Morality of Using a Nuclear Weapon

[JimG]

but the USSR was the first to have an act of war putting bombs off our coast. I don’t disagree with bombing the missile sites as long as they wouldn’t launch one off because of the bombing of sites

Not only that. The USSR was sponsoring proxy wars and communist revolutions all over the globe under the protection of its nuclear umbrella. As for bombing the missile sites, the USAF told JFK that they could get most of them, but they could not guarantee that they would get all of them. And the missiles were under direct control of the Russian commanders in Cuba, who could have launched them if they felt threatened. Bombing the missile sites would have killed Russians and might have led to war with Russia.

Ask yourself this question what would have happened if the USSR got a bomb off, how would the united states have responded. I understand the deterrence worked but what would have happened if they got one off?

The purpose of deterrence is to make sure that nobody gets a bomb off.

When we had 1150 ICBM’s that was a pretty serious deterrent. Now we’re down to 450 and maybe declining further. I don’t know how many China has. I don’t know how many Russia has. But there comes a point when deterrence is no longer credible if a nation lets its capability decline or shows it is not serious in maintaining it. That could lead to war through nuclear blackmail.

Nuclear weapons are easy to hide. I have no idea whether Russia is abiding by all the SALT treaties, and I’m not sure if we have the capability to know for certain. Universal disarmament might be the ideal, but how would anyone know that some or many nations might simply hide their nukes to be brought out at a more propitious time. I sure wouldn’t want to be the diplomat responsible for getting rid of the last U.S. nuclear weapon only to discover later that there were dozens or scores still hidden by Russia, China, Iran or other nations.

It’s true that nuclear weapons do not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Neither do any other weapons, even including drones, which nearly always kill some non-combatants.

The U.S. and Russia (even China?) could agree to get rid of all the nuclear weapons tomorrow, and maybe by some miracle actually do it and be able to verify it, (which I doubt). But that would not rid the world of nuclear weapons. And it might even make the use of nuclear weapons more likely since the lesser powers would no longer fear the big nuclear nations.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

When General Curtis E. LeMay was assigned to remake the Strategic Air Command, he received the funding to develop an absolutely air-tight deterrent.

Starting with President Kennedy, the deterrent was gradually weakened.

Now it is almost non-existent.

The heart of the deterrent was a triad of systems that filled in for one another’s weaknesses … mostly in the timing of vulnerabilities.

So, there were the SAC bomber force, the SAC ICBM missiles, and the Navy’s Polaris/Poseidon/Trident submarine launched missile systems. It would be impossible to knock out all three at the same time; so one would always be available to counter an attack on the United States.

Systems would be upgraded continuously to avail them of the latest technologies on both sides of the Iron Curtain … working on the strengths and weaknesses.

The alert B-52’s could take off at 8-second intervals [yes, really] … the older B-47’s could take off at 15-second intervals and I witnessed that personally … standing on the edge of the runway during a practice scramble. [Not the most brilliant thing I have ever done, but nevertheless, that’s what they did.]

The B-52’s are now at about 10% of their former numbers and none are on alert.

Just one example.

Everything else has been / is being downsized similarly.

The XB-70 was intended to replace the B-52, the first of which flew in 1952 and the latest delivered around 1968. And the B-1 and the B-2 were similarly designed as replacements with different operating profiles. Bill Clinton canceled the B-2 after only 22 were built.

The weakness was shown on September 11, 2001 … whereas once we had hundreds of interceptors on alert, on 9/11, we could only launch two airplanes and they got there way too late to be of any value.

Back in the 1950’s, the U.S. designed and built one family after another of aircraft and missiles that took advantage of new technology.

When the SAGE system was built in the 1950’s it was 50 years ahead of the civilian state of the art … AND there was a backup system and a backup for the backup. All operational at the same time. So that if an attack took place, we had all kinds of redundancies with the absolute latest technology.

We even built a couple of interceptors based on the SR-71 Mach 3 technology … these were the YF-12’s. There is one at the museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

Robert McNamara broke up the tooling for the SR-71 and Bill Clinton grounded them permanently.

Our fleet of jammer planes was grounded.

