2016 elections - because it's never too early

[Berkut]

I've got to wonder, or hope, that the National Command Authority and Obama are feverishly revising our nuclear user procedures to include an ability, if it isn't already there, for someone other than the President to stop a launch order.

The current SOP, as I understand it, emphasizes ability to react quickly to a potential massive first strike over the need to counter a potentially unstable President issuing a launch order.

I hope that changes. Or has changed. Our vulnerability to a enemy first strike that could take out our ability to strike back is likely largely insiginficant anyway - we always have our subs after all, and we are not nearly as reliant on land based ICBMs. And the danger of a Trump is vastly greater than the danger of anyone launching a first strike that could be war winning.

Indeed, I don't even know that anyone is capable of that at all anymore. The only possible candidate is Russia, and I rather doubt they have the counter force capability anymore anyway...

I know that Clinton and Yeltsin managed to hammer out detargeting for ICBMs, and that Obama favored and pushed the Russians to get on board with an "open ocean" policy via bilateral agreement--that all nukes are aimed, not at one another, but at the open ocean, in the event of an accidental launch and to allow a measure of deescalation--but considering the Russian strategic reevaluation of their nuclear strategic thinking, I don't see that happening without substantial verification processes.

Yes, during peace time the missiles are all aimed at an empty patch of ocean, so if they somehow launched, they would not nuke their actual targets.

However, it takes just a minute or less to re-target them at their war targets, and that process or re-targetting is part of the launch procedure, so it doesn't protect against a douchebag deciding that the right response to the next 9/11 is nuking Mecca.

I don't think the Russians are a principal concern for a global birds-over-the-pole The Day After, either; at least, not at this point.  But I do worry about their regional fixations, and I can see in a Trumpian Universe, a Russia emboldened enough to move against NATO--and as the Russian-compromised US President sits it all out, the French go ball-so-hard, strap on the cuirassiers and remind Moscow what scorched earth really means.

Yeah, I don't discount Russia as an enemy by any means. I just don't think they have a credible threat of a effective first strike that could warrant a US SYOP that emphasizes immediate response over building some checks into the system.

I don't think anyone would argue that the President ought to have sole discretion under any circumstances to decide to employ a nuclear weapon.

[Admiral Yi]

http://hotair.com/archives/2016/11/01/hillary-campaign-brings-back-fear-nuclear-war-new-daisy-ad/

The one I was talking about is #2.

#1 is an ad featuring LBJ's orginal "Daisy."

[DGuller]

Santa Claus would have failed to secure a commanding lead.  The Age of Dictators is upon us.

 

[Syt]

Long op ed by Andrew Sullivan about the dangers of a Trump presidency, and the road there:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/andrew-sullivan-trump-america-and-the-abyss.html?mid=facebook_nymag

Excerpt:

[...]

The Republican media complex have enabled and promoted his lies and conspiracy theories and, above all, his hysteria. From the poisonous propaganda of most of Fox News to the internet madness of the alt-right, they have all made a fortune this past decade by describing the world as a hellhole of chaos and disorder and crime for which the only possible solution is a third-world strongman. The Republicans in Washington complemented this picture of crisis by a policy of calculated obstruction to every single measure a Democratic president has attempted, rendering the Congress so gridlocked that it has been incapable of even passing a budget without constitutional crisis, filling a vacant Supreme Court seat, or reforming a health-care policy in pragmatic fashion. They have risked the nation's very credit rating to vent their rage. They have helped reduce the public support of the central democratic institution in American government, the Congress, to a consistently basement level never seen before — another disturbing analogy to the discredited democratic parliaments of the 1930s. The Republicans have thereby become a force bent less on governing than on destroying the very institutions that make democracy and the rule of law possible. They have not been conservative in any sane meaning of that term for many, many years. They are nihilist revolutionaries of the far right in search of a galvanizing revolutionary leader. And they have now found their man.

For their part, the feckless Democrats decided to nominate one of the most mediocre, compromised, and Establishment figures one can imagine in a deeply restless moment of anxiety and discontent. They knew full well that Hillary Clinton is incapable of inspiring, of providing reassurance, or of persuading anyone who isn't already in her corner, and that her self-regard and privilege and money-grubbing have led her into the petty scandals that have been exploited by the tyrant's massive lies. The staggering decision by FBI director James Comey to violate established protocol and throw the election into chaos to preserve his credibility with the far right has ripped open her greatest vulnerability — her caginess and deviousness — while also epitomizing the endgame of the chaos that the GOP has sought to exploit. Comey made the final days of the election about her. And if this election is a referendum on Clinton, she loses.

[...}

[Martinus]

I think he is right - and incidentally, he is hardly just talking about Trump there.

I guess there is a question whether Trump presidency is an adequate punishment for the entire political class. He is essentially the Scourge of God on the American establishment and the question is whether the chaos of his ascendancy will be so toxic as to prevent any recovery. The trouble is that all the ills mentioned by Sullivan in his oped will only be preserved and strenghtened by Clinton's presidency.

[Syt]

At any rate, I don't look forward to the next 4 years. Either a raving, unbalanced, amateurish lunatic will be in office, or an establishment member that will be so obstructed by Republicans that Obama's presidency will look like a utopia of bipartisan compromise.

[Martinus]

I wonder if this is how the fall of the Roman Empire felt.

[CountDeMoney]

I was watching on of the talking head channels last night, and someone mentioned all the different ways Melania acts like a Cylon.

[Syt]

I was watching on of the talking head channels last night, and someone mentioned all the different ways Melania acts like a Cylon.

[Syt]

Also, it would be awesome if there was a Talking Heads channel.

[Fate]

At any rate, I don't look forward to the next 4 years. Either a raving, unbalanced, amateurish lunatic will be in office, or an establishment member that will be so obstructed by Republicans that Obama's presidency will look like a utopia of bipartisan compromise.

She'll have the senate for 2 years. We'll see her 2 or 3 Supreme Court nominees get through with the nuclear option and then we'll continue to have last minute budget battles from now until the next presidential election.

[mongers]

It's not going to matter much during the limited nuclear exchange the thin-skinned sociopath Trump starts, known to history as World War Tweet.

Never come to that.

I think they'll be enough sane servicemen in the chain of command, who'll refuse to do it.

[derspiess]

It would be an incredibly uphill battle, and no guarantee to make inroads with the congressional Republicans, but I think a President Clinton would do herself and her new administration a substantial favor if she jettisoned the sycophants, protectors and handlers that always seem to make bad things worse for the Clintons.
Unfortunately, and especially after this campaign, I don't think that's going to happen. 

No way that is going to happen.  They are part of the Clinton Machine and you don't leave the Clinton Machine, voluntarily or involuntarily.

[Grinning_Colossus]

I wonder if this is how the fall of the Roman Empire Republic felt.

FTFY 

[celedhring]

At least the Romans got the likes of Caesar, Cicero, Cato, Virgil... out of it. We've got Marti and Legbiter.