Reposting Earlier Thoughts on the Madness in US Nuclear Straegy

 A Phronesis reader commenting on my recent post on the madness in building a new strategic nuclear bomber (the B-21) and the American fixation on developing smaller, more accurate nuclear munitions, asked me for more history on US strategic thinking on deterring, and perhaps fighting, nuclear war.  So, I've decided to re-post essays I wrote in 2016 on this topic.

COUNSELORS OF WAR

By Ronald T. Fox

Dr. Strangelove

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
-- Albert Einstein

“A nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.” The speaker of these words was not an anti-war activist or a utopian dreamer. He was none other than Ronald Reagan, who uttered these words in 1985 in a face-to-face meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev.

Reagan was not an expert on nuclear weapons--far from it. He came to this conclusion through simple common sense. So did a number of notable scientists who were experts on atomic weapons. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the widely-acknowledged “father of the atomic bomb,” mused after watching the explosion of the first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Noted physicist Albert Einstein famously said: "Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

What these men shared in common was an understanding that nuclear bombs were not weapons that could be used to fight wars.  Unfortunately the brilliant men who have shaped US nuclear weapons policy did think of atomic bombs as usable weapons; apparently so do our current crop of strategic planners.  We are living -- at least for now--the consequences of their folly.

 

The fundamental truth about atomic weapons was stated early in the nuclear age by the pioneering Rand Corporation nuclear strategist Bernard Brodie, who wrote in 1946: “Everything about the atomic bomb is overshadowed by the twin facts that it exists and that its destruction power is fantastically great.” The story of the nuclear age from that moment on has been a story about intellectuals trying to outmaneuver this fundamental truth, trying to make nuclear bombs manageable, controllable, usable for military purposes. They developed esoteric theories and war-fighting strategies that belied common sense, and in the process moved the United States closer to Armageddon.  

MAY 2023 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Eminent climatologist MJ Greene enlightened her base this month by tweeting her astute observations about climate change. Here goes:

“If you believe that today’s “climate change” is caused by too much carbon, you have been fooled.”

“We live on a spinning planet that rotates around a much bigger sun along with other planets and heavenly bodies rotating around the sun that all create gravitational pull on one another while our galaxy rotates and travels through the universe. “Considering all of that, yes our climate will change, and it’s totally normal!”

Next, she gets to her comfort zone — conspiracy theories.

“But there are some very powerful people that are getting rich beyond their wildest dreams convincing many that carbon is the enemy and that if humans sacrifice enough energy producing things we can actually control the climate.” 

She closes with a warning.

“Don’t fall for the scam, fossil fuels are natural and amazing. They produce an abundance of energy that we all need to survive along with more products than you can possibly imagine”.

Greene finishes with her clincher — a picture that shows a decline in chemicals released into the atmosphere as fossil fuels increase. She is either a moron or a cynic. The decrease in airborne pollution results from ecological policies enacted under the 1970 Clean Air Act and enforced by the newly created EPA. An act and an agency today’s GOP wants to disembowel and diminish.

But far more egregiously, it does not measure the greenhouse gas that Greene is the crux of Greene’s tweet — carbon dioxide, CO2. This omission is not a surprise as the source of this misleading graph is FossilFuture.com— a website that promotes Alex Epstein, a fossil fuel advocate with a computer science/philosophy degree.

If Greene had any intellectual curiosity—or integrity—she would have consulted greenhouse gas charts published by NASA or the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but that’s not what hard-righters do.

APRIL 2023 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. I haven’t nominated Clarence Thomas previously for a monthly IGGY because, well, as we all know, Thomas doesn’t talk much, even in Supreme Court sessions. The paucity of absurd utterances, however, shouldn’t detract from the inescapable truth that the Thomaster is a genuinely ignominious person, validated by 32 years of SCOTUS votes and opinions.

This said, let me ask you a question. If you were a U.S. Supreme Court justice, would you accept lavish vacations , like nine days of cruising in Indonesia on a fully staffed superyacht, from a large Republican donor billionaire who might be nudging you to return verdicts that comport with his narrow worldview? Wait, don’t answer right away! What if the billionaire in question also had a giant cache of Nazi stuff, including a signed copy of Mein Kampf, two Hitler paintings, and swastika-emblazoned napkins, would that sweeten this briny bucket of sauerkraut for you? (While this doesn’t confirm he’s a Nazi sympathizer, it does raise questions.)

