Part 4: Nixon’s Madman Nuclear Alert
This post deals with the most bizarre of these, an event that has been dubbed Nixon’s “Madman Nuclear Alert.” A paper by Stanford Prof. Scott Sagan and University of Wisconsin Prof. Jeremi Suri describes the origins and trajectory of this dangerous ploy:

“Domestic and bureaucratic opposition to further escalation of the Vietnam War led Nixon to conclude that he could not implement his first strategic preference, which was to launch a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam. He therefore resorted to a secret nuclear signal in an attempt to convince the Soviets that he would do what he had, in fact, decided not to do — launch a major bombing attack, perhaps even a nuclear attack, …” (more)

Part 5: Operation Northwoods
Operation Northwoods is a prime example of why we need to raise critical questions before going to war. Written seven months before the Cuban Missile Crisis, this formerly top secret proposal by the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested ways to build public support for an American invasion of Cuba, including: “A ‘Remember the Maine’ incident could be arranged … We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba. … [Or] we could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. … [fostering] attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding.” (more)

Part 6: North Korea
Over the last few months, North Korea has severely tested the world’s patience. It conducted its third nuclear test, canceled the armistice ending the Korean War, threatened the US with nuclear ruin, warned foreigners to leave the country because war was imminent, cut its hotline with South Korea, and readied a missile for firing. This shrill, irrational behavior seems to confirm the conventional wisdom that North Korea is a rogue nation, run by a nut job – end of story. In that perspective, there is little we can do other than hope that our military power deters them from following through on their hair-brained threats. While there is truth in that perspective, it pays to examine some other hypotheses which, if true, would give us more effective options for reducing the risk of a needless war. (more)

Martin E. Hellman

According to a report just released by the highly-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditures in 2012 totaled $1.75 trillion.

The report revealed that, as in recent decades, the world’s biggest military spender by far was the U.S. government, whose expenditures for war and preparations for war amounted to $682 billion — 39 percent of the global total.

The United States spent more than four times as much on the military as China (the number two big spender) and more than seven times as much as Russia (which ranked third). Although the military expenditures of the United States dipped a bit in 2012, largely thanks to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, they remained 69 percent higher than in 2001.

U.S. military supremacy is even more evident when the U.S. military alliance system is brought into the picture, for the United States and its allies accounted for the vast bulk of world military spending in 2012. NATO members alone spent a trillion dollars on the military.

Thus, although studies have found that the United States ranks 17th among nations in education, 26th in infant mortality, and 37th in life expectancy and overall health, there is no doubt that it ranks first when it comes to war.

This Number 1 status might not carry much weight among Americans scavenging for food in garbage dumpsters, among Americans unable to afford medical care, or among Americans shivering in poorly heated homes. Even many Americans in the more comfortable middle class might be more concerned with how they are going to afford the skyrocketing costs of a college education, how they can get by with fewer teachers, firefighters, and police in their communities, and how their hospitals, parks, roads, bridges, and other public facilities can be maintained.

Of course, there is a direct connection between the massive level of U.S. military spending and belt-tightening austerity at home: most federal discretionary spending goes for war.

The Lockheed Martin Corporation’s new F-35 joint strike fighter plane provides a good example of the U.S. government’s warped priorities. It is estimated that this military weapons system will cost the U.S. government $1.5 trillion by the time of its completion. Does this Cold War-style warplane, designed for fighting enemies the U.S. government no longer faces, represent a good investment for Americans? After twelve years of production, costing $396 billion, the F-35 has exhibited numerous design and engineering flaws, has been grounded twice, and has never been flown in combat. Given the immense military advantage the United States already has over all other nations in the world, is this most expensive weapons system in world history really necessary? And aren’t there other, better things that Americans could be doing with their money?

