http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/0317A_%20HayesandTannenwald.htmlPFO 03-17: March 9, 2003
A Bad Idea in Vietnam, an Even Worse Idea Today
By Peter Hayes and Nina Tannenwald
CONTENTS
I. Introduction
II. Essay by Peter Hayes and Nina Tannenwald
III. Nautilus Invites Your Responses
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I. Introduction
Peter Hayes, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute and Nina Tannenwald of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University argue that the 1966 JASON study on the first use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam is a stark warning that using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against Iraq, North Korea or transnational terrorists would make more likely increase the risk of nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies.
II. Essay by Peter Hayes and Nina Tannenwald
"A Bad Idea in Vietnam, an Even Worse Idea Today"
By Peter Hayes and Nina Tannenwald
The Nautilus Institute & the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University
Should the United States use nuclear weapons against rogue states and nonstate actors such as terrorists and insurgents? This question has been raised by the Bush administration in a variety of policy statements, including last year's Nuclear Posture Review, which ordered the Pentagon to draft contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against a number of countries, including Iraq.
But the question is not new. It was asked three decades ago, during the Vietnam War. As a recently declassified top-secret report from 1966 reveals, both the analysis conducted then and the answer - a decisive no - remain remarkably relevant. After waiting 19 years to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Nautilus Institute, the Pentagon has finally made its Vietnam-era study available to the American public.
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