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Dr.
StrangeBush: Or How GWB Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love
the Bomb
March 13, 2002
By Richard Prasad
George W. Bush's new nuclear posture review brings to mind
the scenario of Stanley Kubrick's masterwork: Doctor Stangelove:
Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The only
trouble is, Bush's contingency plans are real, and much more
frightening.
For those of you who have never seen Doctor Strangelove,
here is a brief summary of the story. The crew of a B52 bomber
group mistakenly get the codes for something called Attack
Plan R, which is a secret nuclear retaliation plan, after
the Russians have already struck the US with nuclear weapons.
Problem is, the Russians have not launched a nuclear attack,
and our attack would be seen as a first strike on the Soviets.
Peter Sellers is very funny in a triple role. He plays the
simple minded President of the United States who has obviously
ceded too much power over to his Generals, Sellers also plays
a British officer trying to get the nuclear recall codes from
the Americans, and he finally plays Dr. Strangelove, a crazy,
wheelchair bound Nazi scientist.
Well, the American President in Strangelove tries desperately
to recall the B52 bombers, all the while being told by his
Generals to enhance the nuclear strike. One of the Generals
is played to the hilt of paranoia by a hilarious George C.
Scott, if you can imagine George C. Scott being funny. The
Generals believe that even if we do strike first by mistake,
we should strike hard. Sellers as the President says, "It
has never been the policy off the US to strike first with
nuclear weapons."
I will not give away the ending of the movie, but the movie
itself is full of references to the Cold War arms race that
could also apply to the war on terrorism. For example, in
Strangelove, the Russians build a doomsday machine because
the Soviet premier heard the US was working on one and didn't
want there to be a doomsday machine gap, an obvious reference
to the "missile" gap feared in the Cold War. It is an extremely
funny movie and may be portentous of things to come from the
Bush Administration's Nuclear Posture Review.
The Nuclear Posture Review is a usually routine policy statement
of where the US stands in terms of nuclear capability and
readiness. On March 9th, details of the Bush Administration
Nuclear Posture Review were obtained by the LA times. The
gist of the new Bush Administration NPR is threefold. First,
the US should work on building smaller tactical nuclear weapons,
second, these weapons can be used to escalate conventional
scenarios, like the Middle East Crisis, or North Korea and
South Korea. Finally, and most incredibly, the new NPR explicitly
names the countries these new tactical nukes are intended
for. North Korea, Iran and Iraq, the infamous axis of evil,
Libya, Syria, China and Russia.
Almost immediately Bush Administration officials defended
the new policy. Condoleeza Rice said on one Sunday morning
talk show, that this plan was meant as a deterrent not as
a first us of nuclear weapons. Said Rice, in a masterful bit
of Orwellian doublespeak, "We want to make the use of weapons
of mass destruction less likely." Said Colin Powell on another
Sunday talk show, "We think it's best for any potential adversary
to have uncertainty in our calculus. In other words keep our
enemies off balance, but does this not also keep our allies
off balance as well?
The global reaction was predictable, if muted. According
to a March 10 New York Times article, the Libyans reacted
with shock. "I don't believe the US intends to destroy the
world." A Libyan official said. There was no official comment
from Russia as of March 10th. But the Iranians was more vitriolic
in their response. "The US thinks that these 7 counties will
give up their demands when faced with a great threat" said
Iranian President Rafsanjani. Even one official of the British
Liberal Party said, "This changes the terms of debate about
nuclear deterrence."
It sure does. George W. Bush the simple minded American President,
who has ceded much too much power to the Pentagon, has a problem
on his hands, and it's worse than the one Peter Sellers faced
in Dr. Strangelove. Whereas Sellers, as the American Presient
in the movie, states clearly and unequivocally that the US
does not believe in first use of nuclear weapons, George Bush's
plan turns that notion on its head, saying that the US could
use smaller tactical nuclear weapons in "unexpected contingencies"
against the 7 countries mentioned above.
Could the new nuclear posture lead to a nuclear accident
like outlined in Dr. Strangelove? Sure it could, smaller nukes
easier to launch, out of the reach of a centralized launch
structure, could lead to a definite possibility of an accidental
nuclear war. But that is not the only reason why this policy
is wrongheaded.
Preemptive launching of nuclear weapons is wrong for many
reasons. It goes against the idea of a just war because the
response is neither proportional or discriminating. Nuclear
weapons if used, no matter how small or strategic they are
said to be, will kill thousands of people, maybe more. Many
of those people will be innocent men, women and children,
and that's why after they were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
nuclear weapons have been used only as a threat and not as
actual weapons.
This new nuclear posture also encourages what the Bush administration
says it seeks to discourage. Nuclear proliferation. If these
seven countries decide that the US is going to attack them
preemptively, why shouldn't they develop nuclear weapons and
use them first against America? If this policy leads to those
thoughts by those counties that do not have nukes, this policy
will lead to major worldwide destabilization.
Doctor Strangelove has invaded the White House and his name
is Donald Rumsfeld. It is he after all who signed off on the
new Nuclear Posture Review, with of course the tacit approval
of the President, who sees things in dangerously black and
white terms. The difference between the movie Doctor Strangelove
and the Bush Administration is a stark one. The fictional
president was trying to stop an accidental nuclear war. The
real president seems driven to start an intentional nuclear
war.
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