Of course, the same is true for other countries. Is there really any justification for the nations of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America to be increasing their level of military spending — as they did in 2012 — while millions of their people live in dire poverty? Projections indicate that, by 2015, about a billion people around the world will be living on an income of about $1.25 per day. When, in desperation, they riot for bread, will the government officials of these nations, echoing Marie Antoinette, suggest that they eat the new warplanes and missiles?

President Dwight Eisenhower put it well in an address before the American Society of Newspaper Editors 60 years ago:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. . . . This world in arms is not spending money alone; it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. . . . This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

That sentiment persists. On April 15, 2013, people in 43 countries participated in a Global Day of Action on Military Spending, designed to call attention to the squandering of the world’s resources on war. Among these countries was the United States, where polls show that 58 percent of Americans favor major reductions in U.S. military spending.

How long will it take the governments of the United States and of other nations to catch up with them?

Lawrence Wittner
Lawrence S. Wittner is professor of history emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is “Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual” (University of Tennessee Press).

Part 1: The First Gulf of Tonkin Incident

There’s an old saying: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” But what should the saying be when the American public is fooled repeatedly, at a cost of millions of lives?

Wednesday marks the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, a very appropriate time to reexamine ways that we have been fooled – or even worse, fooled ourselves – and gotten into needless wars. Avoiding such debacles is key to Defusing the Nuclear Threat because every war has at least a small chance of escalating to the use of nuclear weapons. The Vietnam War serves as Exhibit A in this argument since Nixon’s “Madman Nuclear Alert,” explained in a later installment in this series, added needless nuclear risk and was motivated by his desire to end the war on terms favorable to him.

This first post in the series treats the first Gulf of Tonkin incident, which played a key role in President Johnson’s justification for the war. It occurred on August 2, 1964, when North Vietnamese PT boats attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. Two days later the second Gulf of Tonkin incident (to be treated in the next installment in this series) occurred when the Maddox and the Turner Joy, which had been sent to reinforce it, reported that they were attacked yet again. These seemingly rash, aggressive North Vietnamese actions became the basis for Congress’ Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave President Johnson a free hand to escalate the war. Before it ended, that war killed over 58,000 Americans, and approximately 2,000,000 Vietnamese.

President Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and many others created a war fever by characterizing North Vietnam’s attacks on the Maddox – and the later attack on the Maddox and the Turner Joy – as “unprovoked aggression.” But formerly classified information shows that the North Vietnamese were responding to earlier, covert American attacks on North Vietnam. (Read more)

Part 2: The Second Gulf of Tonkin Incident

The first and second Gulf of Tonkin incidents, on August 2 and August 4, 1964, provided the legal basis for the Viet Nam war, yet neither was the “unprovoked aggression” that the Johnson administration portrayed them to be. The first post in this series had an audio clip from a phone conversation in which President Johnson clearly states that the first North Vietnamese attack was an attempt on their part to stop covert, CIA-sponsored attacks on North Vietnam that were “blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads, and so forth” – hardly unprovoked aggression. This second post in the series uses unimpeachable sources to show that the second Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened. (Read more)

Part 3: Are We About to Repeat the Mistakes of Vietnam?

In August of 1964 Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Johnson a blank check to escalate the war in Vietnam. Two alleged acts of North Vietnamese unprovoked aggression were the basis for that resolution. But, as detailed in Part 1 of this series, in reality their first attack was in response to covert American attacks on North Vietnam, and as detailed in Part 2, the second attack never occurred. This third installment in the series draws on additional formerly classified information to extend those arguments, and concludes by warning of might become a kind of “Iran War Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.” (Read more)

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In the past few months, a spate of nuclear arms control related legislation has been submitted to the U.S. Congress. Although many of the proposed bills are in response to the protracted debate on New START, and Senator Kyl’s inability to prevent its ratification, others are aimed at promoting nuclear nonproliferation and strengthening the international arms control regime. Some of the more relevant pieces of legislation introduced in this session include protocols attached to nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) treaties, changes to peaceful nuclear cooperation law, and legislation to guarantee the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Read the rest of this entry »