And if such rococo extravagance weren’t enough, what if that billionaire paid you and your family over six figures for three properties in Savannah, Georgia, including a house where your mother lived, and continued to be allowed to live, rent free, after a remodeling? The rest of the property is to be used—you guessed it—for a Justice Thomas museum

And there’s more. If you reported rental income totaling up to $750,000 over the last 17 years from a family real estate company called Ginger, Ltd Partnership that shut down in 2006 (yes, from a ghost company), would you clarify your financial connection?

Well, maybe if you were an ethical person facing potential conflicts of interest you could resist temptation, but if you were Clarence Thomas, the SCOTUS with the mostess, you’d jump at the opportunities-- and, you wouldn’t disclose them as consistent with Federal disclosure laws.

By now you’ve no doubt read or heard about the bombshell ProPublica report tying Justice Thomas to billionaire weirdo/GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. According to ProPublica, Thomas and his wife have taken vacations in private jets and yachts with Crow worth well over a hundred grand nearly every year for more than two decades—none of which were disclosed.

Crow is a longtime member of the board of the American Enterprise Institute, a major right-wing think tank. During those years, which coincide closely with his dear personal friendship with Clarence Thomas, AEI has filed amicus briefs in multiple Supreme Court cases. But that’s not all! In addition to his Nazi shit, Crow also has a statue Garden of Evil adorned with the graven images of history’s most egregious despots, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, and Albanian Stalinist Enver Hoxha.

A Thomas statement to set the record straight is remarkable Bottom of Formin its existence as well as its content—he’s not usually big on answering to the little people.

“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years. As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them. Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable. I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines. These guidelines are now being changed, as the committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary just this past month announced new guidance. And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future.”

“Family trips,” he says. Quite a stark contrast with a Crow-funded documentary on Thomas in which the justice presented himself as a regular guy. “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it,” he said. “I come from regular stock, and I prefer that—I prefer being around that.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time Thomas’s objectivity and ethical conduct have been questioned. There’s that whole “his wife is a far-right goofball who’s trying to end American democracy bit.” But that doesn’t mean conservatives have run out of excuses for his sketchy behavior.

Imagine if the right’s ubiquitous bugaboo George Soros flew Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson to Gstaad for a three-day ski weekend. Republicans would freak. Hell, imagine if Soros took any one of them out for a frozen yogurt. Tucker Carlson would be compelled to do a two-hour investigative report.

Thomas says he’ll disclose in future now that we all know about his vacations anyway. But while his legal requirement may be for disclosure, the ethical issues involved in him accepting such largesse from a major political donor and AEI board member don’t disappear. Then again, Clarence Thomas doesn’t care much for ethics. (And the claim that there is never any discussion of matters before the court? That one falls under the category of “would be hilarious if it weren’t so dangerous.”)

The cascade of stories about Thomas threatens to continue to undermine the legitimacy of this Supreme Court.

MARCH 2023 IGNOMINIOUS ABUURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Republican Finger Pointers. Republicans are well known for passing blame to anyone, or thing, except where facts point or where they might be culpable. There seems no limit to the absurdities of their finger pointing. Now, their latest scapegoat for the collapse of two major banks this month? You got it: “woke” investment practice, once again dragging the effort to address the climate crisis into America’s increasingly polarizing culture wars. It doesn’t appear to matter—like always—that their reasoning” doesn’t align with assessments from leading economists.

“We see now coming out they were one of the most woke banks in their quest for the ESG-type policy and investing,” Kentucky Rep. James Comer, a Republican and chair of the House Oversight Committee, said on a Sunday morning Fox News program--referring to climate-friendly investment funds that take environmental, social and governance factors into account.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—who is being floated as a potential GOP frontrunner in the 2024 presidential election—also appeared on the Fox show, where he suggested diversity and equity efforts could be to blame. “I mean, this bank, they’re so concerned with DEI and politics and all kinds of stuff,” he said. “I think that really diverted from them focusing on their core mission.”

