TNWs and the US can't retaliate, because we don't have any because Gillibrand thinks US TNWs will increase the chance of a nuclear war, and that the US won't risk the destruction of the US by retaliating with strategic nuclear weapons then they will be incentivized to gain an advantage in a conflict by using TNWs.
Last but not least the closest that the world has come to nuclear war was the Cuban Missile Crisis. That occurred because the Soviet dictator Khrushchev felt that JFK was weak and would not act to defend the US. Does anyone doubt that Putin would view all of the Democrat contenders as weak? The most likely cause of a nuclear war has always been a miscalculation by one side or the other.
One of the ways they used was to declare that even a limited Soviet first strike against US missiles would cause a nuclear winter and end all life on earth--Gillibrand invoked this theory. That "theory" was totally bogus; American scientific community knew it was but said nothing because they opposed defending America since they thought that would destabilize MAD and lead to Reagan starting a nuclear war.
Subsequent analysis indicated that if every city in the Northern Hemisphere was burned to the ground at the same time the dreaded nuclear winter might occur, in the Northern Hemisphere, but even that result is dependent on unverifiable computer models--much like the current climate change debate.
In any case when the nuclear winter argument was first used everyone who knew anything about the science knew it was unverified speculation based on a one dimensional model of the Martian atmosphere.
But what really mattered is what the leaders of the Soviet Union thought about it-- sane thinkers realized that no US President would ever consider launching a nuclear first strike in order to conquer the Soviet Union.
Well it turns out the Soviet leaders laughed at it. They kept on building first strike weapons which they wouldn't have done if they believed in nuclear winter. They also liberalized their economy in order to generate the money it would take to compete with Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI); the plan to protect Americans from a Soviet first strike.
That liberalization led to the fall of the Soviet Union.
It's clear that the Soviet leadership didn't think nuclear war was unthinkable or unwinnable. In their minds they just hadn't managed to assemble the right tools to make it work.
But if Reagan had thought the way that Gillibrand thinks he wouldn't have started SDI and the Soviets would have developed a first strike capability which they could have chosen to use at some point. Oh and the Soviet Union would probably still be around threatening the world.
Interestingly the Soviets found another way around MAD. They deployed thousands of TNWs in Europe. The idea was that despite US claims to the contrary no US president would use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union, thereby risking the destruction of America, in retaliation for the Soviets using nuclear weapons against Western Europe--France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain, etc.
When Reagan moved to establish a mini Mad at the European level leftists in Europe and America started the nuclear freeze movement. They demanded that the US not deploy weapons to counter the new class of TNWs the Soviets had already deployed and they didn't demand that the Soviets eliminate their new weapons; once again the left viewed Reagan as the monster and the communist dictator as the saint.
The nuclear freeze movement failed and as expected the Soviets then negotiated with the US and both side's weapons were removed making Europe safer; or so we thought.
When the Soviet Union collapsed and the people of Eastern Europe were freed from communist tyranny the Soviets left so quickly that they forgot to take some of their classified documents with them.
Among them were Soviet war plans which indicated that they would start any invasion of Western Europe with the massive use of TNWs even though the prevailing winds would bring radioactive contamination back to the USSR. That's not surprising given the Soviet response to Chernobyl; civilian deaths were an acceptable cost to furthering the Soviet Union's rulers objectives.
The bottom line is that if someone like Gillibrand who believes that first strikes could never occur and that TNWs are useless as a deterrent became President the odds of nuclear war would go way up.
If China or Russia thinks that we believe they would never strike first and hence we don't ensure that there is no way they could destroy our ability to retaliate against them they will be incentivized to find a way to safely strike first which will increase the risk of nuclear war.
If China or Russia think that they can use TNWs and the US can't retaliate, because we don't have any because Gillibrand thinks US TNWs will increase the chance of a nuclear war, and that the US won't risk the destruction of the US by retaliating with strategic nuclear weapons then they will be incentivized to gain an advantage in a conflict by using TNWs.
Last but not least the closest that the world has come to nuclear war was the Cuban Missile Crisis. That occurred because the Soviet dictator Khrushchev felt that JFK was weak and would not act to defend the US. Does anyone doubt that Putin would view all of the Democrat contenders as weak? The most likely cause of a nuclear war has always been a miscalculation by one side or the other.
What leftists don't understand is that the best way to avoid a fight, nuclear or other, is to ensure that the people who might attack you know that whatever happens to you they will suffer far more than they're willing to. There are evil people who will only be deterred by the knowledge that they personally will suffer.
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