The Air Force also had a design for an** operational** Mach 6 interceptor. But they turned the design over to NASA which threw it away.

You can look at the actual designs … there was the F-106 interceptor that broke every speed record in the 1950’s and we built hundreds of them. It was supposed to be replaced by aircraft such as the YF-12, the XF-108, etc. All were canceled with only one or two of the YF-12’s built and none of the XF-108 … etc.

The Air Force had a family of experimental aircraft such as the X-15, with follow-on programs such as the MOL and the Dynamic Soaring vehicle … operational manned space systems. Both were canceled after much hardware was built and the crews trained.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

There were numerous new and upgraded systems that got tabled.

There were families of defensive anti-missile systems … all canceled.

There were orbital defensive systems, such as Smart Rocks and Brilliant Pebbles … no warheads at all … direct kinetic hits … hitting a bullet with a bullet. Canceled.

Goes on and on.

The Air Force built an operational anti-satellite system that was launched from an F-15 fighter! Built and put into a warehouse.

A system of anti-ICBM missiles was developed, but canceled before deployment … actually one was operational and then canceled and defunded after being operational for 30 days.

There is the “residue” of another anti-ICBM system at Ft. Richardson in Alaska … that’s the one that Chuck Hagel says he will upgrade in 2017.

Pretty depressing.

 

[aspirant]

112. Hence justice, right reason, and the recognition of man’s dignity cry out insistently for a cessation to the arms race. The stock-piles of armaments which have been built up in various countries must be reduced all round and simultaneously by the parties concerned. Nuclear weapons must be banned. A general agreement must be reached on a suitable disarmament program, with an effective system of mutual control. In the words of Pope Pius XII: “The calamity of a world war, with the economic and social ruin and the moral excesses and dissolution that accompany it, must not on any account be permitted to engulf the human race for a third time.”

1. Everyone, however, must realize that, unless this process of disarmament be thoroughgoing and complete, and reach men’s very souls, it is impossible to stop the arms race, or to reduce armaments, or—and this is the main thing—ultimately to abolish them entirely. Everyone must sincerely co-operate in the effort to banish fear and the anxious expectation of war from men’s minds. But this requires that the fundamental principles upon which peace is based in today’s world be replaced by an altogether different one, namely, the realization that true and lasting peace among nations cannot consist in the possession of an equal supply of armaments but only in mutual trust. And We are confident that this can be achieved, for it is a thing which not only is dictated by common sense, but is in itself most desirable and most fruitful of good.

 

[catholictiger]

Not only that. The USSR was sponsoring proxy wars and communist revolutions all over the globe under the protection of its nuclear umbrella. As for bombing the missile sites, the USAF told JFK that they could get most of them, but they could not guarantee that they would get all of them. And the missiles were under direct control of the Russian commanders in Cuba, who could have launched them if they felt threatened. Bombing the missile sites would have killed Russians and might have led to war with Russia.

The purpose of deterrence is to make sure that nobody gets a bomb off.

When we had 1150 ICBM’s that was a pretty serious deterrent. Now we’re down to 450 and maybe declining further. I don’t know how many China has. I don’t know how many Russia has. But there comes a point when deterrence is no longer credible if a nation lets its capability decline or shows it is not serious in maintaining it. That could lead to war through nuclear blackmail.

Nuclear weapons are easy to hide. I have no idea whether Russia is abiding by all the SALT treaties, and I’m not sure if we have the capability to know for certain. Universal disarmament might be the ideal, but how would anyone know that some or many nations might simply hide their nukes to be brought out at a more propitious time. I sure wouldn’t want to be the diplomat responsible for getting rid of the last U.S. nuclear weapon only to discover later that there were dozens or scores still hidden by Russia, China, Iran or other nations.

It’s true that nuclear weapons do not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Neither do any other weapons, even including drones, which nearly always kill some non-combatants.

The U.S. and Russia (even China?) could agree to get rid of all the nuclear weapons tomorrow, and maybe by some miracle actually do it and be able to verify it, (which I doubt). But that would not rid the world of nuclear weapons. And it might even make the use of nuclear weapons more likely since the lesser powers would no longer fear the big nuclear nations.

