You're sick of it, I know. The endless ads, the robocalls, the AI-generated images by wanna-be influencers nestled in basements, the state-run hackers. But this midterm election, on track to be the most expensive midterm in US history, is important for one key reason...nuclear weapons. If you haven't already heard (even Congress hasn't been notified), Trump is in secret talks with the Pentagon to lower the threshold of nuclear use so that he could possibly (and probably) use smaller nukes against Iran, a war he both started and now sees no way to win, other than by using nuclear weapons. Here's what the Bulletin for Atomic Scientists wrote: A new nuclear policy is taking shape in secret, crafted by a small group of Pentagon officials, that will give President Donald Trump more ways to start a nuclear war. Little is known about the strategic nuclear review now under way in the Trump administration, but officials’ comments suggest that it may bring back one of the most dangerous policies of the Cold War: the proliferation of battlefield nuclear weapons and their early use in a conventional war...Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby explained in a speech in August, "This is not designed to be a public-facing review.” It will be kept internal to the Defense Department. Unlike previous nuclear posture reviews, this one is not an inter-agency process. Instead, it is being run by a small number of Pentagon officials, who do not plan on making the results of the review public. (emphasis mine)
This was brought to my attention in the podcast On Point, one which featured Joseph Cirincione, national security analyst and Vice chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for International Policy. He noted that this pattern of escalation is following point-by-point the outline of Project 2025/26 from the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, now basically being implemented by Steven Miller (Trump let the nuclear arms treaty with Russia expire during his first term). Back in the days of the Cold War with Russia, Cirincione noted that the world had 70,000 nuclear weapons, everything from nuclear land-mines to nuclear torpedoes, never mind the ballistic missiles nestled in underground silos and on submarines. President Reagan began the descalation process (the treaty Trump let expire) and George H. Bush pushed forward by signing an executive order to eliminate 14,000 nuclear weapons from our inventory (Russia followed suit). The new Pentagon discussions want to revive that battlefield inventory in all formats...from new subs and bombers, to smaller "tactical" nuclear weapons. Said Cirincione about this new secretive review: It's supposed to be a close-hold review. And the idea is to allow the President of the United States to have more options for how to use nuclear weapons early in a conflict. And this is one of the most dangerous concepts left over from the Cold War, the idea that nuclear weapons are not just useful for a deterrent to stop the bad guys from attacking us, but they could be useful in winning conventional wars. And so we should design not just very big nuclear weapons on missiles and submarines and heavy bombers, but smaller nuclear weapons that could be used on cruise missiles or short-range rockets or dropped by jet fighter planes that could turn the tide in a conventional war we might be losing...take the war in Iran, for example. We've seen that in the United States, which spends over a trillion dollars a year on military weaponry; it's been basically defeated in a war by a country that spends about $7 billion a year. We cannot win that war in the Persian Gulf. We have lost that war. That's a kind of a situation where you might be tempted to bring in bigger guns.
So let's talk about these "smaller" tactical nuclear weapons. As Cirincione added:
Just to put this in perspective, if we had one, if a conflict led to one city being destroyed by one nuclear weapon, that would be more destruction than we've seen since World War II. If we had a conflict that led to 10 cities being destroyed by 10 small nuclear weapons, that would be a level of destruction unprecedented in human history. If we had 100 cities destroyed by 100 nuclear weapons, that could actually trigger a global nuclear winter that could kill most food crops in the world and lead to a global famine that could kill two billion people, even those very far removed from the conflict itself. That's the level of destruction we're talking about. These are earth-changing, world-changing weapons, and we have thousands of them, and now the Pentagon wants to build more. He noted that the 14 US subs patrolling the oceans each have 20 launchers, with each launcher holding a missile with 5 nuclear warheads. Each warhead has 455 kilotons of destructive power...the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was "just" 15 kilotons.
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| Trees cut down at E. Potomac Golf Course Photo: Kevin Dietsch, Getty Images |
Many of my conservative friends are quite happy with the status quo: the knocking people off of healthcare, the shrinking of national parks and monuments, the spending of taxpayer dollars to coat statues in goldleaf,
the cutting down of over 500 trees on DC's golf course, the deportation of naturalized citizens who helped us in Afghanistan (a reminder that it was Trump who left $7 billion in military equipment as part of his deal to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, all in exchange for the Taliban not targeting US bases...he then left Biden to take the blame for withdrawing those troops), the
allowing of mining and logging in national forests, the banning of news media he doesn't care for, the sending of our national debt into record high levels (we now
pay more in interest each month on that debt than we spend on the military), the
selling of wild horses to slaughterhouses for as little as $25 per head.
