Chinese admiral "sink 2 carriers"

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by August

Just who considers a first strike a "normal" response?

NYT take on the problem:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/u...ack-trump.html
This is not exactly news worthy anymore due to it being a year old problem.

Final draft quote:

The United States would only consider the employment of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners. Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks. Significant non-nuclear strategic attacks include, but are not limited to, attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities.

Note that this is not actually Trump administration specific (as NYT bias may imply), this trend in policy has been developed under Obama administration.
But then NPR is fairly flawed as a policy document (E2D is one of the biggest memes it includes).


As to the Russian nuclear policy, a few years ago it has been significantly changes, due to the growing power of our non-nuclear forces and introduction of the non-nuclear deterrence concept.