Feel Safer with New Nuke Policy?

The administration has implemented the first step in its naïve vision of “a world without nuclear weapons.” Not only did the U.S. recently negotiate a treaty with Russia to further reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles, but also this week a new doctrine was announced in which the United States will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries, even if attacked with deadly biological or chemical weapons, or by a debilitating cyber attack. The White House did make it clear that North Korea and Iran were still subject to being nuked if they were to attack us with nuclear weapons, primarily because they are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Until now, nuclear weapons doctrine was always classified, and our leaders only spoke about it in generalities. It was designed to allow the president maximum flexibility and to keep our enemies guessing. This is the first administration to publicly announce when the country will or will not use the single most effective weapon ever devised in securing peace since World War II. Now, rogue nations that are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will not fear that we will retaliate with devastating nuclear firepower if they attack the U.S. Only our enemies were surprised to hear the policy announcement. They probably still can’t believe the White House would ever consider such a thing, because they never would. If we’re lucky, they still don’t believe it and they’re still deterred from attacking us. The question is why would anyone go out of the way to intentionally weaken one’s country’s defenses? Why show one’s cards to one’s opponents during a poker game? What if one or more of the 189 countries that are signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty decided to invade the U.S. or one of our allies using overwhelming conventional forces? Would they fear a nuclear strike by the U.S.? Not according to the new Obama administration policy. If you were a war planner for our enemies, wouldn’t you consider the likelihood of a retaliatory nuclear strike while formulating your plan? Wouldn’t you think it was impossible to defeat the United States because it just might drop nukes on your capital? Anyone with common sense would. Now, evil-doers will rethink their strategies in defeating the U.S. militarily, especially in light of our armed forces being stretched to the maximum in Iraq and Afghanistan. My point is to ask, why fix something that is not broken? The U.S. has had a proven deterrent to attacks on the homeland for 60 years, so why change it now? This administration’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons will never be achieved. The genie is out of the bottle, and has been since the United States dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan. That action ended a bloody war and saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of American and Japanese soldiers by forcing Japan to unconditionally surrender. There hasn’t been a Democratic president as strong as Harry Truman on national defense since. Obviously the Russians still don’t trust the United States when it says it will never initiate a nuclear attack against them. At the Russians insistence, the U.S. already backed off on a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe to protect it from a missile attack by Iran. So, do you feel any safer today than you did last week? I don’t. I do not believe that the U.S. is about to be attacked by any nation, including the Russians. I don’t believe there is a reason to be overly concerned at this point, but the actions of the White House to purposely weakening our national defense for ideological reasons is unacceptable.