THE reported US Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations sounds ominously like a nuclear version of the earlier Bush doctrine of ‘Shock and Awe’ developed and actually used for the massive invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The doctrine was a plot for the mass slaughter of Iraqi civilians rather than the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s largely phantom forces. It came as a stunning shock to the Baghdad regime but hardly served to awe Iraqi civilians, who have stood up bravely to the invasion and continue to resist the occupation.

The Iraqi resistance proves that you cannot weaken the will of the people, even if you destroy a whole country by brute military force. Vietnam should have been enough to serve as a clinching argument for the failure of military means to subdue popular resistance. Yet another terrifyingly inhuman consequence of the mindless application of a strategy like the doctrine of Shock and Awe is the horrendous collateral damage it can leave in its wake.

In its nuclear mode it would simply vaporize the targeted area and its environs. The new doctrine ‘outlines’ the use of nuclear weapons to ‘pre-empt’ a likely ‘enemy’ attack with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) — nuclear, biological and chemical.

According to a White House briefing, America will “respond with overwhelming (nuclear) force” to such an attack against the US homeland, its forces and those of its allies.

For once in the history of command and control and the actual deployment of nuclear weapons, the draft doctrine virtually hands over operational authority to the Pentagon. The Pentagon would be able to ‘deploy’ nuclear weapons to any part of the world where their ‘future use’ might be considered ‘the most likely’ and also ‘train’ troops for ‘nuclear warfare’.

Whether ‘deployment’ would mean creating nuclear-weapon zones on a permanent basis is not quite clear, neither are the instructions with regard to the deployment or actual use of nuclear weapons against the perceived threat. What is horribly clear, however, is the deployment of nuclear arms on the basis of mere determination of a threat by the Pentagon.

In practical terms, once the US military establishment is convinced that such a threat exists, presidential approval and authority for further necessary action may well be taken for granted. The new doctrine is the brainchild of Gen Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is significant inasmuch as the department of defence under Donald Rumsfeld would seem to have been virtually bypassed.

Will the new doctrine ‘maximize’ deterrence or make a mockery of it? The question must wait for a definitive answer until more information is available about the ultimate purpose whether it is a preventive or a pre-emptive measure.

However, the mere fact that such a doctrine has been put in place at all would relegate deterrence to the status of a hapless bit player, with little or no say in prevention (or even the postponement) of a nuclear war. Depending on its own threat perception, the US may not wait to invoke its ‘first-use’ option. Should such a contingency ever arise, that would pronounce the death of deterrence.

Now who might be the perceived enemy? Not Castro’s Cuba, a toothless tiger after the demise of the Soviet Union. Not Central or South America, busy reaping the ‘peace dividend’.

Three countries within the visual range are a nuclear-missile capable North Korea, a para-nuclear Iran and China. The six-nation framework talks has eventually brought North Korea around. Iran seems determined not to compromise on its ongoing peaceful nuclear programme and is perhaps the closest to the perception of Pentagon planners as a fit target for a 1981 Osirak-like air strikes on its nuclear installations.

Whether America actually ever invokes its nuclear option against an enemy, more imagined than real, looks least likely in terms of a rational choice. Nevertheless, the doctrinal sanction is there.

What lends a double edge to the doctrine is its application even to potentially overwhelming conventional adversaries in a bid to secure a rapid end to a conflict on US terms. That, quite irresistibly, brings China and China alone to mind. Maybe Russia also, by a long shot. For, which other country has a potentially overwhelming conventional force large enough to threaten America? However, a country as big and powerful as China could be engaged only at the certain risk of triggering a world war, conventional and nuclear.

Of particular concern to Pakistan is the part of the doctrine pertaining to the ‘war on terror’. It warns that “any attempt by a hostile power to hand over weapons of mass destruction to militant groups or enable them to strike a devastating blow against the United States will trigger a US response against the culprit”. Pakistan would be well advised to be aware of the threat, no matter how unlikely and remote. The alleged ‘flow of terror’ can be used as an excuse for an attack on our nuclear facilities.

