Donate
Follow TFF
Facebook-f X-twitter Linkedin-in Tiktok Telegram Weixin Vk
Nuclear dangers

Nuclear Posture Review advocates nukes against cyber attack

 

By Jan Oberg

On January 16, 2018, David E. Sanger and William J. Broad of the New York Times reported that “A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyberattacks.

For decades, American presidents have threatened “first use” of nuclear weapons against enemies in only very narrow and limited circumstances, such as in response to the use of biological weapons against the United States. But the new document is the first to expand that to include attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country’s power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyberweapons. (JO italics)

The draft document, called the Nuclear Posture Review, was written at the Pentagon and is being reviewed by the White House.

Its final release is expected in the coming weeks and represents a new look at the United States’ nuclear strategy.

The draft was first published by HuffPost.”

Continue and read the article at New York Times here

The Transnational posted excerpts from HuffPost here.

This is, as stated by NYT, completely new. Other aspects of the coming Nuclear Posture Review likewise give reasons for concern – alarm. What the US does here is to “conventionalise” nuclear weapons, make them more use-able, lowering the threshold of their use and grossly increase the risk of nuclear war. It also means a final goodbye to classical deterrence – which began to be undermined by the Reagan Administration and, later, with the Ballistic Missile Defence developments.

Recommended readings

The Federation of American Scientists

Share

Nuclear dangersNuclearismNuclearism – philosophyUnited States - Empire and domestic

Related Posts

Art and peace
The first of the new TFF Peace Pulse – #1 “WWIII? Just Doubt It”
In contrast to most, we’ll bring alternatives, solutions, hope and strategies for a better future. Times are dangerous, yes, but that only intensifies the need for constructive thinking and action! Jan Oberg, TFF director April 13, 2026 The new TFF Peace Pulse uses video messages in a new way: Max 3-5-minute-long comments, ideas or perhaps mini-lectures, all about peace – positive peace. We launch them today on April 13, 2026 with a carefully crafted visual aesthetic fitting the content. We hope to publish them regularly from now on. We launch Peace Pulse (PP) – for a number of reasons. The world is in chaos, and there are countless reasons to feel concerned, frustrated, even angry. The atmosphere is saturated with doom and gloom, with negative energy and rear‑mirror thinking, while vision, imagination, alternatives, strategies and genuine future‑mindedness remain in short supply. And without them, we simply can’t save the world. Looking at problems from a hundred angles will...
Economics
What Mearsheimer Gets Right — and Wrong — About 38 Million Sanctions Deaths
A friendly quarrel while we agree that the US sanctions are a weapon of mass destruction and kill more people than wars do. And that we must talk much more about sanctions than we have so far. Jan Oberg, TFF director March 16, 2026 John Mearsheimer recently stated that U.S. sanctions murdered around 38 million people between 1971 and 2021 – see the video below. It is a dramatic figure, and it has spread quickly because it captures, in one sentence, the enormous human cost of modern sanctions. I share his concern about the destructive effects of economic coercion. But the specific number he cites — and the way he attributes it — deserves a friendly academic clarification. The figure comes from a 2023 Lancet Global Health article estimating the mortality effects of unilateral U.S. and EU sanctions over the past half‑century. This is the first point where Mearsheimer’s shorthand diverges from the text: the study...
Arctic
A New Perspective and Blueprint: A Demilitarised Arctic for the Common Good — and Why It Is Rational
This is not another geopolitical commentary on the Arctic. It is a visionary peace proposal that can save the region from militarised rivalry and ecological ruin. A blueprint for shared security, sustainable development, and human dignity — benefitting Greenland, the Arctic, and the rest of us. Jan Oberg TFF director Lund, Sweden, February 17, 2026 I. Four Principles for a New Arctic Vision The Arctic is often framed as a cold arena of rivalry — a place where great powers test each other’s resolve. But this worldview is outdated, unimaginative, and ultimately self‑defeating. The Arctic is not a vacuum waiting to be militarised; it is a living region, a climate stabiliser, and a cultural homeland whose future will shape the future of humanity. If we begin from that understanding, a far more rational Arctic order becomes possible — one that is peaceful, cooperative, and centred on the people who actually live there. This vision rests...

