New Feature: Question of the Day

No. Way. In. Hell. We're assuming that WWII would be fought in the same paradigm right?? US is sole nuclear power, Russia is our ally, and the lot?

2001 is a different era. The NYT would expose the Manhatten project during the beginning phases, anti-war protestors would be siding with Japan, and the world would be condemning our island hopping campaign as disproportionate.

We're damn lucky that war came in the 40s, and no later.

Pretty much right on Charlie.

I think it's worth remembering that we didn't really know exactly what a deployed nuclear weapon would do when we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that we'd also been heavily firebombing Tokyo and Osaka for months. We killed more Japanese with conventional weapons than we ever did with nukes. In that sort of context, dropping nuclear weapons wasn't quite as drastic a measure as it seems. It was viewed, I think, more as a quantitative escalation than a qualitative escalation.

With the scenario proposed, there's also the issue of scale. I think if the only nukes in existance in this hypothetical scenario were 30 kiloton gravity bombs, we might well use them. Nuclear warfighting only really went out of fashion after the invention of the H-bomb ensured that all-out nuclear war would destroy the world.

Yes we would use the atom bomb -- if Harry Truman is President.

I'm inclined to say that yes, we would. Presuming that the same casaulty estimates existed for the invasion of Japan, where some 1 million allied soldiers were expected to die, the bomb was still the logical choice.

I suppose the following question is, would be use one bomb per city, or unleash our ICBMs?

That's what I was trying to get at Gil. I mean, I don't think we'd destroy Japan utterly as Cold War planning would have had us do to Russia. I can't see us unleashing city-busting megaton warheads under just about any circumstances.

Jim, I think Bush would have the cojones to pull the trigger. Reagan or Bush Sr. definitely would have.

Reasonable conclusion, William (Will?). I have to echo what you said about Bush or Reagan as they would certainly have the grapes to attempt (at minimum) the one-two bomb solution.

But, as John frequently points out here, we have changed how we target. I am not sure if we would go after cities in 2001.

I'm not going to get bogged down in the "it's a different world" debate. It is different; end of debate.

The thing is, we didn't use the bomb because Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. We used the bomb in 1945, as an alternative to invading the Japanese homeland.

We didn't have to use the bomb. It was a choice. Either (1) kill lots of Japanese with the bomb, or (2) kill even more Japanese, along with lots of Americans, by invading and fighting a conventional war, or (3) do neither, let the war drag on inconclusively, while (probably) continuing the firebombing of Japanese cities. Alternative 3 would have "kept our hands clean" after a fashion (the way some pacifists think they can keep their hands clean), but still would have resulted in massive Japanese deaths and many more American deaths. Even if the firebombing had stopped, the war would have dragged on until much of Japan starved to death.

Let's take it out of the hypothetical. It's after 9/11. We have a choice: Our citizens continue to die, or theirs die. We can fight the war here, or we can invade Afghanistan, and then Iraq. Or maybe that's not so hypothetical; we did those invasions. Iraq, in particular, was an "optional" war; we did it because we were concerned about the possibility of a worse war if we didn't do it. Iraq was not an imminent threat; we had a choice about our response.

There has been a lot of second-guessing of both Iraq and Hiroshima. Some of it has been appropriate, and some of it hasn't. In each case, the political and cultural climate has changed; the decision to "do it again" would be immensely changed by by both previous events and by the cultural change that followed.

So the real question, to me, is this: If Iran attacked US interests tomorrow, causing mass casualties, even if (1) it isn't a nuclear weapon or any other WMD, and (2) it is outside the continental US, what would we do about it? Think Khobar Towers or the Beirut Marine barracks, not the obvious "nuke in New York." Would we go to war with Iran?

Or think about the nuke in New York. Would we nuke Tehran? I'm not at all sure we would find the political will, but the consequences of not doing it could be horrendous.

Does it depend on where they attacked us? After all, the relativists might think an attack on a US military installation(s) is acceptable... Did only GIs die? Which then begs several questions. What if the attackers only attacked once? What if they attacked a purely civilian target? What if the stated goal of the attackers was total domination/annihilation of our way of life? When do the relativists get the big picture? How long do we wait to get catastrophically attacked? Why wait?

