From The Guardian:The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.
Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".
Read more ....
The Telegraph is also following this story. Nato 'Must Prepare To Launch Nuclear Attack'
The Belmont Club has more, and his analysis is a must read.
My Comment: It is clear that heavy thinkers in Nato and other military think tanks and establishments feel that our present policy to counteract possible nuclear threats from terrorist and/or rogue nations is inadequate. The advocation of a first strike policy has its roots from the Cold war when Nato forces were numerically inferior to their Warsaw Pact opposites during the Cold War. The fact that this policy worked is probably the reason why this policy is now being talked about in reaction to today's threats.
I personally feel this is not a good idea. The idea of "fighting todays wars with the same thinking from the last one" is not appropriate in todays context of players. The Soviet machine knew that the West had the will to use tactical nuclear weapons in the event of a war. Their fear was the possibility and probability that such a conflict would quickly spiral into a massive nuclear exchange that in the end would obliterate them......hence no open warfare.
In today's world many of its players have a different philosophy .... a philosophy in which mass death is preferable than living under an environment of injustice and humiliation. They say that because they have no reference point to talk about mass death and extermination.
To me it is a frightening situation to live in when a country such as Iran can easily have its President openly deny the Holocaust, while its former ex-President openly admit his admiration for the efficiency of the Nazi war machine in committing the Holocaust. And while these pronouncements are bad enough, it gets worse when these same leaders also talk about having tens of millions of Muslims dead as justification in the event of the obliteration of Israel ..... well Houston ..... we do have a problem.
We in the West, Russia, Japan, China, Israel ..... we are all sensitive to what is the true cost of total and complete war. The destruction that can be brought down. The complete obliteration and extermination of entire peoples .... we are sensitive to this because our parents and grandparents lived through this. We know in the fabric of our being what is involved.
While the Israeli - Arab wars, the Palestinian uprisings, the Iraq-Iran war, The Kuwait invasion, and finally the Iraq war and its Occupation are bad enough, they pale ....I repeat .... they pale in comparison to the carpet bombings of Germany and Japan, the killing fields in Russia and China during the Second World War, and the constant warfare and bloodshed that the entire world went through for 6 years.
Countries such as Iran, Muslim extremists, the Wahabist in Saudi Arabia, and even supporters of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Ladin .... all of these groups and institutions are not sensitive to what the true cost of what would happen if the safety's are released on the war machine capabilities of the West, Russia, Japan, China, and even Israel.
Discussions of first strike will not impress our enemies, and this for me is an unfortunate realization. They cannot be afraid of what they, their parents, and their grandparents have not experienced.