Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche is right to demand a national and international hue and cry be raised over the insanity in U.S. policy revealed by Rear Adm. Thomas R. “TR” Buchanan, Director of U.S. Strategic Command’s Plans and Policy Directorate, in addressing a Nov. 20 at a conference at Kissinger’s old haunt, Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS). Buchanan there stated that the U.S. should be prepared to use nuclear weapons, if the global leadership role of the United States was at stake.
Buchanan used his keynote address to the CSIS conference to kick off—with the enthusiastic backing of his hosts from the CSIS Project for Nuclear Issues (PONI)—a national debate on the proposition that “nuclear weapons use is no longer unimaginable,” as opposed to the still-official policy that “nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.” Such a debate is needed “to raise the nuclear IQ of not only our military leaders, but our policymakers, our leadership, Capitol Hill, and the public,” he proposed.
In introducing Buchanan, moderator Heather Williams, a member of the PONI project, reported that a theme of discussion panels in earlier panels that morning was that “nuclear weapons use is no longer not imaginable.”
In his prepared speech and discussion which followed with Williams, Buchanan admitted that “technically” the U.S. is not at war with adversaries Russia, China, Iran or North Korea. Congress hasn’t declared war, but we are in a strategic environment in which “we need to be ready. And by ready, I mean our services need to be ready,” he argued. Buchanan urged PONI and other policymakers to strategize on what “types of things that resonate with the American people” could help them understand why StratComm must prepare for the use of nuclear weapons. He asked: What are we “missing in terms of capturing the nation’s attention? … Is it because the talk of nuclear weapons is verboten? Is it because we don’t want to consider the possible outcomes? Is it because … we don’t want to think about it?”
