NationStates Jolt Archive

Strange that this was totally missed here. This is very significant. This clears operational path for pre-emptively using bunker-buster nukes on suspected nuke sites of Iran/NoKo or anywhere else for that matter.

http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_12_2.html#FB378486
U.S. Command Declares Global Strike Capability

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Strategic Command announced yesterday it had achieved an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons, after last month testing its capacity for nuclear war against a fictional country believed to represent North Korea (see GSN, Oct. 21).

In a press release yesterday, STRATCOM said a new Joint Functional Component Command for Space and Global Strike on Nov. 18 “met requirements necessary to declare an initial operational capability.”

The requirements were met, it said, “following a rigorous test of integrated planning and operational execution capabilities during Exercise Global Lightning.”

The annual Global Lightning exercise last month tested U.S. strategic warfare capabilities, including the so-called CONPLAN 8022 mission for a global strike, according to publicly available military documents.

CONPLAN 8022 is “a new strike plan that includes [a] pre-emptive nuclear strike against weapons of mass destruction facilities anywhere in the world,” said Hans Kristensen, a consultant for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Kristensen first published the STRATCOM press release on his Web site, nukestrat.com.

Military analyst William Arkin, in a column on the Washington Post Web site in October, wrote that the classified exercise involved the response to a radiological “dirty bomb” attack on Alabama by the fictional country Purple or allied terrorists. “In the exercise, Purple is a Northeast Asian nation thinly veiled as North Korea,” according to Arkin.

Maj. Jeff Jones, STRATCOM spokesman, said today that the exercise incorporated various scenarios and added, “Everything is fictional that we put in the exercise.”

Global Lightning employed command and control personnel, according to the STRATCOM release.

Global strike attacks could be launched from U.S. long-range bombers, nuclear submarines or land-based ballistic missiles, according to the STRATCOM Web site.

The new command was created Aug. 9 in an attempt to integrate broad elements of U.S. military power into global strike plans and operations.

That, according to an Arkin commentary in the Washington Post in May, could include anything from electronic jamming to penetrating computer networks, to commando operations, to the use of a nuclear earth penetrator. CONPLAN 8022, he wrote, is intended to address two scenarios using such capabilities: preventing a suspected imminent nuclear attack from a small state, and attacking an adversary’s suspected WMD infrastructure.

STRATCOM Commander Gen. James Cartwright said at an opening ceremony that the new command would help the country convey a “new kind of deterrence.”

According to the STRATCOM release, “The command’s performance during Global Lightning demonstrated preparedness to execute its mission of providing integrated space and global strike capabilities to deter and dissuade aggressors and when directed, defeat adversaries through decisive joint global effects in support of STRATCOM missions.”

According to Arkin’s article in May, CONPLAN 8022 was completed in 2003, “putting in place for the first time a pre-emptive and offensive strike capability against Iran and North Korea.”

STRATCOM’s readiness for global strike was certified to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush in January 2004, Arkin reported.

So what exactly is new? The pre-emptive nuclear strike capability, or the plan for using it against countries like Iran or North Korea? I'm a little surprised we didn't have it sooner if the latter, and very surprised if it's the former.

... not that I'm happy about either. I just figure it's part of someone in the military's job to prepare alternatives in case of the worst-case scenario.

Strange that this was totally missed here. This is very significant. This clears operational path for pre-emptively using bunker-buster nukes on suspected nuke sites of Iran/NoKo or anywhere else for that matter.

http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_12_2.html#FB378486

Strange that you didn't know this was US policy towards North Korea, starting with the Clinton Administration, and their exercises with nuclear-equipped F-15E Strike Eagles.

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041107-055605-6954r.htm

Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- Newly declassified documents revealed the United States planned as recently as 1998 to drop nuclear bombs on North Korea if the country attacked South Korea.

As part of "scenario 5027," 24 F15-E bombers flew simulation missions at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina to drop mock nuclear bombs on a firing range between January and June 1998, the Korea Times reported Sunday.

The revelation followed claims by a South Korean lawmaker that the U.S. drew up plans to launch preemptive strikes on key targets in North Korea in 1994.

U.S. Command Declares Global Strike Capability

http://www.strangecosmos.com/images/content/5933.jpg

You should go and find a nuclear missile silo somewhere, Im sure theres a sign nearby that says:
"US Strategic Command, Global Strike Capability Since 1959"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICBM#History

I thought they already had global strike capability.

I thought they already had global strike capability.
Ummm.... yeah.

Strange that you didn't know this was US policy towards North Korea, starting with the Clinton Administration, and their exercises with nuclear-equipped F-15E Strike Eagles.

..
United States planned as recently as 1998 to drop nuclear bombs on North Korea if the country attacked South Korea....




That is not pre-emptive.

The current doctrine calls for pre-emptively attacking suspected nuke fields with weapons including so-called bunker busters.

That is not pre-emptive.

The current doctrine calls for pre-emptively attacking suspected nuke fields with weapons including so-called bunker busters.


The revelation followed claims by a South Korean lawmaker that the U.S. drew up plans to launch preemptive strikes on key targets in North Korea in 1994.

The plan I quoted above says that if North Korea attacks South Korea with conventional forces, i.e., a traditional invasion, the US will nuke North Korea's nuclear assets (and their asses as well). We'll nuke first.

