6 responses to “Wednesday’s Forum”

1. 

   MarkedMan

   August 19, 2026 at 10:31 am

   The Trump regime is updating our nuclear weapons policy to allow quicker use of tactical nuclear weapons delivered by shorter range means. The professed reason is China/Russia, but given Trump’s rhetoric about raining fire on Iran, and his long term fascination with using nuclear weapons, I think that’s a much more likelier target.

   The Vichy Republicans, who will do anything to hold their job titles except doing the actual jobs, will continue to offer him total support and cover for anything he does.

   If we attack Iran with nuclear weapons we will become a pariah nation. We will almost certainly see ongoing terrorist attacks in all of our major cities. Russia will follow our lead and attack Ukraine with tactical nukes at the least. China will go after Taiwan. Israel will also follow suit if they can identify a target. Perhaps India goes for the final solution vis-a-vis Pakistan. And virtually every other country will race to develop their own WMD capabilities.

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   1. 

      Kathy

      August 19, 2026 at 12:07 pm

      A singularly terrible idea indeed.

      from the link, the reasoning seems to be “so we’ll be able to throw out Russian/Chinese forces where our conventional arms don’t suffice.” And stressing the lower yield of tactical nukes makes it seem as if Russia or China won’t react too badly to a 50 KT nuke that takes out their troops or ships or installations.

      Right.

      Suppose you nuke an enemy air base in, oh, Syria. And next thing you know, one of your bases in Asia gets nuked as well.

      Conflicts can always escalate. The US and many European countries could have sent troops and planes and ships and missiles to fight in Ukraine. That’s an escalation. Regardless of whether or not they might have then expelled all Russian troops, fact remains escalating a conflict that involves a nuclear power with lots of megaton nukes on ICBMs in nuclear triads is not wise.

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   2. 

      dazedandconfused

      August 19, 2026 at 6:48 pm

      With Ukraine being capable of sending 3-400 drones a day nearly 1000 miles into Russia, I’m picturing a naval officer in the pentagon thinking about China’s enormous manufacturing capability…and a couple of our carrier task groups headed to support Taiwan being met with a cloud of 10-20,000 of those things a thousand miles out. Gonna have to air burst a nuke or two in that cloud….
2. 

   MarkedMan

   August 19, 2026 at 10:33 am

   Oh, and lest you think I’m alarmist, as recently as March of this year the Pentagon was assuring everyone there would be no new review of nuclear weapons policy.

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3. 

   Kathy

   August 19, 2026 at 2:12 pm

   The fastest star in the Milky Way (so far) has been found.

   An orbital speed about 8.3% the speed of light. I call dibs 😉
4. 

   Kathy

   August 19, 2026 at 3:15 pm

   As mentioned yesterday, it seems Big Data Mining is approaching a Big Tobacco moment.

   There have already been some substantial damage awards. Hopefully there will be more. And I think Meta may rely on the defense that “then we wouldn’t have made any profits!”