Just absolutely crazy... says the State Dept.

stupid question (so, what else is new?), good recovery by sen. obama. good intial response by sen. clinton.

BDB, a "bunker buster" is not a nuclear weapon, just a really, really huge conventional weapon. it doesn't irradiate anything, but still leaves quite a nasty looking hole in the ground. a really big hole.

if bin laden is worried about a "bunker buster", he isn't concerned about nukes. realistically, we don't need him to be thinking about nukes, we need him to be wondering who the hell those guys are that keep chasing butch and sundance.

terrorism is basically organized crime, with a political bent. we didn't drop a nuke on john gotti, we used a stilleto; it wasn't until later that he realized he'd been fatally wounded. that's how you destroy terrorist groups as well.

Can nuclear deterrence succeed? For nuclear deterrence to succeed, a threatening nation has to be capable and willing to use its nuclear weapons and must effectively communicate this to the nation that is to be deterred.

First, a deterrent force must be capable to inflict unacceptable damage, or more precisely the threatening nation has to be capable to exact payments (at a cost acceptable to itself) either by denying the opponent to achieve the objectives, by charging the opponent an excessive price for achieving it, or by a combination of the two. A nation has also to guarantee the safety of its nuclear arsenal. There must be no way for the opponent to eliminate the deterrent capability of the threatening nation. Strategists call this "second strike capability," that is the retaliatory force should be protected from destruction through a first strike. A second strike capability can be ascertained not only by technical means but also through policy means.

Second, the threatening nation must have the plans and the readiness necessary to demonstrate that it can deliver on its "message."

Conveying willingness to use retaliatory nuclear forces creates a dilemma: The threatening nation must show willingness to engage in a war it tries to deter or prevent. Is there a point at which the threatening nation deters itself?

Third, the threatening nation must successfully communicate to the opponent the price it will have to pay for attempting to achieve an unacceptable objective. For the United States conveyance of the deterrent message had two aspects: Deterrence had to address opponent as well as friend. The opponent had to believe in deterrence, and deterrence had to reassure U.S. allies in Europe. Reassurance and deterrence were two sides of the same nuclear coin. For much of the Cold War, deterrence and reassurance complemented each other.

Fourth, and most important, the deterrent message must have some degree of credibility. Both nations must believe that there is a real probability that the threatening nation will indeed perform the promised action, if required.

In summary, the components of nuclear deterrence have a physical and a psychological character. On the physical level, deterrence requires a series of military instruments, sufficient to threaten the opponent in a way that it would not even think of attacking. Successful deterrence is guaranteed, however, only if the will is there to use these weapons. Deterrence is credible only if a nation is able to successfully convey the first two points to it's opponent, that it is capable and willing. In other words, successful deterrence depends on psychological components: communication and perception.

Discussing when and when you would not use nukes undermines the deterrence factor in all situations. Presidents can not discuss the specifics of when a nuke would be used.

Now, if a Presidential candidate wishes to change this principle of nuclear deterrence, he/she needs to discuss it in a prepared and substantive way and argue for such a change.

Answering the question would have led to two possible headlines:

1.  Obama would consider nuking Pakistan; or

2.  Obama rules out nuking Pakistan.

1. There is a deterrence issue.  Do I think Obama or Clinton or anyone else who isn't insane (e.g. Dick Cheney) is going to start launching nukes into Pakistan/Afgahnistan?  No.   However, I do not have a problem with this going unstated.  In fact, I prefer it because - however remote the possibility - I have no problem with bin Laden, al Qaeda and those who harbor them worrying about us using bunker busters against them.  Why in the hell would any U.S. leader want to assure them otherwise?  

2.  What he said isn't even true.  If a dirty bomb went off at the Port of Los Angeles tomorrow and its origins traced back to al Qaeda in Pakistan, I'm quite sure President Obama - and anyone else - would consider all options at retaliation, including nukes.  They may not use them, and I may not want them to, but they would consider them.  Presidents should always consider all of their options.   While I may not agree Obama has the best judgement, he's absolutely right that that's what we need to be electing, the person whose judgement we trust to make decisions based on all available options.  The first part of that is to consider all options, even if it's to dismiss them.  And I realize another attack on the U.S. is a change in circumstance from the hypothetical, but I think that just goes to say why one shouldn't answer such a hypothetical.

3.  For a guy arguing about good judgement, he sure hasn't shown much the past couple of days.  I liked his terrorism speech overall, but the part about specifically calling out the Pakistan government ("with or without" them) seemed needlessly provocative, like it was added to show he was tough.  While I think the brouhaha over it was overblown here, I do think those kind of statements have an effect when heard over there - if we're trying to convince Muslims we respect them and their institutions, this is not a good way to do it (as the complaints from Pakistan this morning show).  It's not the policy I have the problem with (I would expect us to go after bin Laden with or without Pakistan's help), it's the need to explicitly state it to look tough that worries me.   The nukes answer also seems like he was trying to find the "right" answer in terms of sound bite - I know I should say I won't nuke them.  What's even odder is that the fallout from refusing to answer the question is probably less in the Muslim world since it's 1) aimed at al Qaeda and 2) you didn't say you will nuke anyone, you simply refused to discuss it.   Whereas in the Pakistan government bit he said he would act and he would be willing to do so unilaterally and against a Muslim country's wishes.  Again, not a policy I disagree with, but one I think better not to go out of our way to advertise.  Better to focus on getting bin Laden and al Qaeda and leave out the part about "with or without" the Pakistan government so that part goes unsaid.

And I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me -- they frighten me. When you have mainline candidates that turn around and say that there's nothing off the table with respect to Iran, that's code for using nukes, nuclear devices.

I got to tell you, I'm president of the United States, there will be no preemptive wars with nuclear devices. To my mind, it's immoral, and it's been immoral for the last 50 years as part of American foreign policy.