Nuclear Posture Report Review - Post #6

This post is part of a series that I continue to write about the NPR report issued by the Obama administration. You can download the report here. This post will deal with the "Reducing the Role of U.S. Nuclear Weapons" chapter of the NPR. Once again, before I continue commenting on the NPR, I need to add a disclaimer. I am employed by Sandia National Laboratories. The views written here are not the official position of SNL and should not be viewed that way. They are my views as a private citizen.

I have mentioned it before but this chapter is the one in which the Obama administration details that the U.S. will not use nuclear weapons against any nation that is in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  This stance is taken even if we are attacked by Chemical and/or Biological Weapons (CBW).   Here is a re-publish of my original take on this:

• ...the U.S. gave up its chemical and biological weapons by treaty a long time ago, so we can't retaliate "tit for tat" with this type of weapon. The research that we do in this area is limited to the development of protective suits for our soldiers and the development of agents to deactivate or decontaminate the chem-bio agents.  In the past, we have used the unknown and ambiguous nature of our response to these types of attacks against us as a deterrent. We are now proclaiming that, as long as you are in compliance with the non-proliferation treaty, we will not retaliate with nuclear weapons even if you choose to attack us with biological or chemical weapons of mass destruction. I can't believe that I am the only one that thinks this is completely asinine and stupid.
• Our soldiers went into Kuwait to expel Iraqi forces during the Gulf War wearing chem-bio protection because every one in the world KNEW that Saddam Hussein had those weapons.  Was he hesitant to use them because he was a great humanitarian?  We know that the answer to that is "NO!" because he attacked the Kurds in northern Iraq (his own people) with them in 1988. I think that he did not want his Presidential palace illuminated with a W80 warhead mounted on the front end of a Tomahawk cruise missile.  If he had chosen to use these WMDs, he knew that was one of our possible responses. With this new NPR, he would not have had those fears.

As I went through this, I realized I have discussed this chapter in depth (basically in posts #1 and #2).  To conclude my thoughts on this chapter, it seems that the entire section is devoted to demonstrating how "nice" the U.S. wants to be.  This does nothing except project weakness around the world.  It also makes increasingly cheaper and deadlier biological weapons MORE likely. Countries will be very sure that they are in compliance with all aspects of the NPT when they decide to use Chem-Bio Weapons against the U.S.