The plan I quoted above says that if North Korea attacks South Korea with conventional forces, i.e., a traditional invasion, the US will nuke North Korea's nuclear assets (and their asses as well). We'll nuke first.
That's the part that's news to most people. Even though this has been the attitude for some time now, most civilized people can't bring themselves to believe that the US would nuke first. More proof that we are no longer the good guys and that the world should not trust us farther than they could throw one of our fat-assed SUVs.

Wow have I missed something over the years?

The US has had a global strike capability for years. They have had a pre-emptive ability for years.

That is why MAD was put in use......

Wow have I missed something over the years?

The US has had a global strike capability for years. They have had a pre-emptive ability for years.

That is why MAD was put in use......
Right, exactly. The news part is that we now have an administration and a big chunk of the population, apparently, that thinks MAD is crap and they can use pre-emptive nukes if they want to and the rest of the world isn't going to have a problem with that.

The plan I quoted above says that if North Korea attacks South Korea with conventional forces, i.e., a traditional invasion, the US will nuke North Korea's nuclear assets (and their asses as well). We'll nuke first.

I fail to see where it says the US will strike first, or that it will even be the first to use nukes.

What I see is a claim to attack North Korea if they attack South Korea, a plan by the US to use nuclear capability if they have to, and a claim by North Korea that the US is planning to use pre-emptive strikes.

Now, even if what NK says is true, pre-emptive does not necessarily equate to nuclear, and even being willing to move pre-emptively (which the US did not admit to at all) does not necessarily mean doing so in a nuclear fashion.
Is it probable? Perhaps, but when you're dealing with something like nukes and the global reaction that would cause, probable isn't good enough to say it's what the plan was.

The plan I quoted above says that if North Korea attacks South Korea with conventional forces, i.e., a traditional invasion, the US will nuke North Korea's nuclear assets (and their asses as well). We'll nuke first.

That is NOT pre-emptive.

That is just a first use policy (as opposed to NFU - no first use policy).

That's the part that's news to most people. Even though this has been the attitude for some time now, most civilized people can't bring themselves to believe that the US would nuke first.

Well, they did it once.:p

Wow have I missed something over the years?

The US has had a global strike capability for years. They have had a pre-emptive ability for years.


Ability has always been there.

Doctrine, Operational readiness and intent (atleast to intimidate, if not actual intent) is new.

The plan I quoted above says that if North Korea attacks South Korea with conventional forces, i.e., a traditional invasion, the US will nuke North Korea's nuclear assets (and their asses as well). We'll nuke first.

Btw, just so you know, this is not a novel idea.

China has a policy that says it will use nukes first if its forces are attacked conventionally in its operational areas. And since China thinks of Taiwan as their renegade province, this will allow them to nuke anybody who intervenes even conventionally against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Pakistan too has the same policy of using nukes on India if Indian forces as much as step across the border even in retaliation for Pakistani terrorist attacks (reason why India did not cross the Line of Control during the Kargil war).

US has joined an illustrious club.

Well, they did it once.:p



Ability has always been there.

Doctrine, Operational readiness and intent (atleast to intimidate, if not actual intent) is new.
The world was a fool to trust us in the first place, I've always said. :D

I fail to see where it says the US will strike first, or that it will even be the first to use nukes.

What I see is a claim to attack North Korea if they attack South Korea, a plan by the US to use nuclear capability if they have to, and a claim by North Korea that the US is planning to use pre-emptive strikes.

Now, even if what NK says is true, pre-emptive does not necessarily equate to nuclear, and even being willing to move pre-emptively (which the US did not admit to at all) does not necessarily mean doing so in a nuclear fashion.
Is it probable? Perhaps, but when you're dealing with something like nukes and the global reaction that would cause, probable isn't good enough to say it's what the plan was.
What I see in the original post is description of a US military plan that the US does not deny and about which others are complaining. The references to readiness for pre-emptive strikes with nuclear weapons are clear. A pre-emptive strike is, by definition, a first strike, and thus a pre-emptive strike with nukes would be a first nuclear strike. It is not probable that such a strike will take place -- it is merely possible, which is bad enough, imo. But it is more than probable, it is certain that the readiness and willingness to make such a strike exists, as it's in the plan.

That's the part that's news to most people. Even though this has been the attitude for some time now, most civilized people can't bring themselves to believe that the US would nuke first. More proof that we are no longer the good guys and that the world should not trust us farther than they could throw one of our fat-assed SUVs.

Welcome to the world of hardball. MAD was a great system when nukes were controlled by stable governments (the US, the Europeans, the Soviets, and the Chinese all have alot more to lose from a nuclear exchange than they have to gain), but in a world when increasingly less stable governments have nuclear weapons the rules change. It isn't about being the good guys (show me a nation on earth that has ever had a rightful claim to that title) it is about surviving in a worst case scenario. Pre-emptive nuclear attacks on the nuclear stockpiles of an enemy can control the situation and reduce the chance of escalation.

and Iran can't have their own nukes...

Strange that you didn't know this was US policy towards North Korea, starting with the Clinton Administration, and their exercises with nuclear-equipped F-15E Strike Eagles.

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041107-055605-6954r.htm


Some forget that a democrat had these plans drawn up. Also they seem to overlook the whole eavsdropping program was started with Clinton also. I wonder if the liberals have ADD.