All he said was that we need to vote Obama out, and that WHOMEVER gets the GOP nomination would be better on foreign policy than Obama – which is a true statement (well, with the possible exception of isolationist Ron Paul – but he’s not going to get the GOP nomination anyway).

The fact that you’re so quick to interpret this as some sort of subtle plug for Mitt Romney would seem to indicate (to me, at least) that you’re so dead set against him that you’ll take your ball and go home if Mitt gets the nomination. If this is true, then you will have effectively cast your vote for Obama in November (same thing if you vote third party).

I don’t support Mitt, either – nor do I intend to vote for him in my state’s primary; but if he gets the nomination, I’ll be voting for him in November. Period.

If the ideological purity crowd is going to throw away an opportunity to at least put the brakes on the damage Obama is doing to the country because they can’t bring themselves to vote for anyone who is less than perfect in their eyes, then we’re in for four more years of Obama – and, in all likelihood, permanent Obamacare.

Conservative in the primary. Republican in the general. Otherwise, we’re done.

Any interest or experience in military matters. What does it take to assure “quick strike ability” on possible targets throughout the world by any of the alternate delivery systems that might be chosen to deliver any of the available yields/effects that might be desired? Let’s make allowance for warhead security that may have units rotating on and off station and for warheads going in and out of maintenance. Three hundred eggs sitting in a basket in CONUS may seem like a bunch, but it may be wholely inadequate to provide an adequate strategic deterance or credible response.

Ignorance: Lack of Knowledge or Awareness

Some people confuse ignorance with stupidity mistakenly thinking that ignorance implies stupidity. The most brilliant man in the world transported 1000 years into the future would still be intelligent but would be ignorant of the world around him.

So when I say that your statement “a few hundred is just as much of a deterrent as a few thousand” is ignorant I am simply saying you lack awareness of this particular issue.

I do not know your age, but for those who grew during the cold war and were aware of these issues understand the problem with your viewpoint.

300 nuclear weapons sounds like a lot, but here is why it is not:

1) Must prevent any country from thinking that a first strike will take out sufficient number of nuclear weapons.

2) Must account for the potential of malfunctions, mistargeting.

3) Must prevent any country from thinking that if they provoke us into using nuclear weapons against country A that we will not have enough weapons to be used against country B. (or that country B will then believe a first strike would be effective)

4) 300 might be enough right now but we do not want any country even thinking about building up their nukes as a potential first strike capability.

5) You also seem to assume that each of our nuclear weapons is of the same power as earlier models. Newer versions are actually less powerful than the ones they replace.

6) The 1.2 megaton bomb which is the largest now available in the US arsenal would “only” cause third degree radiation burns over a radius of 8 miles. The blast damage would be confined to about a 5 mile radius. The state of Texas has 268,800 square miles. 300 nukes even if they were all the largest in our inventory would directly destroy 2400 square miles of Texas or 0.8 % of the land. Of course radiation would kill any unprotected population but a country might build fallout shelters to protect their populations not directly hit by the weapon.

The point is we don’t want any country even thinking that such a plan could be successful even if they “miscalculate” our ability to respond.

Here’s how it all works. The point of MAD is deterrence. The Soviets didn’t attack us because they were “deterred” by the concept of “if we bomb them they will bomb us.” You should read some history books and watch less cable TV.

…we heard about your “strategy of surrender”: What’s the point of retaliating if we’re doomed anyway?

What’s wrong with it is that it is unlikely that a potential enemy would launch just one wave attack–a first strike–and then stop. More likely they would try a decapitation strike–take out of military weapons and command posts–and then see what happens, holding our cities hostage to a second strike. Or even a third strike.

It’s for that reason that we created “POSTATTACK deterrence theory”–what nuclear reserves we needed even after nuclear war had broken out, in order to prevent the all-out countervalue attack on our cities that could destroy our society.

We haven’t used a nuke since 1945 and we aren’t going to again (barring an alien invasion or shooting at an income asteroid). There is simply way too much political and economic damage we would take even in a retaliatory event. We are the world leader and the world leader doesn’t nuke people (as much of a wet dream fantasy as it may be to you).

in a field of strawmen.

The decision made by the Democrat congress to not fund improving our nuclear weapons is indefensible.

As to the rest, just because we can put 8 MIRVs in a Trident doesn’t mean we have to. If we do having a mix of conventional and nuclear Tridents on our boomers makes sense.

Strategic bombers have about zero chance of being useful as a nuclear delivery vehicles and are part of a legacy strategy.

Tactical nukes essentially went out of the inventory unilaterally in 1992 when we got rid of the nuclear 155mm artillery round. The Pershing II missile was scrapped in 1988.

Considering that the B-52 is a sitting duck these days, and is only useful as a cruise-missile platform (Something the Navy can do just fine)….

The only ‘viable’ nuclear bomber we have, is the B-2, and we have way too few of them..

B-1s are conventional-only as-per one of the original Reagan-era arms-control treaties….

Retire the 52s, save the money…. The B-1 has a bigger payload for the conventional-bomber role, and ships/subs can fire cruise missiles just as well as a B52….

you are assuming that there are ten warheads on each missile.There is no reason why that has to be so. MIRVing was created so you could deliver several thousand warheads quickly. That need is no longer there. Most of the area we targeted during the Cold War are now friendly countries.

Tactical nukes disappeared with the decommissioning of nuclear 155mm artillery batteries in 1991/2

It took us TEN years to get Osama bin Laden. What if the Iranian leaders escaped to unknown locations as soon as they launched the nukes? (After all, that’s what we do–the President is taken to a secure location so he can continue to direct our forces.)

In the meantime, we’re talking about Iran having nuked us, with effects perhaps three orders of magnitude worse than 9-11. While you’re willing to let that injustice go unpunished–for years? The U.S. would be finished as a world superpower if it turned the other cheek as you’re suggesting.

Give me a break.

Hillary–who’s not a conservative–said in 2008 that if North Korea nuked the U.S., the result would be their obliteration.

But then Hillary is a lot tougher than Obama. And unlike today’s limp-wristed liberals, her husband never felt that weapons were icky.

OK. The leader of Iran, Ahmadinejad, believes in the 12th Imam. That is, the second coming of Muhammad. He believes the more chaos that created in the world, the quicker that Muhammad will return. Gee, should a man who believes that chaos will hasten the return, really have nuclear weapons? Do you think such a person would give a damn if they die?

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you are a fool not just ignorant.

and stop being a jerk.

Iran is too small to absorb the effects of any of our land or sea based nukes. I really don’t care how many times bigger they are than Lichtenstein.

We simply aren’t going to irradiate Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and assorted -stans for the satisfaction of popping a nuke on Tehran. If you think otherwise I really don’t know why you are in this discussion.

first a bit of advice. I’ll defend most anything I post. What I will not tolerate is you making up things and attributing them to me. Do it again and you are gone. I hope I am making this clear enough for you.

1. I don’t believe in nuclear winter.

2. Having passed high school chemistry, I do believe in radioactivity. YMMV

3. Having passed high school physics, I do believe dust particles, even radioactive ones, can be pushed high into the atmosphere by a nuclear blast and moved by winds. Again YMMV and obviously does.

4. Putting those two bits on knowledge together plus an Army and a NATO nuke targeting course I am certain beyond all doubt that a standard nuke will toss radiation onto one or more of Iran’s neighbors.

This is apparently of no concern to you and several other people commenting on this story but I’m real sure that sane people everywhere do care.

absent a testing and modernization program , the number of weapons is pretty irrelevant.