Other high-profile Republican pundits and far-right lawmakers, including the usual suspects Donald Trump Jr, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, chimed in with similar accusations on social media. Suzanne Downing, a former communications director of the Alaska Republican Party, explicitly blamed financial institutions “buying into climate change theology” in a Sunday op-ed.

But those accusations have been broadly refuted by leading economists who place the blame more squarely on rising interest rates from the Federal Reserve’s efforts to tame inflation, plus decisions by the banks to invest in Treasury bonds and other government-backed securities, as well as cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.

“I don’t have a clear idea of what woke is and it seems to change by the day. Maybe government bonds are now woke, but that is what got them into trouble,” Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research who predicted the 2008 housing bubble crash, told Business Insider.

According to analyses by Baker and other well-known economists, the fall of Silicon Valley Bank, which held some $220 billion in assets and was America’s 16th largest commercial bank before its collapse Friday, was tied largely to the bank’s decision to buy up government bonds amid the tech boom between 2019 and 2022, when many Silicon Valley companies were flush with cash.

With deposits skyrocketing and demand for loans relatively low, the bank chose to invest the bulk of that money in government bonds, he said, which tanked in value as the tech boom faded and the Fed raised interest rates to curb inflation. As clients began asking for their money back, Silicon Valley Bank was forced to prematurely sell $21 billion in bonds at a $1.8 billion loss, triggering an old-fashioned bank run, Rubinstein concluded.

Signature Bank’s collapse can be explained even more simplistically. As the finance trade publication Barron’s noted in its apt analysis, “the bank’s connections with cryptocurrency seem to have spooked depositors after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, prompting a run on the bank’s deposits which, in turn, prompted action from regulators.” Who warned U.S. banks to stay away from the cryptocurrency business.

These facts, of course, don’t resonate with the GOP’s deregulating faithful. No way would they connect the collapse to the Trump administration’s rolling back financial regulations that aimed at preventing financial crashes. As always, the American public will ultimately pay the price.

FEBRUARY 2023 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

My mind set doesn't relate to short months, so, I apologize for the tardiness of the February IGGY.

1. Alaska Republican Rep. David Eastman. Republicans are always happy to reach a new low. In this case, as reported by the BBC, Eastman has been censured for asking if child abuse and neglect that result in literal death could be a “benefit to society.”

During a Monday, Feb. 20, Alaska House Judiciary Committee hearing on the long-term effects of child abuse, Eastman framed his little question by pontificating as follows:

“In the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it’s not good for the child. But it’s actually a benefit to society because there aren’t needs for government services and whatnot over the whole course of that child’s life?”

Ghoulish! On Wednesday, his peers in the Alaska House of Representatives voted 35-1 to censure him. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Eastman—who, if you were wondering, is quite the Trump fan—was the dissenter.

“Can you say that again,” someone said after his initial question. “Did you say a benefit for society?”

“Um, talking dollars,” Eastman said. “You’ve got a 1.5 million-dollar price tag here for victims of fatal child abuse. It gets argued periodically that it’s actually a cost savings, because that child is not going to need any of those government services that they might otherwise be entitled to receive, and need based on growing up in this type of environment.”

Trevor Storrs, who serves as the president and CEO of the Alaska Children’s Trust, stressed that the loss of a child is an “unmeasurable” loss to both the family and society as a whole, “hugely tragic,” and that they weren’t otherwise sure “how to answer that” question.

When it came to introducing the measure to censure Eastman, Democratic Rep. Andrew Gray got emotional, and said his child is the “greatest joy” he’s ever had, and that there’s “no price tag on that.” Gray shared that he adopted his child out of the foster system.

Eastman, on his end, doesn’t seem to understand—or doesn’t seem to want to understand—just how badly he messed up.

"The outrageous accusation that somehow I and members of my district support the extermination of people or support child abuse when I've staked my entire political career arguing for the opposite is not acceptable in this body," Eastman said during the hearing on his censure.

This is not the first time Eastman has been censured. Back in 2017, he was censured for suggesting people in Alaska intentionally try to become pregnant in order to get a “free trip to the city” for abortions, as reported by the Associated Press.

JANUARY 2023 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY). Stefanik has gone too far in pursuing her ambitions. It did not have to be this way. But she doubled down where better politicians would have laid low. And now — as she nears the pinnacle of power — she has sown the seeds of her destruction. In one disastrously short-sighted play, she has remained silent on George Santos.