I have other posts ready to go but I wanted to sneak this in as a reminder of what's at stake in this coming election. Yes, this post will be short and sweet, and gone in a week since you're probably like me, tired of it all, slipping into a state of tuning it all out, and sinking into that trap of "what can I do...nothing changes." And while several of my friends --registered voters-- are opting to simply not vote, I have to wonder why? Not voting IS a vote, a non-vote saying that you are okay with the way things are, and thus probably okay with the way things will be in the next two years: a Congress that is as courageous as a lamb heading to slaughter, a Supreme Court that is rumored to expect 2 additional Conservative appointees after January, a President who doesn't want to lose face with a war he started so may seek to use the nuclear option. Same old, same old. If polls are to be believed, then Trump and his GOP minions have 30% of the country locked in and will do and approve of whatever he says. And as history shows, 30% of our country traditionally does NOT vote (typically even higher in mid-term years)...so that's 60% in all. A majority win. Should the GOP retain control in one or both houses of Congress, then the election will have been considered a fair one and a success due to Trump's oversight. Should the GOP lose one or both houses, then the election results will be declared rigged and in need of a recount (at taxpayer expense), and then head to the courts (at taxpayer expense) -- the sore-loser syndrome so typical of Republican Party. Those who don't vote can consider themselves as having helped to push this status quo to the finish line.
So enough preaching and appealing and requesting (and blaming). Politics is so negative in today's world that most of us simply don't want to hear about it. But the proposed loosening of these nuclear options changes things...if Congress continues its meekness and silence, shining shoes and changing diapers on demand, then 40,000 people being vaporized in a "tactical" strike (this is the estimated toll of the "smaller" nukes; you can check out your own city with
this interactive site) --even in the US-- is an acceptable number to "preserve peace." Never mind the radiation clouds that will drift with the wind and turn crop lands into Chernobyl-like quarantined areas (never mind the people downwind). Part of this Pentagon review also seeks to allow the resumption of nuclear testing, which one hopes would be below ground, but then one never knows (my state of Utah was downwind from the
three states used for such testing, the majority of it done in the southern portion of Nevada near Las Vegas). We are, one must remember, the Department of War now, even if it's being run by a
former host from Fox News.
Old folks like me will be gone, or close to it, by the time any sort of radiation affects us, should we enter such a conflict. Russia has threatened nuclear force against Ukraine more than ALL announced nuclear threats in history. And now Europe is a bit worried, as is South Korea as Trump pulls nuclear missiles out of many foreign military bases (Trump severely cut back war exercises already underway, and made welcoming overtures to North Korea). We now have 7 authoritarian regimes with nuclear capabilities, which includes the US and Israel. To the alleged non-voting attitude of the Gen-Z group...this is your future world, not mine or that of my old friends. To not vote because you disagree with both parties means that you helped to decide your fate. Same with my conservative and other older friends who are deciding to fall into the "whatever happens" category. Post November 3rd, my first question to people talking politics will be: Did you vote? If the answer is no, then that will end the conversation, for in my mind, they will have indeed voted and decided that they are okay with however the election turned out.
There's still time to both register and vote. The official government website is at
Vote.gov (there are many spoofs out there so make sure that you are on the government site). And remember that it is
ILLEGAL to have federal troops (or ICE) posted at ANY voting site, despite what you may be hearing from the doomscrollers. Whatever your party and however you decide to vote, the plea to you is to just vote. This is what allows you to participate in our government, whether you want it to continue as is or to seek to change it. There's still time...register, send in your mail-in ballot, go to the voting polls. It is your future, and this is your chance to help decide what that future will be...
I still am of the strong opinion that we were once, and in many ways still are, a
United States of America, despite the very few trying to divide us. Many people fought to get our freedoms: to gather, to express our views, and to speak our minds. Many people died to keep those freedoms. Now it your turn to vote...to vote to maintain those freedoms. As the last sentence of the Declaration of
Independence says:
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. Your vote
will matter...you're
not voting will also matter.
*A future post will try to decipher the maze of artifical intelligence; but it should be noted that existing war games by the Pentagon (prior to all the firings or forced resignations of top military officials by Hegseth) always stopped at the nuclear escalation of hostilities. When AI was allowed to run the scenarios, AI voted for the use of nuclear weapons 98% of the time. Trump continues to NOT want to regulate AI, despite the advice from many of AI's own CEOs...
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