Dr. A.Q. Khan’s clandestine nuclear transfers remain a rogue card the US holds ups its sleeve. It could call ‘show’ when it may so want. The danger is there and simply cannot be wished away, especially after the formulation of the new nuclear doctrine.

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army.

LIKE a bad horror movie in which the villain keeps coming back, Hurricane Rita, the 18th storm of the season, is spinning toward an inevitable rendezvous with the Gulf Coast.

We’ve already seen more death and destruction than the last 35 hurricane seasons combined. And many people, including some European and US politicians, are hoping that the carnage — represented most poignantly by the destruction in New Orleans — will help bring this country to its senses on dealing with global warming.

But understanding what this hurricane season is really telling us about why we’re so vulnerable to climate-related catastrophes means facing up to an unavoidable fact: Efforts to slow global warming will have no discernible effect on hurricanes for the foreseeable future. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adequately preparing for future disasters are essentially separate problems.

Reducing emissions is a crucial environmental, economic and geopolitical goal. But if we are concerned about hurricanes, then we need to manage what is within our control on the ground, not what is proving to be beyond our control in the atmosphere.

The truth is, the number and scale of disasters worldwide has been rising rapidly in recent decades because of changes in society, not global warming. In the case of hurricanes, the continuing development and urbanization of coastal regions around the world accounts for all of the increases in economic and human losses that we have experienced.

Even if tomorrow we could somehow magically put an end to global warming, the frequency and magnitude of climate-related disasters would continue to rise unabated into the indefinite future as more people inhabit vulnerable locations around the world. Our research suggests that for every $1 of future hurricane damage that scientists expect in 2050 related to climate change, we should expect an additional $22 to $60 in damage resulting from putting more people and property in harm’s way.

None of this means that we should not pursue reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or that mitigating climate change is a bad idea. But we simply cannot expect to control the climate’s behaviour through energy policies aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

The current international policy framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions - the Kyoto Protocol - is far too modest to have any meaningful effect on the behaviour of the climate system. And even the modest agreements reached under Kyoto are failing.

For example, the European Environment Agency reported in 2004 that 11 of the 15 European Union signatories to Kyoto “are heading toward overshooting their emission targets, some by a substantial margin.” And the other four are meeting their targets only because of non-repeatable circumstances, such as Britain’s long-term move away from coal-based energy generation. To make matters much worse, most of the growth in emissions in coming decades will occur in rapidly industrializing nations such as China and India, which are exempt from Kyoto targets.

To make matters still worse, because of the way that greenhouse gases behave in the atmosphere, even emissions reductions far more rapid and radical than those mandated under Kyoto would have little or no effect on the behaviour of the climate for decades. As James Hurrell, a scientist at the U.S. National Centre for Atmospheric Research, testified before the U.S. Senate in July, “It should be recognized that [emissions reductions actions] taken now mainly have benefits 50 years and beyond now.”

The implications are clear: More storms like Katrina are inevitable. And the effects of future Katrinas and Ritas will be determined not by our efforts to manage changes in the climate but by the decisions we make now about where and how to build and rebuild in vulnerable locations.

Do we have the will to pay the upfront economic and political costs of strict building-code enforcement and prudent land-use restrictions? Will we have the imagination to build resilience into the local economy, rewarding companies that find ways to preserve jobs after a disaster and contribute to a faster recovery? Do we have the decency to counter the market forces that cause poor people to live in the most vulnerable areas?

As we learn the lessons of this terrible hurricane season, the answers we give to these kinds of questions will create the conditions that determine the effects of future hurricanes. We are, that is, about to begin the process of managing the next disaster. What kind of disaster do we want it to be? —Dawn/Los Angeles Times Service

Roger A. Pielke Jr is director of the Centre for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Daniel Sarewitz is director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University, US.