As of now, we have but a few students who may recall from their Second Year Latin:
Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?
quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos1 eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata
iactabit audacia? nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, nihil urbis vigiliae,
nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus
habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt?
The Oration Against Cataline by Cicero. Needless to say
Marcus Tulius had less than an amicable ending. But Gary Wills interjects
Marcus in his piece on Executive Power. It appears age creeps up on all of us.
But I digress. Wills notes[1]:
The assumptions that Congress made about the conduct of
President Eisenhower or President Reagan—that they could be counted on to act
with humble precaution—no longer seem to apply. What can be done? There comes a
time when, as Cicero put it, “The highest law should be preservation of the
people,” Salus populi suprema lex esto. A crisis sufficient to justify use of
this maxim cannot be predicted. It could be any first nuclear strike the
president may order. Only extreme peril can justify an extreme remedy. It is
said (I don’t know with what truth) that in 1974, Secretary of Defense James
Schlesinger told the implementers that in the event of a nuclear order from
President Nixon, who was in a massive drunken funk, they should clear it with
him. We can only hope that there are high-ranking patriots who might act like
that if Big Rocket Man went after Little Rocket Man. Even a soldier in the
field must disobey a truly disastrous order from a manifestly disabled officer.
The commander in chief has to be held to the same standard as his subordinate
commanders, for the preservation of the people. It is reassuring to know that
the current commander of the US Strategic Command, Air Force General John
Hyten, as well as a former one, General Robert Kehler, recognizes this as a
rule of international law.
The problem here has in the past been one of neither side
launching a nuclear attack, period. The sides were the US and the USSR. By the mid-1970s
the consequences of a nuclear attack were seen by both sides as totally
devastating making Mutual Assured Destruction, MAD, the only strategy to avoid.
Back in the 60s we had RISOP:
The U.S. military has canceled the Red Integrated
Strategic Offensive Plan (RISOP), a hypothetical Russian nuclear strike plan
against the United States created and used for decades by U.S. nuclear war
planners to improve U.S. nuclear strike plans against Russia.
I recall one Plan, RISOP 9B, which assured the end of existence
for all creatures on the planet! I recall when I was involved in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiations in the late 70s having casual discussions
with my Russian counterparts who also knew the consequences. There was a
rational set of players on both sides. The very fact that we had the ability
for a second strike, and a third if necessary, as did the Soviets, made both
sides think. Clearly President Carter knew, as a Naval Officer on a Nuclear
Sub, you had a key, and you also knew the consequences.
Does our current President know? Perhaps the question is; is
there any parallel between the USSR and North Korea or Iran? The Russians and me
and my colleagues could speak os or children and grandchildren. We saw a
future, and despite differences we had them over politics, not religion or
worse, not in the case of a putative mad man. Could we enter a nuclear war with
Russia, doubtful, with China, doubtful, but the other two may readily launch a
nuclear attack.
Thus, what do we do? One assumes that like RISOP 9B we have
plans. A single nuke launched at San Francisco could be intercepted, hopefully.
Then what? Or on the other hand do we consider a pre-emptive strike? If so, is
it nuclear? We have a multiplicity of tactical nukes, some 1-5 KT yield with fairly
clean radiation after effects, but if we did not use them after 9-11 then we
would be hard pressed here. Nukes are nukes.
But one method of deterrence is uncertainty of the response
by the other side, especially if the response could be overwhelming. Taking
that uncertainty away then emboldens the adversary. That uncertainty is the
most powerful of weapons. It costs nothing and does no damage short term. But
what if it does not work? What if the adversary is just plain nuts? What if
they do launch an attack? That is the real question.
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