I’m no historical expert on this stuff so I can’t comment on this to much, I was just trying to bring out the Catholic understanding of arms race and nuclear stockpiling mainly John XXIII understanding of it which I think is current magisterium as in since John XXIII talked about peace and relationship between nations there hasn’t been much development on the nuclear and war side of this discussion of popes. If I’m wrong please how me I want to keep up with current magisterium as much as you do.

 

[SnakeMauler]

Nuclear weapons tend to the destruction of civilian targets. They are therefore morally impermissible. Threatening an enemy power’s civilian population is like killing an attacker’s child and claiming self-defense.

Child soldiers exist. In Africa, theres 9 year old armed child soldiers who enter villages and rape women at gunpoint. Pretty sure those being attacked by armed children have the right to defend themselves.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I’m no historical expert on this stuff so I can’t comment on this to much, I was just trying to bring out the Catholic understanding of arms race and nuclear stockpiling mainly John XXIII understanding of it which I think is current magisterium as in since John XXIII talked about peace and relationship between nations there hasn’t been much development on the nuclear and war side of this discussion of popes. If I’m wrong please how me I want to keep up with current magisterium as much as you do.

In the book, “Victory”, it is described that the Cold War was going so badly that Pope John Paul II threatened to resign the papacy and go to Poland to lead the fight against the Soviet Union. Shortly after that, he was shot and seriously wounded by an assassin.

 

[JimG]

To quote again from Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris:

“113. Everyone, however, must realize that, unless this process of disarmament be thoroughgoing and complete, and reach men’s very souls, it is impossible to stop the arms race, or to reduce armaments, or—and this is the main thing—ultimately to abolish them entirely.”

That’s the real sticking point. How to have a disarmament that is thoroughgoing and complete, and reach men’s very souls.

Because a disarmament that is not complete and not thorough, can make war more rather than less likely.

How to accomplish that I do not know.

The Church at least seems to allow for Catholics to be involved with nuclear weapons in an operational capacity in the military. I recall an instance a few years back when a Catholic male Air Force officer objected to being assigned to 24-hour duty at a Minuteman launch control center with a woman. (These are two-person crews serving alone some 60 feet underground in a concrete capsule that can only be opened from the inside.) His bishop sided with him as to the moral objection to serving alone with a woman. But nobody mentioned a moral objection to the fact that he might be responsible for the launch of nuclear weapons.

 

[catholictiger]

In the book, “Victory”, it is described that the Cold War was going so badly that Pope John Paul II threatened to resign the papacy and go to Poland to lead the fight against the Soviet Union. Shortly after that, he was shot and seriously wounded by an assassin.

and instead he still went to poland and was still partially responsible for the toppling of the USSR. Because of his visit to Poland the solidarity movement started and helped topple the USSR.

 

[catholictiger]

To quote again from Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris:

“113. Everyone, however, must realize that, unless this process of disarmament be thoroughgoing and complete, and reach men’s very souls, it is impossible to stop the arms race, or to reduce armaments, or—and this is the main thing—ultimately to abolish them entirely.”

That’s the real sticking point. How to have a disarmament that is thoroughgoing and complete, and reach men’s very souls.

Because a disarmament that is not complete and not thorough, can make war more rather than less likely.

How to accomplish that I do not know.

The Church at least seems to allow for Catholics to be involved with nuclear weapons in an operational capacity in the military. I recall an instance a few years back when a Catholic male Air Force officer objected to being assigned to 24-hour duty at a Minuteman launch control center with a woman. (These are two-person crews serving alone some 60 feet underground in a concrete capsule that can only be opened from the inside.) His bishop sided with him as to the moral objection to serving alone with a woman. But nobody mentioned a moral objection to the fact that he might be responsible for the launch of nuclear weapons.

you are correct in this disarmament must work towards peace and not more violence. To your example I would have no objection to someone working in a nuclear facility that may cause the death of millions. Men in the military shouldn’t be held morally responsible for following orders that may put lives at risk, men in the military (women to) have an obligation to follow orders to protect the country. Now if there is something questionable they are ordered to do its fine to question it but lets say a f14 pilot is given an order to bomb a target that has civilians in it. It isn’t morally objectionable for him to bomb that Target, it could be morally wrong who gave the order if they had knowledge of the civilians but those who are following orders must follow orders and trust that those above them have made the decisions that are best for the defense of our country and to avoid the loss of innocent life.

