Stratcom Commander Air Force General John E. Hyten discussed space, nuclear deterrence and missile defence modernisation at the US Capitol Hill Club in Washington.
United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM), is one of nine commands in the US Department of Defense and is responsible for strategic deterrence and global strike.
Stratcom Commander Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten said:
“Peace is our Profession is the motto for all 184,000 people, and those priorities apply to every element of this command. But nuclear is still the backbone, and it has to be our top priority. Between 60 million and 80 million people were killed in World War II, just over 30,000 people a month.
And the nation lost 58,000 of America’s greatest heroes over the decade-long experience in Vietnam.
That’s what our nuclear weapons have done for the world. They don’t eliminate conflict — conflict will exist as long as humans exist. But what they have done is kept major power conflict off the world stage. They’ve kept that huge death and destruction from happening when you have major power conflicts that get out of control.
It’s kept world wars from happening. That’s the primary reason that we have to have nuclear weapons.”
Agreed and well said General Hyten. It’s a pity the likes of CND and a lot of left-wing politicians don’t listen, one especially.
Agreed, every nation should have nuclear weapons to deter the US acting as the global, imperial overlord.
I can think of many who should NEVER be allowed to possess any kind of WMD i.e., North Korea, Iran, Libya, Turkey, Algeria, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Venezuela, Burma, Zimbabwe as well as numerous other African and South American countries.
Any of these due to their unstable governments would be much more likely to cause a third world war and yes, I know that Syria has chemical weapons. At least, since the UN was formed seventy years ago, the Security Council has managed to keep nuclear weapons from being used and long may this continue.
IIRC Pakistan has had nuclear weapons for decades.
Yes only White people can be trusted with such weapons because they would only have them to deter atacks and would never actually use them. Oh, wait a minute…….
It WAS true when NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries’ doctrine included the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Now that all nations consider nukes a last resort weapon of response to nuclear attack, I don’t think they do much to deter conventional conflict. If conflict erupted between NATO and Russia or China, we would not automatically assume that it would escalate to the use of nuclear weapons.
Steven that is pathetic. The Chinese are not white people. If you honestly cant see the difference between civilized western democracies and barbarous rouge states then you have issues. Nothing you say will alter the fact that the UK, France, USA etc can be trusted to not kick things off on a whim whilst some of the nations mentioned above cannot. Nuclear weapons have been used twice by the west (Hiroshima & Nagasaki) and it was fully justified. Have a look at Japanese atrocities during WW2. Do you actually want WMDs in the hands of a country like Iran? If… Read more »
I think Steven was being sarcastic in response to Mike R.
I suspect what some of the above comments are about is the concern about any WMD getting into the hands of people with unreliable belief systems. One of the most common unreliable beliefs is that if you wipe out everyone who doesn’t share your belief then a supernatural being will reward you with an eternity of bliss or such like. In a world where this is a real possibility the possession of a nuclear deterrent makes sense to me.
Thank you JohnH, my thoughts exactly.