We should not be surprised. Stefanik has no spine. Nor any core beliefs or values. She has become the most cynical of Republican politicians since she made the political calculus that throwing all-in with Trump would grease her skids to power. So far, it has worked like a charm. She is Chair of the House Republican Conference (#3 in the GOP House hierarchy) and days away from being a senior member of the majority party. It is a position she worked hard for and achieved by burning down at least as many political bridges as she built. And it required a sea change in her philosophy.

Stefanik entered Congress in January 2015 as the youngest female member to date. She was not then a MAGA. Instead, she was cut from Northeastern Republican cloth. A Harvard graduate, she worked for Paul Ryan before holding office and became his protégé in Congress.

Vocal in criticism of Trump’s lies during his 2015-16 campaign, she had a solid in with the sane center of the Republican party. And she could have been the standard-bearer for forward-looking conservatism before the noxious miasma of Trumpism grabbed control of the Republican Party.

Sadly, her moderation did not last. After Trump won in 2016, she cast her lot with the orange malevolence and became a Trump groupie. It got so extreme that in a press conference in May 2022, she declared,

"I am ultra-MAGA, and I'm proud of it."

Her public adoration for Trump has grown since she supported him in his first impeachment by the House in 2019. The GOP selected her to be on his defense team during the 2020 impeachment trial in the Senate. As she simpered about it in a press release,

“I am honored to be named by President Trump as a Member of his Impeachment Defense Team. I am proud to stand up for the Constitution, my constituents in New York’s 21st District, and the American people’s vote.”

Like so many Republicans, Stefanik believes that because she won a majority in one rural upstate district, she speaks for all American voters. Although she made a mockery of that loyalty to the voter when she signed on to Trump’s election fraud lie. Saying things like,

"More than 140,000 votes came from underage, deceased, and otherwise unauthorized voters" in Fulton County, GA. 

This was far from her only fact-free, court-dismissed claims. She enumerated a laundry list in an open letter to her hometown newspaper, The Sun. Another local newspaper, the Times Record, swatted them away in an analysis, under the title, “Fact check: Stefanik's defense includes rejected legal claims, debunked theories”.

Stefanik made her most ridiculous claim in May 2021 when she called Trump the "strongest supporter of any president when it comes to standing up for the Constitution." Trump put paid to her hagiographic excess when he posted on Truth Social,

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Political pundits believe that Stefanik’s political idolatry is a maneuver to promote her as a candidate for Trump’s running mate in 2024. Why? She is 38. If she attaches herself to Trump — a piece of foolishness that has cost many a political career — she will be a has-been loser by 40.

Not that she has much future in the House. The GOP has declared it will launch two years of Bengahzi-style kamikaze investigations into the Bidens, Fauci, DoJ, FBI, and every other acronym in the administration. They will expose themselves as idea-free, rabid dogs raging over imaginary bones while the independent voter will wonder what the GOP’s policies are and why they do not change their medication.

She is so spineless. If she thinks Santos has done nothing wrong or at least deserves a chance, where is her support? Her silence is not the act of a good teammate. On the other hand, if she thinks his lies have fatally compromised him, then where is her condemnation? She is not a politician scared to say dumb things. Why is she mute now?

And worst for her, her groveling solicitation of Trump’s political affections has been sneered at by the object of her esteem. Talk of her being Trump's running mate has, the New York Times reports, engendered "bemusement."  After all, he may have Marj Taylor Green on the mind.

NUCLEAR MADNESS CONTINUES: LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL

Northrup Grumman's B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber

By Ronald T. Fox

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin went to the Northrup Grumman plant in California to “unveil” the latest super weapon, guaranteed to deter any aggressor foolish enough to fuck with the US. In what looked like a Hollywood set, with Grumman workers and Austin chanting USA! USA! the Defense Secretary introduced the ultra-secret B-21 Raider stealth bomber. What such grandiose spectacles never do, and I've watched or read about dozens over the last four plus decades, is give specifics about how the new state-of-the-art weapon will make us safer.  This is because they invariably spark enemy countermeasures, making any advantage gained only temporary, if that. Modernized nuclear munitions have never advanced our national security; more correctly, they push us closer to Armageddon.