Someone in a launch control room would have this same trust in those above him. Someone in that control room may not think dropping a nuke is a good thing but he is obligated to follow orders. I think most of the time they have no idea what they are going to shoot at (if war games showed it correctly), they just have to shoot it no matter what. Not knowing what the target is hopefully removes them trying to be the moral police so to speak.

 

[aspirant]

Men in the military shouldn’t be held morally responsible for following orders that may put lives at risk, men in the military (women to) have an obligation to follow orders to protect the country. Now if there is something questionable they are ordered to do its fine to question it but lets say a f14 pilot is given an order to bomb a target that has civilians in it. It isn’t morally objectionable for him to bomb that Target, it could be morally wrong who gave the order if they had knowledge of the civilians but those who are following orders must follow orders and trust that those above them have made the decisions that are best for the defense of our country and to avoid the loss of innocent life.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.

Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide.

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church:

Every member of the armed forces is morally obliged to resist orders that call for perpetrating crimes against the law of nations and the universal principles of this law. Military personnel remain fully responsible for the acts they commit in violation of the rights of individuals and peoples, or of the norms of international humanitarian law. Such acts cannot be justified by claiming obedience to the orders of superiors.

 

[catholictiger]

you are correct my fault for not making things clear

but many times those who are in the millitary are just following orders and don’t know what their actions are doing. The point I’m trying to make in general is that if a country is fighting an unjust war or a commander makes an unjust order you can’t always blame the person who takes out the order. Someone who bombs a site may not know that he is bombing civilians, if he were to find out he should be horrified by it and such, but someone many times can’t be held as morally cuplable as those who hand down the order.

so the example of a nuclear weapon lets say some crazy nut job somehow is able to order a nuclear attack on a major city, someone in a launch control room isn’t aware of what his target is so he enters the code and they launch the nuke its hits a major city and kills millions. The person launching which he is the direct cause of the evil he had no knowledge that his actions were causing an evil, and he should trust those who gave him the order that he isn’t crazy and isn’t a nut ball.

The point I was trying to make is that sometimes those in the military can’t be held as culpable because of their position sometimes they aren’t aware of what they are doing and can’t be held as morally culpable.

the only time the example of the Catechism should apply is when they have full knowledge that what they are doing is wrong and contrary to Catholic teaching. Lets say you are a solider and you are told to kill enemy soldiers who just surrendered you have a duty as a Catholic to refuse to do this even if you are court Martialled for it.

again the situation the previous poster brought up is that a bishop didn’t object to a Catholic being assigned to a nuclear launch control room. If this person doesn’t know the target he can’t be held responsible if the dropping of the bomb is an evil or not.

 

[aspirant]

many times those who are in the millitary are just following orders and don’t know what their actions are doing… Someone who bombs a site may not know that he is bombing civilians, if he were to find out he should be horrified by it and such, but someone many times can’t be held as morally cuplable as those who hand down the order.

I agree that’s true. Not knowing what one is doing is very troublesome position to be in, and if anyone asked whether they should do it, I would caution against it.

so the example of a nuclear weapon lets say some crazy nut job somehow is able to order a nuclear attack on a major city, someone in a launch control room isn’t aware of what his target is so he enters the code and they launch the nuke its hits a major city and kills millions.

I would not obey an order to launch a nuclear weapon without any knowledge of its target, nor would I advise anyone else to do so. If the “nut job” in command deceived the launcher regarding the target then the launcher might be acting in good faith, but I would certainly not consider myself innocent of all wrongdoing if I were one of the launchers and acted without pursuing any knowledge of the target.

The point I was trying to make is that sometimes those in the military can’t be held as culpable because of their position sometimes they aren’t aware of what they are doing and can’t be held as morally culpable.

I understand and, to some extent, I would agree.

Lets say you are a solider and you are told to kill enemy soldiers who just surrendered you have a duty as a Catholic to refuse to do this even if you are court Martialled for it.

We agree.

