The secret contingency plan for the use of nuclear weapons against at least seven nations — Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Libya — in some battlefield situations is the most alarming and enraging evidence of the Dr. Strangelove mentality loose in the Bush dysadministration.

The secret report, which was provided to Congress on Jan. 8, says the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. It says the weapons could be used in three types of situations: against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack; in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or “in the event of surprising military developments.” LA Times

Even more than the national missile defense plan against which I’ve been railing since Bush forces took the White House, this indicates that there are no longer any inhibitions against first use of nuclear weapons and ‘thinking the unthinkable’ — crossing the line from maintaining a nuclear arsenal only as a deterrent, paradoxically for the sole purpose of assuring it would never be used, to actually considering the use of nuclear weapons acceptable in some, any, circumstances. What is important is that the American people understand the significance of this fundamental shift and make an informed decision about whether they want to continue to be governed by a cabal of nuclear blackmailers. Organized ways of disseminating the outrage and alarm of people who share my concern are desperately necessary. I have wondered if the weblogging community could be an instrumental part of such a hue and cry.

A March 2002 Wired article last month (which won’t be available online until March 12th) had both comforted and worried me on the nuclear warfighting score already. The article began by noting that the technical knowledge about designing, building and maintaining working nuclear weapons was disappearing as a generation of weapons scientists and engineers retired. Much of their knowledge has never been written down but only passed by word of mouth; and no actual weapons tests (only computer simulations) have been run since the Nuclear Test Ban treaty. But, sadly, a new set of training programs at Lawrence Livermore, Sandia and Dugway to preserve and expand on the knowledge is graduating its first class, mentored by some of the earlier generation before they depart. These Young Republican physicists seem to have a particular interest in designing — and finding a way to test again — usable tactical and low-yield battlefield nuclear weapons. In tandem with this is an attempt to build a computerized database linking all the scattered secrets relating to nuclear weapons development. Now of course I don’t advocate anything illegal here, but it would seem to me that it would be difficult to blame some macho hacker who thought that disrupting this database would be a particularly difficult and righteous challenge…