MAD Math and the Zero Sum Nuclear Weapons Game

 

Resist

Today a political expert talking head on BBC said that President and Commander Donald Trump's attack on Bashar al-Assad's airfield in Syria was good because it shows any other opponents that Commander Trump is unpredictable.  In other words no one can tell where or when Commander Trump may attack next.  
  
This may be a good thing if a state of war existed between the United States of America and some other little nation like Syria or Iraq.  No such war is declared.  The really, really, really bad thing to consider for Commander Trump and his military is the effect of unpredictability on the mutually assured destruction strategy (MAD) still operative and current from the days of the Soviet Union.  
  
For those who chose to forget, here's an excerpt as refresher from Wiki, "The strategic balance between the United States and Russia is becoming less stable, and the objective, technical possibility of a first strike by the United States is increasing. At a time of crisis, this instability could lead to an accidental nuclear war. For example, if Russia feared a U.S. nuclear attack, Moscow might make rash moves (such as putting its forces on alert) that would provoke a U.S. preemptive strike."  Very smart scientists and mathematicians of the 1950's like RAND corporation’s Herman Kahn and MIT’s John Von Neumann engraved all the dogma of MAD.  The whimsical Von Neumann created the acronym.  
  
The whole thing is based on the zero sum game of nuclear weapons.  Say side one has two thousand fifty megaton missiles and side two has about the same.  If side one launches a first strike sending missiles at their side two opponent, side two will reply with more missiles and on and on until the missiles are all used, and thereby both sides are assured of destruction.  The entire planet would of course be put into a nuclear winter and billions would die, but side one would be declared the winner by the few hiding out in some bunker in the mountains.  Of course no sane human wants this scenario to happen… ever.  
  
First strike refers to the act of launching thermonuclear missiles first.  The dogma is math, and the math relies on perfection for a win.  Actual nuclear war must be imperfect and corrupt and messy and emotionally intolerable.  If a commander and the staff only consider the MAD math, the fog surrounding decision trees clear up.  Some things throw askew the whole MAD math calculation like the numbers and accuracy of the missiles deployed by both sides of warriors.  Notice the use of “game” for Tom Clancy who wrote about a “game changing” nuclear missile sub in his little scary book and movie called “The Hunt For Red October.”  The Red October had a new kind of engine that can’t be detected allowing for a first strike capability.  In the Wiki quote above note "instability.”  Instability can also throw the MAD math into a tizzy and commanders and staff are more prone to make a mistake.  
  
The new Trump doctrine of unpredictability is adding instability into the MAD math.  Do the MAD math.  Do we as a nation want an unstable warrior in the nuclear MAD math arena?  The Trump doctrine edges our nation closer into just such a MAD math nuclear conflict.  In the big game, the side two opponent, Russia considers a first strike as viable because of the instability of the side one commander, President Trump.  
  
The game needs to end now.  

Ground War in Vietnam as imagined by Francis Ford Coppola "Apocalypse Now" 1979
Sam Bottoms as Lance and Robert Duvall as Kilgore.   
Kilgore- Smell that? You smell that?   
Lance- What?  
Kilgore- Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. 

Acts of War

Wait a minute, please all Trump people and all republicans. 

And here I thought the US Congress was the only way the US government and our nation could declare war? 

Just now a story came on the news that President Trump ordered cruise missile strikes in Syria. That is an act of war. 

A story was also posted that President Trump has decided to go it alone in dealing with North Korea? The North Koreans then launch a missile as President Trump meets with Xi Jinping of China. Another story came out that Assad gassed civilians in Syria! Looks like the Big Trump got conned by both Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad and Kim Jong-un. So the Big Trump blamed it all on Obama. 

Neither Donald Trump nor Mike Pence nor Mitch McConnell nor Paul Ryan has ever served one day in active military service to America. They know nothing about security. No republican since George Bush, Senior or Eisenhower has had a clue about security or how to carry on a war. Look at Iraq since 9/11.  Look at Afghanistan. It is not Obama who set up the war in those places. It was republican egotists. Remember Donald Rumsfeld’s unforgettable media line “Shock and Awe!” used to describe the bombings and killings of thousands of civilians and enemy soldiers. Ike had respect for the dead. Rumsfeld and Cheney and the Bush gang did not. The Trump and Pence gang have even less integrity. In the Pay-Per-Vote™ Congress the budget for “defense” spending grows geometrically. 

Now, why is there so much anger these days? And stupidity? Sadly, blindly, millions voted their anger and their stupids. Is this the reason we have little but falsehood and fake Christian dogma coming from the White House media muppets. 