 

[JimG]

Well, targets for land based ICBM’s are simply identified by number (00 thru 99) on a thumbwheel, and can be changed whenever the command wishes to change them. Retargeting is fairly easy. I suppose that it might not be impossible for a launch control center crew of two to figure out what their current targets are, but that is not their job. Their job is to enter retargeting commands if needed, to monitor the missile status, to respond to alarms, to keep their missiles on strategic alert, and to ensure that the nuclear deterrent is credible. Launch crews do numerous practice keyturns in training simulators, as well as actual practice launches down the western test range under conditions just like normal operations.

It’s not as though they go to work every day expecting nuclear war, or deciding that they must figure out what those target numbers refer to on this particular day. They don’t have time for all that. In any case, fighting nuclear war is not their job. To rephrase SAC’s old motto, if war ensues, they have failed at their job, because “peace is their profession.” And they maintain the peace by maintaining a credible deterrent.

Somebody’s got to do it.

If we don’t have a deterrent force, but China does, or Russia does, or anybody else does, then we must simply accept surrender when the time comes. And the three things that nuclear deterrence must avoid are: genocide, suicide, and surrender.

 

[aspirant]

Whether it is their job does not suffice morally.

 

[Bobby_Jim]

…To rephrase SAC’s old motto, if war ensues, they have failed at their job, because “peace is their profession.” And they maintain the peace by maintaining a credible deterrent.

Somebody’s got to do it.
…

And the three things that nuclear deterrence must avoid are: genocide, suicide, and surrender.

There certainly is a logic to it, don’t get me wrong. In the abstract it works indefinitely against rational opponents with an interest in their own survival. In reality it has worked for more than 60 years thus far, and I’m sure it will continue to work until it doesn’t.

A problem I see is that it locks one into actually using the weapons when “demanded” by the rules of the “game” (for lack of a better word), otherwise the instant you don’t retaliate, the jig is up, the credible deterrence is lost. So in a way we become servants of these weapons, or more properly servants to the strategy. The weapons and the strategy have become our masters. We are no longer truly free. Our enemies can force our hand, and the problem then is that the response demanded by the strategy is truly horrific.

Now I know there are many different scenarios for possible use of nuclear weapons, ranging from limited tactical strikes to massive strategic responses. We have in place real, concrete strategies for massive retaliation with long-range, high yield, strategic weapons in response to a first strike by our enemies. This inevitably involves killing millions of innocents. Sure we primarily target their missile sites and military installations which may be located outside of population centers. But another top priority, perhaps equal to the missile sites, is to decapitate the opponent’s leadership which has command and control of their nuclear arsenal. For the sake of taking out Breshnev, we would take out Moscow. And they would take out Washington for the sake of our leadership. We (and our enemies) also target militarily important things like industrial centers and transportation hubs, which are inevitably located near population centers. I recall hearing back in the day the freeway interchanges that the Soviets targeted (or likely targeted??) in and around my hometown of Detroit, and thinking wow, I drive that freeway every day… Sure I can see the military relevance of the target, but I also see children incinerated by the thousands for the sake of that target.

And these lists of targets, these scenarios for use, which I think are highly immoral, had to be devised by people. Even if the intention is for them to never be used, they must be formulated with full intent to use if necessary. We have full intent to do something gravely immoral - to commit genocide in half an hour - “if it ever comes to that”, and “God help us that it never comes to that”. That is the inherent paradox of nuclear strategy to me.

A side note as well, this has been a multi-trillion dollar enterprise over the years. And to continue a credible deterrence, simply the maintenance and stewardship of our stockpile continues as a multi-billion dollar enterprise in perpetuity. There will come a day, perhaps in 50-100 years, not exactly clear, when we’ll need to start making new plutonium pits, and then I guess the costs ramp up again. And as it is we need to keep a certain number (in the thousands I would guess) of the weapons designers and engineers gainfully employed at all times so we don’t lose those skills. In addition we have what I call the amortized cost of the weapons program, in superfund sites like Hanford and Oak Ridge, which will cost in the tens of billions of dollars to clean up, if we ever figure out how to do it. Or we can ignore that and conveniently shift those costs to public health or permanently non-productive land, however we prefer…

