Trump's Acting National Security Adviser Said Nuclear War With USSR Was Winnable

[packman]

Source: Huffington Post

President Donald Trump’s acting national security adviser, former Reagan administration official Charles Kupperman, made an extraordinary and controversial claim in the early 1980s: nuclear conflict with the USSR was winnable and that “nuclear war is a destructive thing but still in large part a physics problem.”

Kupperman’s suggestion that the U.S. could triumph in a nuclear war went against dominant theories of mutually assured destruction and ignored the long-term destabilizing effects that such hostilities would have on the planet’s health and global politics.


Kupperman, appointed to his new post on Tuesday after Trump fired his John Bolton from the job, argued it was possible to win a nuclear war “in the classical sense,” and that the notion of total destruction stemming from such a superpower conflict was inaccurate. He said that in a scenario in which 20 million people died in the U.S. as opposed to 150 million, the nation could then emerge as the stronger side and prevail in its objectives.



Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charles-kupperman-nuclear-war-trump-nsa_n_5d7b9809e4b03b5fc88212fd

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And I thought Bolton was the insane one

[C_U_L8R]

1. That's not security. It's insanity.

Mutually assured destruction.

[kimbutgar]

2. There is no winning in a nuclear war

Only death, destruction and poisoning of air and water. Only an insane ignorant person would make that comment.

But of course it’s on par with the MF45 administration.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

24. If you remember correctly,

During the Bush-Cheney administration, we were told by Tom Ridge that in the event of a biological weapons release, we could use shower curtains and duct tape to save ourselves.

[Grokenstein]

26. Duct tape and plastic sheeting!! LOL

And morons ran right out and "stocked up" on it.

We should've known we were doomed right then.

[ffr]

3. Yes, nuclear war is winnable

Just not for everything living today and especially not for any large living organism like a human being. The winner would be planet Earth, which would start some other species dominance in a few million years after said nuclear war, much like the K-T Event reset species dominance from reptiles to mammals.

So the answer is yes.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. It's like they view nuclear war

as a cleansing and sanitizing event. Visit records from the period of the Black Death, when survivors lacked the manpower to bury the dead. The collateral diseases, the stench, the misery and psychological damage. Our society could handle this? Think of the looting, the gangs, and weaponry. How will they divide the remaining food supplies? No one really knows if the next growing season would be lost, or perhaps more than one. And the radioactivity, and the long term health effects.

This guy is nuts. Really nuts. A theoretician. A gambler.

[Hoyt]

5. Yeah, winnable if you count newborns with two heads and

having to breathe with oxygen assistance for their 12 year life expectancy, acceptable.

[House of Roberts]

6. So, our cockroaches would beat theirs?

How reassuring.

[ananda]

7. Demented insanity continues.

!@#$%

[mahannah]

8. Good that he hires the best.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Only 20 million? Well, that's OK, then!

[EX500rider]

22. He's not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but no more than 10 to 20 million killed tops...

....Uh, depending on the breaks!




(Dr Strangelove quote)

[htuttle]

23. lol, got the same quote on my clipboard right now

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

29. Exactly my thought. n/t

[Jedi Guy]

10. This guy is giddy bonkers.

Sounds to me like he wants to LARP Fallout 4. Nah, I played the game. Not interested in living it. It's fun escapism for a while, but I like being able to turn the game off and go back to not living in a poisoned wasteland, thanks.

[Maxheader]

11. Before ray gun ronny invaded central america he was heard to say..

that he was worried the troops hadn't been blooded...

You hear stumpy say that you can bet the military is getting ready to put boots on the ground...

somewhere....

[cojoel]

12. strange game

the only winning move is not to play

[Flaleftist]

13. Goddamnit

[sakabatou]

14. OMFG

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed ..."

From HuffPost:

Kupperman’s comments might as well have come straight from the script of (the film) ‘Dr. Strangelove.’

Actual script:
"it is necessary now to make a choice - to choose between two admittedly regrettable but nevertheless distinguishable post-war environments. One, where you got 20 million people killed, and the other, where you got 150 million people killed."

Those are the exact numbers Kupperman used. 20 years after the film.

[turbinetree]

16. So the pinhead has been sniffing radioactive fallout.............from his underwear..........

what is only 20 million innocents getting vaporized.......................

[PSPS]

17. Sounds like Walter Matthau's character in Fail Safe.

[Jopin Klobe]

18. Speaking of Ray-Gun, read this book ...

"With Enough Shovels" - 1983
LINK: [link:https://www.amazon.com/enough-shovels-reagan-bush-nuclear/dp/0436443554/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=77927890519861&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvqmt=e&keywords=with+enough+shovels&qid=1568418312&s=gateway&sr=8-1|

"The title comes from Edward Teller acolyte TJ Jones, who told Scheer in an interview in the early 80s that the US could survive a nuclear war if people dug a hole, put a door on top and covered the door with dirt."

... seriously ...

[Bradical79]

19. Welp. At least I felt better for a couple days.

These fucking idiotic psychopaths...

[brush]

20. Where do they get these ghouls? He of course thought he and his family would be safetly secreted...

away in well-stocked, nuke-proof bunkers.

20 million dead was just collateral damage to his ass.

[PhoenixDem]

21. This proves it

One has to be either a crook, demented or insane to work in the Trump white house or cabinet.

[iluvtennis]

25. SMDH...nuclear war is utter destruction.

[McCamy Taylor]

27. If by "win" you mean a few rich white guys ride it out in a bunker

[dchill]

28. File under: "So much winning!"

[yellowcanine]

30. "in large part a physics problem"

Ugh - Seriously?

[NickB79]

31. Two words: Nuclear winter

Most of the Northern Hemisphere would be plunged into a mini-Ice Age, similar to 1815's Year Without A Summer but lasting a decade. Billions would die.

Within a year we'd be eating our surviving neighbors.

[Evolve Dammit]

32. Another lunatic. There won't be a "winner." Unihabitable sections of earth and mass death. Insanity.

[IcyPeas]

33. like we won Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq.....

and they are smaller than "USSR"

these scenarios scare the crap out of me:

He said that in a scenario in which 20 million people died in the U.S. as opposed to 150 million, the nation could then emerge as the stronger side and prevail in its objectives.

Is this really how they think?

[SWBTATTReg]

34. Yikes!! More of the same bad characters that rump has invited into his lair...disgusting...nt

[Javaman]

35. And the nuclear winter that would follow that "win"?

“We have stocked up on snow shovels!”

Fucking morons