Nuclear first strikes are an option, NATO said

A preventive nuclear first strike is now a military option, according to a bold new manifesto by top NATO commanders, as reported in The Guardian.

According to the NATO document, “The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.”

The manifesto’s authors, including former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Shalikashvili, and other top generals and admirals from Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands, claim its goal is to revive and strengthen troubled NATO alliances.

This new aggressive manifesto stands starkly opposed to two recent Wall Street Journal op-eds by former Secretary of State George Schultz, former Secretaries of Defense William Perry and Henry Kissinger, and former Sen. Sam Nunn which called for complete elimination of the world’s nuclear arsenal.

United States votes against “peaceful use of outer space”

A recent UN resolution titled “Prevention of an arms race in outer space” was adopted by the General Assembly in December. It calls for states to promote the “peaceful use of outer space” and refrain from actions conducive to starting an arms race in outer space.

One hundred seventy-eight countries voted ‘yes’ on the measure. The United States was the only country to vote ‘no.’

In August 2006, Bush authorized a new space policy that claims the stance of the United States is to “preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space,” and to “deny, if necessary, adversaries of the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests,” according to The New York Times.

These new U.S. space policies stand in opposition to Russian and Chinese-led efforts to prevent an arms race in space.

In what was regarded as a sharp response to U.S. efforts to militarize space, China tested an anti-satellite missile against one of its old satellites last January. Unfortunately, missile launch resulted in the creation of 900 new pieces of dangerous space debris, according to the Times. The debris joined the nearly 10,000 recorded pieces of debris orbiting the earth at 17,000 mph.

Experts fear such debris will soon reach a ‘critical density,’ where one piece hits another, breaking both into several thousand new pieces, which would in turn impact new objects, and so on. Increased amounts of space debris would make human endeavors in space more difficult and increase the cost of maintaining satellites.

A recent poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org of Americans and Russians indicate that large majorities are opposed to space weapons and consider treaties banning their use to be a top priority.

[Reach columnist Aditya Ganapathiraju at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]