by JEREMY KUZMAROV
A few remarkable scenes from Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb VIDEO/Okeh Wolf/Youtube
Anthony J. Cotton Says if Confirmed He Will Prepare U.S. Army Officers to Deploy Nuclear Weapons—Which is No Longer Unthinkable
Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1964 film Dr. Strangelove featured an unhinged Air Force General named Jack D. Ripper, who orders a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union after he becomes convinced that the Soviets were polluting the U.S. water supply.
The scenario presented in the film, unfortunately, is not inconceivable today given the Dr. Strangelove type characters who are prevalent in the upper-ranks of the U.S. military and political establishment.
On September 16, President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, Anthony J. Cotton was asked at his Senate confirmation hearing by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) whether he thought nuclear war was unthinkable.
He responded that if confirmed as STRATCOM commander, his role would be to “ensure that the 150,000 men and women supporting strategic command are prepared to do what some folks think may be unthinkable”—that is to deploy weapons from the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Later in the hearing, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IO) asked Cotton whether in light of the 2018 National Defense Strategy’s conclusion that the U.S. would struggle to win a war with China over Taiwan, “the president should have flexible nuclear options to prevent conventional defeat at the hands of our adversaries in this particular scenario.”
Cotton replied: “yes I do.”
Criminally Insane?
Cotton’s predecessor, Carl J. Richard, would have likely responded in the same way. Last year, he wrote in the U.S. Naval Institute’s monthly magazine that the U.S. military had to “shift its principal assumption from ‘nuclear employment is not possible’ to ‘nuclear employment is a very real possibility,’” in the face of threats from Russia and China.
Former Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg stated that Richard sounded like he was “criminally insane.”
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