The Pentagon is “increasing options available to the President for purposes of deterring or responding effectively to a nuclear contingency,” undersecretary of war Elbridge Colby says.
Unless you’re a member of the nuclear priesthood, this is probably the first you’re hearing about it. The Senate knows, having been briefed earlier this month in a closed hearing. But neither Congress nor the media have said a word about the disclosure I quoted (which this humble newsletter is providing you in its entirety below).
Colby has been making this case for a long time. In 2011, fresh off a Pentagon stint working on Obama’s New START treaty, he wrote about what he thought America’s nuclear war plans should be able to do.
“The United States should maintain the assured ability to conduct a devastating, effectively annihilating strike against any opponent even after an attempt by that opponent to disarm the United States through a first strike of its own,” Colby said. The forces held back for retaliation, he added, should be able to “destroy the attacking country as a functioning society.”
Sounds like he’s got World Wars III-IV covered.
But the same post went on to argue for what he wants now: a limited nuclear strike capability. The thinking is that this provides the president a goldilocks-style intermediate option, between the too-cold porridge of doing nothing and the too-hot porridge of, well, Armageddon.
Here’s how we got here. In April, Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary of war for nuclear deterrence, told Congress that the U.S. now has to deter Russia and China at the same time, plus a growing roster of regional nuclear threats. Think: Iran.
Kadlec’s wishlist included a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, which the first Bush administration eliminated and the Navy doesn’t even want. He also said the U.S. needs new tools to counter nuclear blackmail.
A month later, Colby spelled out the thinking. “We once again find ourselves grappling with major power rivalry under the nuclear shadow,” he told senior military officers at the National War College. The defining challenge of our era, he said, is “how to defend important — indeed potentially very important — but nevertheless not existential interests against nuclear-armed major powers.”
Translation: how to fight Russia or China over something short of national survival, like an ally’s territory.
None of this is hypothetical, not for an administration that went to war with Iran this year for the stated reason of keeping Tehran from ever getting a nuclear weapon. In this environment, handing Trump more nuclear options isn't some wonky policy tweak. This is a question of national survival.
That’s not to say that nuclear war is imminent or even likely. But isn’t nuclear policy the kind of thing the public should have at least some say in? Washington of course has zero interest in that. But why does the news media? It’s baffling that they haven’t done a single story on this. Meanwhile, there’s wall-to-wall coverage of the FBI hack’s supposed danger to Bureau personnel. That’s an angle for the FBI and maybe their families, but why would any ordinary person give a shit?
Now compare those headlines with what Colby told the National War College, foreshadowing what Trump’s new nuclear options will mean:
“I want to underline that the centrality of the political object[ive] does not mean simply a brake on military force. To the contrary, in some circumstances it may require aggressiveness and an acceptance of great risk.”
A bit more alarming than some cyber hack, no? (Maybe the FBI can get what the rest of us do after a breach: an email offering free credit monitoring.)
Here’s where we’re heading:
Even lower yield and flexible bomber and aircraft-carried nuclear bombs and air-to-surface missiles to provide more options to Donald Trump in Europe and on the Korean Peninsula.
A sea-launched nuclear weapon, so the U.S. can go nuclear without asking allies for permission or for help
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Credible, rational nuclear options," as if "rational" and "nuclear" belong in the same sentence, including limited strikes a president could "plausibly authorize."
Senator Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, has been briefed on everything I’ve told you in this story and more. It’s not clear why he hasn’t said anything. Perhaps the 76-year-old was busy with his reelection campaign?
Speaking of which, guess who Pete Hegseth just announced would lead his creepy new Project Meridian future-of-warfare study? 83-year-old Newt Gingrich!
From Cold War-era nuclear brinksmanship to Newt, talk about a blast from the past.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