Gil,
To answer your question, I go by William or Will. I'm an American-British cross-breed, my British family have always called me William, my Dad's side usually goes with Will, and my friends have called me Scharf since kindergarten. Take your pick.

Diane,
Good analysis. The issue of WMD vs. nuclear response came up recently actually in the Israel-Lebanon war. When Hezbullah said they had the capability to hit Tel Aviv and would do so, a number of Israeli officials (their UN ambassador, several cabinet members interviewed on TV, etc.) made startlingly similar comments on the record, which led me to believe that it was a scripted answer delineating an official position.

The statement in question was that if Tel Aviv was hit "it would be doomsday for Syria and Iran." This was a close mirror of Shamir's statement during the first Gulf War that if a drop of Anthrax hit Israeli soil, Baghdad would cease to exist by the next morning. Saddam got the message loud and clear and stayed conventional, and it seems that Tehran understood pretty quickly that if missiles hit south of Haifa, Samson was pulling down the pillars real quick.

I think this is relevant for a number of reasons. No, Israel's policy making structure is not all that similar to the US's. They are a small country constantly under fire, we're a superpower, etc. What is significant is the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrant to lesser yet still devestating attacks.

I think that Western nuclear powers realize that the nuclear umbrella only works as a deterrant until a situation arises when it should be deployed and it's not. I do think that if an Iranian missile packed full of smallpox or something similar hit Paris, the French force de frappe would be deployed quickly and with devastating results against Iran.

With regard to the issue of conventional attack inside or outside of CONUS: I think if the Iranian footprint was clear enough and the attack was big enough (scale larger than Khobar certainly), we would bite the bullet and blow the crap out of them conventionally. This wouldn't be shock and awe fireworks, this would be the sort of devestating air attack we all know the US is capable of but which we have never seen to the degree to which it would be deployed. B1 and B2 penetration raids, air defense suppression, followed by B52 drops and seaborne bombardment. We could push their nation back into the stone-age, and if their attack against us was big enough, we would do it. It wouldn't be easy, it sure as hell wouldn't be bloodless for us, and it would be expensive, but I think NCA would be painted into a corner for which there would be no other exit.

If New York disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't be here to blog about it, but I think if the Iranian footprint was clear enough, we would do what is required -- that's if the Israelis didn't do the job first. To my way of thinking, if a nuclear launch from the US looked likely, Israel would just say the hell with it and go balls to the floor to prevent Iran from getting off any more nukes.

It would depend very much on how you define "we" I think. If you mean would the US government decide to use the A-bomb, then the answer is yes. Our current leadership is not quite completely lacking in cojones. If you mean would the American populace support it, then the answer is no. Back in the day only a tiny minority decried the use of the A-bomb, and the vast majority understood its necessity. I think that there would be a sizeable minority in the current age who would bitch and moan to no end, and maybe even have an influence on those who would otherwise recognize the necessity. Our reliable fifth column would surely be out in force to denounce the US.

I'm not so sure Carl. I think if the attack was large enough to warrant a nuclear response, the American public would get behind it. Not everyone of course, you'd have demonstrations in San Fran and New York, but I think a solid majority of Americans would see it as the right move, if the attack against us was big enough. Yes, there would be fifth columnists, but I think they'd be more background noise than anything else.

Tigerhawk, in reviewing Fiasco, makes interesting notes about the effectiveness of Desert Fox in 1998. It raises the possibility that a selective strike on Iran's nuclear facilities could set their nuke program back farther than most current estimates.

Will, there's lots to think about in your commentary. What keeps coming to mind is the whole issue of proportionate response. Proportionate response is simply an invitation to get hit again. Proportionate response s*cks. But you can't go disproportionate on every provocation. There's no simple way to know where the line is and when it's time to step across it. Going back at least to Lyndon Johnson, we've become increasingly afraid of that line.

It is possible. The important distinction to be made here is that Japan is a nation state, not a stateless terrorist entity.

Another question is would we even have declared war?

I am afraid that in todays climate, if faced with this decision after three years of war, the willpower to bring the conflict to a conclusive end would not exist. I hope I am wrong.