Another little real-world detail about this that is interesting to me is the role of intelligence, and our understanding of our enemies and their motives. I think one of the lessons of the Cold War is that both sides actually had a pretty poor understanding of the inner workings of the other side. By the early 1980s the Soviet system was crumbling and the dinosaurs in power were terrified that the west was going to launch a first strike, so they had KGB officers in the west monitor for silly things like blood drives and increased slaughtering of cattle for food as impending signs of a first strike. Meanwhile we didn’t really have much in the way of insiders to tell us how paranoid and dysfunctional the Kremlin was during that era. Both sides perceived possible intent to launch first strikes where there was none, but in general the higher the anxiety level (real or imagined), the greater the chance one side is going to flinch and force the other into action. Supposedly Nixon even played this up a bit back in the '70s, intentionally projected an image of being just a little bit unhinged, crazy enough to carry out a massive retaliation, but came across as provocative and raising tension levels.

Anyway, to sum up, my belief is that the logic of nuclear deterrence is flawless until one looks into the details, and in the details it is gravely immoral as well as dangerous.

 

[JimG]

Nuclear strategy indeed has paradoxical aspects to it. Deterrence won’t deter unless it is credible and credibility includes the willingness to counter a first strike with a retaliatory strike. But there are many other permutations to strategic plans as well.

Of course, even attempting to reduce nuclear weapons or eliminate them carries a risk, as I have mentioned before, since reduced deterrent levels can actually make war more likely by making war seem more rational.

It was President Eisenhower who first invented the idea of massive nuclear retaliation, really in its most morally unacceptable form, and yet there was not much argument about it at the time. He knew that should the USSR decide to attack NATO nations, the U.S. had no chance of preventing it. So he deployed a fleet of B-52’s on constant alert, and fitted with nuclear weapons with huge yields compared to today’s weapons. His promise to the USSR was that any attack on a NATO nation would be treated as an attack on the U.S. and be met with massive nuclear retaliation. That was deterrence in its initial form.

I suspect that eventually, ICBM’s will simply become obsolete as they are bypassed by other weapon systems, much as crossbows became obsolete with the advent of gunpowder. I’m afraid though, that the new weaponry may be just as indiscriminate in its effects as nuclear weapons.

I’m thinking, for example, of hacking as a military weapon. If an enemy hacker can shut down the power grid, turn off water systems, disrupt medical communications, interfere with aircraft flight controls, just as many innocents could be killed as setting off a nuclear weapon. My own thought, as a technological dinosaur, is that critical infrastructure systems ought not to be connected to the Internet, but it seems that everything is connected now to the Internet, and that means that everything is vulnerable to attack.

I wouldn’t in any case want to get rid of nuclear weapons systems entirely, as it seems almost inevitable that at some point we may need to convert them into anti-asteroid weapons.

 

[Fairwinds]

It is never permissible to directly target civilian targets. Just like infanticide, mass murder of civilians has no moral rape, incest, or life of the mother exception.

Its immoral to** use** nukes against civilians, but why is it immoral to** target** them? That’s how the balance of power works, and why there haven’t been nukes used in war since 1945, and is certainly why India and Pakistan have never resorted to them.

F.

 

[devoutchristian]

Child soldiers exist. In Africa, theres 9 year old armed child soldiers who enter villages and rape women at gunpoint. Pretty sure those being attacked by armed children have the right to defend themselves.

This post has absolutely nothing to do with my post. I said that killing an attacker’s child to manipulate the attacker into stopping was wrong. You mention that the morality of self defense doesn’t depend on the age of an attacker. That is not a response to my post.

 

[JimG]

With respect to nuclear deterrence, I just came across something in the newspaper today: a prominent South Korean legislator has proposed that the time as come to counter the North Korean nuclear weapons program with a South Korean nuclear weapons program. Talks have failed, sanctions have failed, international aid has failed, promises have always been broken. This South Korean proposes nuclear deterrence against the North, with a proposal that the South will then de-escalate only if the North does as well. It might work. But nobody likes it. Not China, not the U.S., not North Korea. Hmmm. But what if it would work when everything else has failed?