US Air Force planned nuclear strike on China over Taiwan

AFP

"Of course, if there was a real war who knows what would have happened but there wasn't fortunately," William Burr, senior analyst at the National Security Archive, told AFP.

There were two crises on the status of the Offshore Islands -- in 1954 and 1958 -- during the term of Eisenhower, a former military commander, but they did not lead to any serious military confrontation, he said.

"Instead, he ordered the Air Force and Navy to prepare for conventional strikes as a show of determination," the report said, adding however that "if the conflict escalated, nuclear strikes could have followed."

Wow... just declassified.
I wonder how many more proposals of nuking have been made on the Middle East.

This has been out for awhile. Nice find.

If anything, and likely, there will be a conventional war over Taiwan soon as China is making preparations to take the island with a rapid Naval buildup and massive weapons purchases.

Warplans for the ME have been around for years. They were revised after 9/11.

You might be able to find this on utube but i always enjoyed Regans practical joke he told reports during a speach when he said he was gonna start bombing russia.

Originally posted by die_another_day
AFP

Wow... just declassified.
I wonder how many more proposals of nuking have been made on the Middle East.

That depends on how you define a "proposal". If you mean "How many times has a member of the JCS gone to the President and suggested, in all seriousness, the deployment of nuclear weapons against targets in the Middle East", I'd wager that it's a *very* small number, simply because there aren't a lot of targets in the region that are worth the fallout (real and political) that using a nuke would produce.

On the other hand, if you mean "How many times have elements of the Defense Department written up operational plans for the deployment and targeting of nuclear weapons against targets in the Middle East?", the answer is probably "Daily". That's part of the Defense Department's (and before that, the War Department's) job...to prepare detailed plans for military operations against any countries, on the off-chance that they might be needed. As a non-nuclear example, check out the "Rainbow" plans that the War Department created (and kept current) up until just before World War II. They included plans for fighting Germany and / or Japan (good choices, in retrospect), but they also included plans for engaging the U.K., France, and several of the South American nations...not because we really expected to, but as a "just in case" exercise.

It's a safe bet that we still have plans for nuclear laydowns against China, and the former USSR. It's also a safe bet that they have similar plans drawn up against each other, and against us.

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer

Originally posted by die_another_day
AFP

Wow... just declassified.
I wonder how many more proposals of nuking have been made on the Middle East.

That depends on how you define a "proposal". If you mean "How many times has a member of the JCS gone to the President and suggested, in all seriousness, the deployment of nuclear weapons against targets in the Middle East", I'd wager that it's a *very* small number, simply because there aren't a lot of targets in the region that are worth the fallout (real and political) that using a nuke would produce.

On the other hand, if you mean "How many times have elements of the Defense Department written up operational plans for the deployment and targeting of nuclear weapons against targets in the Middle East?", the answer is probably "Daily". That's part of the Defense Department's (and before that, the War Department's) job...to prepare detailed plans for military operations against any countries, on the off-chance that they might be needed. As a non-nuclear example, check out the "Rainbow" plans that the War Department created (and kept current) up until just before World War II. They included plans for fighting Germany and / or Japan (good choices, in retrospect), but they also included plans for engaging the U.K., France, and several of the South American nations...not because we really expected to, but as a "just in case" exercise.

It's a safe bet that we still have plans for nuclear laydowns against China, and the former USSR. It's also a safe bet that they have similar plans drawn up against each other, and against us.

yeh simply to prevent premature mobilization. Every country does that.

We need a plan to fend off aliens in the near future in my opinion.

Discussed here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...


As discussed in this thread, I'm sure the scenario is updated daily. The proposal was a somewhat more serious (something that doesn't happen often).

Quoting myself in that thread:

This is a pretty long standing rumour. I'm sure I thought this was declassified years ago -- though I may be wrong, it might have been just scuttlebutt.
There were also plans around the same time (1954 or 55) to drop a nuclear device on Vietnam using a USAF plane in French livery -- years before we got directly involved there. Opération Vautour. Also nixed.