And the other day someone said, "What exactly is the 'Christian dogma?' No doubt I would prefer Christian dogma to Islamic dogma any day." 

Martin Pitts reply, "You are correct. Any fool can see it must be better to be burned at the stake than to be beheaded." 

Because of bags of money in our elections and enraptured leaders, 21st Century America is both a 20th Century Banana Republic and a bigoted human rights wasteland. Money talks and ethics walks for the republicans and all of their shills in the Pay-Per-Vote™ Congress, the Courts and in state governments! 

What would a trickle down originalist like Judge Neil Gorsuch say about this?  Syria did not attack us.  Syria and Assad are killing their own people, not ours.  The International Court of Justice (Cour internationale de justice) at the Hague in the Netherlands is empowered to prosecute war criminals like Bashar al-Assad.  Both the USA and Russia are signatories at the ICJ, since 1945.  It is treason to carry out a war without the direct declaration of the US Congress. 

The US Constitution Article I  Section. 8.   

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

… 

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; 

… 

Tchoupitoulas Street Uptown New Orleans 1968
Vietnam War Military Ambulances ready for lading
Photo Copyright © 1969 Martin Pitts

Boosting Neil Gorsuch

Neither the mouse nor the corporation is a human.

Do god and Paper Citizens we call corporations have human rights?  
  
A staunch warrior for the dogma of corporate Paper Citizens and everything libertarian and god and trickle down justice, Neil Gorsuch is soon be inserted into our Supreme Court.  

The other never ending booster of corporate Paper Citizens, Justice Antonin Scalia is long gone.  Scalia enjoyed gunshot killing small animals and hanging out in five star hotels on the tabs of the big money owners of corporate Paper Citizens.  As solemnly promised to all the god and libertarian cults last fall, the Trump White House PR Hive worked successfully on to install Neil Gorsuch as a great and biblical replacement.  The other day the White House PR Hive proclaimed that Scalia was not recognized for legal scholarship like the precisely positioned Chief Justice Roberts.  But here now is a sterling silver-haired medallion for the best of the best libertarian and god judicial savants, Neil Gorsuch.  
  
Since the Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific decision of 1886 our nation's highest court has continuously affirmed the idea of "Corporate Personhood" or corporate Paper Citizenship.  In addition to recognition by the Supreme Court, a corporate Paper Citizen must be dutifully registered and birthed by the federal and state tax codes.  Libertarian and religious judges believe in the idea that a corporate Paper Citizen exists and thereby it must have a certain kind of right to life in court almost like a human.  Perhaps Neil Gorsuch knows this with the same deep rapture with which he imagines god and Jesus during his prayers.  Corporate Paper Citizens are secure in the codices of our common law America.  And as a sacred public relations promise a big corporate Paper Citizen will allow justice and wealth to trickle down to the little humans in America.  

Antonin Scalia and others on the court handed down the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 558 U.S. 310 (2010) giving corporate Paper Citizens the untouchable right to spend as much money in our elections as they wish.  Even worse any Paper Citizen can go and buy secretly thousands of hours of TV and Internet commercials for their favorite candidate.  Because of it's mockery of fair play in our elections the Citizens United ruling has been compared to the ethical horror of the Dred Scott Decision of 1857 that reaffirmed slaves as property with no rights as citizens of the United States. 

Antonin Scalia lived a very good life as a human
because he devoutly respected the canons of Paper Citizens. 

A devout promise of trickle down justice and wealth by Paper Citizens is what Neil Gorsuch will extend for a few more decades on our Supreme Court.  Yes, the rancid inviolate secrecy for bags of money in our elections is un-American and unethical.  It may be time for those corporate Paper Citizens, those corporations, to register to vote at the booth and to come out of the Super PAC closets and do their duty as new Paper Citizens of the USA.  Called up and anointed by the White House, Neil Gorsuch's primary mission is to secure even more power on paper for any corporation that votes with their bags of libertarian and god money.  That money is the utmost power in our elections is an American tradition.  Sadly, those corrupting bags of money inflate the power of the Paper Citizens.  Corporate Paper Citizens can and do dishonor human rights with their bags of money.  A regular citizen is not as equal as a Paper Citizen in our USA. 
  
As an additional travesty of our democracy, the personal Neil Gorsuch is a John Birch Society Member.  Dead-Eye Dick Cheney is a card carrying member.  Papa Fred Koch of Koch Industries founded the John Birch Society.  In the Civil Rights days of the old south 1960s everyone knew that if you scratch a Bircher in a suit and tie you'll find the dark rotten blood of a Klu Klux Klansman in a white sheet.  Here's some ungodly lies on this poster from the Birchers that was circulated with Koch money around Dallas November 1963.