The only one who said “… no option is off the table, no weapon is off the table …” is President Bush. And, he can be taken at his word.

Of those candidates listed above, I have some serious doubts about whether they’re willing to say and mean it.

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After a little resistance, The American troops left after achieving nothing. They left after claiming that they were the largest power on earth. They left after some resistance from powerless, poor, unarmed people whose only weapon is the belief in Allah The Almighty, and who do not fear the fabricated American media lies. We learned from those who fought there, that they were surprised to see the low spiritual morale of the American fighters in comparison with the experience they had with the Russian fighters. The Americans ran away from those fighters who fought and killed them, while the latter were still there. If the U.S. still thinks and brags that it still has this kind of power even after all these successive defeats in Vietnam, Beirut, Aden, and Somalia, then let them go back to those who are awaiting its return.
-Osama Bin Laden Interview with Peter Arnett Late March 1997

There’s love from others and respect from others. Love is the better, but respect is what keeps you from getting pounded. It wasn’t love that kept the Soviets from launching nukes against a post WWII US. It was respect….a respect built upon deterrence. Today, America’s ability to deter is dwindling fast, and if a Presidential candidate lacks the personal ability to do what the people in the silos, under the sea in the subs, or in the air in the bombers were all willing to do, than put simply…that person does not deserve the office of President, and we cannot afford to put them in there.

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Great post, Scott.

There was a great line in Batman Begins: “Training means nothing without the will to act.”

Having the greatest, strongest, best trained military fighting force and military arsenal in the world means nothing if we do not have the will not use it.

I believe there were reports after 9/11 and our invasion of Afghanistan that al Qaeda was completely taken aback by our strong retaliation for that terrorist attack. That just goes to show that one of the reasons they attacked us on 9/11 was because they had the belief, after years of inaction, that we would not fight back.

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Exactly right. I might even reverse your three uses for nuclear weapons as an order of usefulness. And as you said, the deterrent is lost if your enemy knows you won’t use them.

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Thanks. Ya know, I was thinking that too when I ran through it at the end, but I decided to keep the comment in there because of some of the so-called “monster bombs” that I’d read about (things like the RDS-220 which supposedly could go up to 100mt years ago…generations of technology ago).

I also didn’t think that the scale of devastation (1 bomb=2 states vs 20 bombs=2 states really meant as much since my point is that the primary defense, the best defense against a nuclear attack is the President, and their personal ability to deter enemies. If you have a wishy washy President who an enemy expects is all talk, then you have no deterrent. If you have a President who flatout says, “No way would I ever use a nuclear weapon. It’s immoral.” Then the deterrent is lost.

This isn’t just theory either. Deterrence is everything when it comes to brinkmanship when nations are on a path to war. We’ve seen it recently with Saddam. No one doubts one bit that Saddam didn’t think the US was serious about invading. Our threat-our deterrent-was gone. Why was it gone? Because we’d demonstrated time and again that the US had no resolve (as a nation, and as Presidents) to stand up and wage a war that involved more than airstrikes. Conversely, Khadaffi freely admitted that he gave up his nuke program because he didn’t want the US to invade (surely there were additional reasons, but it played a big part according to his own words).

Anyway, great point on the damage of a nuke. Thanks. It wasn’t meant to be misleading, but I apologize for the confusion.

links that give some food for thought (enter your city):
http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=297&contentId=367

http://fourmilab.ch/bombcalc/

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You said “Places like Ohio and West Virginia can be completely incinerated by a large nuclear weapon, and it’s important to note that tens of thousands of these weapons exist on the planet.”

This is incorrect and is the sort of information generally given by left wing doomsdayers which you obviously are not. The reality is that even a 20 MEGAton warhead will ignite flamable material and cause serious burns out to a maximum of 10-20 miles. Thats a FAR cry from incinerating Ohio.

Random U

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