Interesting question, great commentary. Should be a very good feature.

Mark, the whole question of declaring war is a separate issue, maybe one that John will use for another question-of-the-day.

We haven't fought in a declared war since 1945. I haven't counted, but I suspect that for most conflicts since 1945 where we haven't been involved, there has also been no formal declaration of war. Has declaring war gone out of style?

Diane,
I know this is a weak point, but just because we don't know where the line is doesn't mean that at some level of government there isn't a line. The age of SIOPs may be gone, but I think there has got to be a clear delineation of what can and cannot pass somewhere in our military hierarchy.

diane,

I was waiting for the Proportionate response nugget to surface. Over time I have come to a simple conclusion: when I am hit, I respond with enough violence in return so that the perp either thinks twice about getting up and taking another swing or else stays down because he cannot get up.

In a simplistic way, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was that kind of response. If our response is anything other than overwhelming, then we are inviting subsequent strikes until the general public has to suffer needlessly.

War is a very ugly business that is sometimes neccesary. If we were fighting WW2 in 2001, the same response would have been appropriate because we were still at war. In the current conflict I wonder if we would be able to get away with using the nuclear option first. It would unfortunately take a first strike on us in order to fully let fly the dogs of war. In that there is no more Soviet Union, MAD no longer applies because we do not have an opponent that can respond like Moscow could have. However, in that only one nuke, suitcase, jet-born of ship-born is needed by Islamic fascism to achieve their objectives, pre-emption might still be necessary. Intel would need to be actively engaged to judge when we would need to pull that trigger.

And let us not forget, Israel is a player who might very well participate as well. OpFor I think has talked in the past about some air assets Israel has purchased that have but one purpose. OF also did a what-if scenario that was entirely plausible. The objective was not to deliver nuclear ordinance but to take out Achma-Dinnerjacket's nuclear development capacity. Still, the way things are going, the nuclear option for that mission could yet be put on the table.

Man, this is not for the feint of heart.

Agreed Dave.

Israel has to get involved, because if the US hits Iran, Iran hits Israel as a response. That's an incentive for preemption.

The F-16s and Jericho missiles at Tel Nof and Hirbat Zachariah are not there to look nice. In 1973, Israel was perhaps an hour from deploying nuclear weapons against Syria, due to the faltering of the defenses at Rafid and Kuneitra, and Tourkmani's unexpected penetration through the middle of IDF lines. A nuclear Iran poses a larger threat than Syria did then. In the event of war, Israel would do anything to prevent Iranian nukes from being launched, and that includes devestating Iranian airbases and weapons bunkers with nuclear weapons.

So many good points here, I fear I'll sound redundant. I think we would use a nuclear bomb if the stakes were as high as they were in WWII. In fact, the stakes may prove to be higher in this war than ever. One problem is leadership willing to ackowledge reality.

The biggest issue of whether to use a nuclear device in retaliation is choosing the target; where would we use it? Say a group that includes Saudis, Iranians, Pakistanis and Floridians sets off a device in Chicago. Would we nuke the capitals of all those countries?

Bush might be hesitant in nuking Tallahassee seeing as how his brother lives there.

Here’s a different spin. I believe the same rationale we used to bomb Japan. Can be applied to Iran today, for the similarities are striking. The cost in American lives would be too costly to justify the invasion of Iran. Just like it was when the U.S. was contemplating invading Japan. Hence the use of a nuclear device would be more cost effective and save many American lives while ending the root of all the Mid-east problems.

Remembering my east asian history degree, I feel compelled to point out that we were not going to ever use the bomb on Germany for fear they would reverse engineer it if they even saw it. We didn't think that Japan would have the capability to reverse engineer it. This skews the original question and makes a bit more further clarification of the original assumptions required.

The consensus seems to be that the US might use a nuke in response to a sudden and sufficiently large attack, but probably would not do so to end a war or as part of a war.

I don't think the public currently has the will, as manipulated by the media, to endure the casulties, expenses, or shortages of a WW2. Thus I don't think we in the scenario proposed would have gotten very far in the Pacific war. I think the media would be all wrong in all the wrong places. We would not have patriotic films. Politics would be unhinged. I don't think a president could even consider invading Japan, much less firebombing it or using a nuke, even the old nukes.

