This is exactly the same thing President Bill Clinton ordered in 1996 that led to the secret issuance of PDD-60 completely changing the Reagan era nuclear doctrine designed to win a nuclear war with Russia. PDD-60 is still secret, but a few public statements issued in late 1997 by Clinton disarmament advisor Robert Bell and Craig Cerniello of Arms Control Today (who was part of the drafting and review process) [<[http://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997_11-12/pdd> http://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997_11-12/pdd ] indicated that the Presidential Decision Directive instructed US missile commanders "not to depend on launch-on-warning" (a tactic of launching all fixed silo missiles at the enemy before opponents first strike missiles landed and destroyed ours), --in essence, this PDD directed our country to absorb a first strike and retaliate later.

A frustrated Marine General is said to have exclaimed, "Retaliate with WHAT?" He knew, as did other commanders of our Trident nuclear submarines that Clinton had unilaterally agreed to keep half of all our SLBM submarines in port at any one time "to assure our Russian friends that we are not a threat." When you telegraph a subtle message to the Russians that we are going to absorb a first strike, you induce them to make sure they hit us with everything necessary to make sure we cannot respond after a first strike.

PDD-60 also removes all alternate submarine launch codes so that our subs cannot fire without direct communications with the President. Those vital communications links will assuredly not survive a massive first strike. Even if they did, it is probable given what we know that the President would simply not issue the orders to launch until a first strike had landed. This is not deterrence. This is suicide, or a very carefully planned agenda to make the US vulnerable.

In November 1997 the President signed a new Decision Directive on nuclear weapons employment policy guidance. This directive was the first revision of such guidance in over 15 years, although U.S. nuclear plans have been updated regularly to changes to subordinate documents and through Presidential Decisions such as the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives and the Nuclear Posture Review. The directive takes account of the changes in policy and force posture brought on by the end of the Cold War and builds on the conclusions of previous policy reviews, such as the NPR and QDR.

The directive describes, in general terms, the purposes of U.S. nuclear weapons and provides broad Presidential guidance for developing operational plans. It also provides guidelines for maintaining nuclear deterrence and U.S. nuclear forces.
The directive indicates that the United States must maintain the assured response capability to inflict "unacceptable damage" against those assets a potential enemy values most. It also posits that the U.S. must continue to plan a range of options to insure that the U.S. can respond to aggression in a manner appropriate to the provocation, rather than being left with an "all or nothing" response.

The new guidance also continues the policy that the U.S. will not rely on "launch on warning," but will maintain the capability to respond promptly to any attack, thus complicating an adversary's calculations. However, the new guidance eliminates previous Cold War rhetoric including references to "winning a protracted nuclear war."

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Is this true? I've seen this mentioned over the years.

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"Launch on warning" almost accidentally caused WW3 more than once except smart people decided to not end the world. I could see backing off a bit once the Cold War was over

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you should ask NorCal

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"Launch on warning" almost accidentally caused WW3 more than once except smart people decided to not end the world. I could see backing off a bit once the Cold War was over

Clinton Issues New Guidelines on U.S. Nuclear Weapons Doctrine

THE CLINTON administration quietly made a significant change in U.S. strategic nuclear doctrine in November by formally abandoning guidelines issued by the Reagan administration in 1981 that the United States must be prepared to fight and win a protracted nuclear war. The new presidential decision directive (PDD), details of which were first reported in The Washington Post on December 7, operates from the premise that the primary role of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era is deterrence. In a December 23 interview, Robert Bell, senior director for defense policy and arms control at the National Security Council, provided additional information about the PDD and clarified some misconceptions in the press with respect to the Clinton administration's policy on "launch on warning" and the use of nuclear weapons against a chemical or biological weapons attack.


New Guidelines

Due to its highly classified nature, many specific details about the PDD have not been made public. Nevertheless, Bell confirmed that "We have made an important change in terms of strategic nuclear doctrine in reorienting our presidential guidance away from any sense that you could fight and win a protracted nuclear war to a strategic posture that focuses on deterrence."

The administration made the decision to rewrite the old nuclear guidelines early in 1997. At that time, General John Shalikashvili, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained to President Clinton that the United States could not reduce its nuclear arsenal to the level that was being discussed for START III (2,000 to 2,500 deployed strategic warheads) and carry out the objectives of the 1981 nuclear guidelines. Bell pointed out that this assumed that the goals of the old guidelines could ever have been realized—a skepticism that has been voiced by former Reagan administration officials. Hence, one key factor influencing the administration's decision to rewrite the old guidelines was that they were not compatible with the U.S. objective of achieving further strategic force reductions with the Russians.

Moreover, the administration viewed the 1981 guidelines as an anachronism of the Cold War. The notion that the United States still had to be prepared to fight and win a protracted nuclear war today seemed out of touch with reality given the fact that it has been six years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In this connection, Bell said the 1981 directive "reads like a document you would expect to have been written at the height of the Cold War, not something that you would want operative today...."


Launch on Warning

Bell said the press had incorrectly indicated that the PDD "still allows" the United States to launch nuclear weapons upon receiving warning of an attack. Bell emphasized that "there is no change in this PDD with respect to U.S. policy on launch on warning and that policy is that we do not, not rely on it." In fact, Bell said "in this PDD we direct our military forces to continue to posture themselves in such a way as to not rely on launch on warning—to be able to absorb a nuclear strike and still have enough force surviving to constitute credible deterrence."

Bell pointed out that while the United States has always had the "technical capability" to implement a policy of launch on warning, it has chosen not to do so. "Our policy is to confirm that we are under nuclear attack with actual detonations before retaliating," he said.


Negative Security Assurances

Bell also dispelled the published report that the PDD expands U.S. nuclear options against a chemical or biological weapons attack. "This PDD reaffirms explicitly, virtually verbatim, the policy of this administration as we stated it the last four or five years, including during the extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT], the negotiation of the CTB [Comprehensive Test Ban] and the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention," he said.

Specifically, the PDD reaffirms the 1995 statement on negative security assurances issued by Secretary of State Warren Christopher on behalf of President Clinton at the time of the indefinite extension of the NPT. This statement reiterated in a slightly more restrictive form the 1978 statement on the non-use of nuclear weapons issued by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance on behalf of President Carter.

In this context, Bell explained that it is U.S. policy not to use nuclear weapons first against any state except in three cases. First, "if a state that we are engaged in conflict with is a nuclear-capable state, we do not necessarily intend to wait until that state uses nuclear weapons first—we reserve the right to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict whether its CW [chemical weapons], BW [biological weapons] or for that matter conventional [weapons]," he said. Under the second scenario, Bell said the United States reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first "if a state is not a state in good standing under the Non-Proliferation Treaty or an equivalent international convention." Finally, he said if a state attacks the United States, its allies or its forces "in alliance" with a nuclear-capable state, then the United States reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first, even if that state is not a nuclear-capable state and is in good standing under the NPT. Because these three exceptions have existed for some time, Bell said "there is no policy change whatsoever in this PDD with respect to fundamental U.S. position on no first use of nuclear weapons."