Another question, relevant to the current situation, is would we consider again something like the Jappanese internment camps of the US in WW2? What is Britan to do with it's apparently hostile population that is supportive of Islamic terror?

To start the answer to the first question, I say that the US and Britan would not consider something similar. They can't even seem to get past their own court systems to significant arrests without releases, holding of detainees without all kinds of provisions, or deporting of non-trivial numbers of people. In light of this, the question of anything aproaching a nuke is seen in a starker light.

I think that this is a great feature that is long overdue. Often times the comment section on OpFor is as good as the blog material.

That is a compliment to both bloggers and commenters if I was not clear.

There's too many variables. Are we mapping a 2001 mindset into the world of 1941? In that case, my guess is that Truman would follow through and nuke Japan, but that the Democrats would get annihilated in the '46 and '48 elections.

Or are we assuming that the Japan of 2001 is launching an attack on the USA of 2001? In that case, nobody would bother with nukes - the US's superiority in conventional warfare would make nukes completely unnecessary. Their navy and air force would be 100% dead within a week, along with any portion of the army that didn't go to ground. Who needs nukes when you have the most overwhelmingly powerful military machine in the history of the world?

Who needs nukes when you have the most overwhelmingly powerful military machine in the history of the world?

It's worth remembering that the reason we have a lot of these weapons is precisely because we discovered how useful nukes are when you really have to go to war.

Yes, we would use it, but in a completely different manner. We would give it to the United Nations in some a**-kissing maneuver or resolution, and they, in turn, in their ultimate and magnificient knowledge and generosity would give it to Japan, who of course would use it to level San Francisco, New York or Washington D.C. and then tell let us either surrender, or suffer continued bombing. That's how we would use it.

WITH OUR NATIONAL CASE OF VAGINITIS?? nope, can't see it.

A couple thoughts:

In order to justify the nukes militarily, we'd have to find a target worthy of a nuke. Why lay waste to an entire city when you've got JDAMs and bunker busters? All else being equal, it would be hard to justify the nukes with the precision option we have now. This is not to say that those targets are not out there, but dropping on a hardened, mountain bunker is far different than an airburst over a metropolitan area.

Also, being a member of the Y generation (or whatever the hell you want to call us), I hear a good portion of my contemporaries around campus making a lot of noise regarding how wrong US Foreign Policy is. I'm inclined to say that after nearly 4 years of nearly Total War where they or a large proportion of their buddies served and many were killed, their understanding of the situation may change. Our current climate is far more impersonal than that of the '40s. Nearly everyone had a Cindy Sheehan story--except they understood the meaning of the sacrifice. If a silver, or uranium, bullet appeared out of nowhere after that kind of carnage, I think a far more sober America wouldn't blink as a few left the chamber.

Either way, using or not-using facing an attack in kind is the true statement of our foreign policy.

Yes, after Pearl harbor 2000 We would have nuked the Japanese fleet as it sailed away from Hawaii.
End of story LOL

Would we use the atomic bomb? I think that's a specific example going for the scratch-the-surface extreme. How about... would we do the firebombing of cities that was far more horrific than the atomic bomb damage. What made the A-bomb so bad was that it was just one bomb... but we'd done to Dresden, Tokyo, Kobe much worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

So, perhaps a better question is... if we were fighting WW2 in 2001, would we be willing to fight a total war to completion?

just an observation. remember a year or two ago when the marine shot the guy in the mosque? it was kind of an ironic thing, about a week after that was the headline on cnn, i was watching the history channel and saw a marine do the exact same thing on iwo jima and it was portrayed as the correct and right behaviour for the time. i think the question of debate is too simple to come up with a high confidence answer, too much gray to draw from.
i have a question for debate. if iran were to use a nuke for the emp effect to knock out the power in half (or more) of CONUS, what would/should our response be???

the important part of that is the nuke doesn't cause any direct loss of life from the blast. indirect in the following weeks of chaos but nothing at the time of the blast.