Recent Articles

Civilization and philosophy
The Monk Without the Monastery
What the West Borrowed from Asia and What It Left Behind Jan Krikke October 8, 2026 The article was originally published here In the late 1960s, the musical Hair announced that the Age of Aquarius was dawning. Its opening anthem promised a transformation of human consciousness: an era of peace, harmony and understanding. Half a century later, a familiar echo of that promise is a meditation app offered by your employer. You can find it in the same list of benefits as the pension plan and the gym discount. How did a spiritual revolution become an employee benefit? The answer lies in the history of the movement known as New Age: where it came from, what it borrowed from Asia, and why the meaning of what it borrowed changed in the process. Two definitions will help. New Age is a loose label for a wide range of spiritual practices and...
Peace
📌 At 40, TFF turns a page and continues with true peace — a new homepage
Small and different + among the 10% most active + 9,000 texts + 150 Associates + 60 000 a day — and a stubborn belief that peace is smarter and must be secured by peaceful means. In 2026, the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF) turns 40. On Monday, October 5, 2026, a new TFF homepage will go live — a new gateway to more than 9,000 articles, analyses, research papers and other contributions produced over four decades of independent peace research. But this is not simply a new website. For four decades, TFF has worked from a simple conviction: peace is smarter than militarism and can be brought about by peaceful means. This is not merely an aspiration. It is the principle expressed in the UN Charter and the Gandhian tradition that has guided our work from the beginning. TFF is a research-based, independent and people-financed foundation....
Media
Nonviolent Journalism and the Collective Field of Human Freedom
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...

TFF on Substack

Discover and subscribe to more peace materials on TFF Substack

Posts
Videos
TFF Channel on Rumble

Most Popular

Civilization and philosophy
The Monk Without the Monastery
What the West Borrowed from Asia and What It Left Behind Jan Krikke October 8, 2026 The article was originally published here In the late 1960s, the musical Hair announced that the Age of Aquarius was dawning. Its opening anthem promised a transformation of human consciousness: an era of peace, harmony and understanding. Half a century later, a familiar echo of that promise is a meditation app offered by your employer. You can find it in the same list of benefits as the pension plan and the gym discount. How did a spiritual revolution become an employee benefit? The answer lies in the history of the movement known as New Age: where it came from, what it borrowed from Asia, and why the meaning of what it borrowed changed in the process. Two definitions will help. New Age is a loose label for a wide range of spiritual practices and...
Peace
📌 At 40, TFF turns a page and continues with true peace — a new homepage
Small and different + among the 10% most active + 9,000 texts + 150 Associates + 60 000 a day — and a stubborn belief that peace is smarter and must be secured by peaceful means. In 2026, the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF) turns 40. On Monday, October 5, 2026, a new TFF homepage will go live — a new gateway to more than 9,000 articles, analyses, research papers and other contributions produced over four decades of independent peace research. But this is not simply a new website. For four decades, TFF has worked from a simple conviction: peace is smarter than militarism and can be brought about by peaceful means. This is not merely an aspiration. It is the principle expressed in the UN Charter and the Gandhian tradition that has guided our work from the beginning. TFF is a research-based, independent and people-financed foundation....
Media
Nonviolent Journalism and the Collective Field of Human Freedom
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
Read More
8824b09f-33a5-43f9-9fd0-550f28cda24d_1536x1024
Civilization and philosophy
The Monk Without the Monastery
What the West Borrowed from Asia and What It Left Behind Jan Krikke October 8, 2026 The article was originally published here In the late 1960s, the musical Hair announced that the Age of Aquarius was dawning. Its opening anthem promised a transformation of human consciousness: an era of peace, harmony and understanding. Half a century later, a familiar echo of that promise is a meditation app offered by your employer. You can find it in the same list of benefits as the pension plan and the gym discount. How did a spiritual revolution become an employee benefit? The answer lies in the history of the movement known as New Age: where it came from, what it borrowed from Asia, and why the meaning of what it borrowed changed in the process. Two definitions will help. New Age is a loose label for a wide range of spiritual practices and...
Screenshot 2026-10-04 210142
Peace
📌 At 40, TFF turns a page and continues with true peace — a new homepage
Small and different + among the 10% most active + 9,000 texts + 150 Associates + 60 000 a day — and a stubborn belief that peace is smarter and must be secured by peaceful means. In 2026, the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF) turns 40. On Monday, October 5, 2026, a new TFF homepage will go live — a new gateway to more than 9,000 articles, analyses, research papers and other contributions produced over four decades of independent peace research. But this is not simply a new website. For four decades, TFF has worked from a simple conviction: peace is smarter than militarism and can be brought about by peaceful means. This is not merely an aspiration. It is the principle expressed in the UN Charter and the Gandhian tradition that has guided our work from the beginning. TFF is a research-based, independent and people-financed foundation....
Living-Peace-Sign-Budapest-copy
Media
Nonviolent Journalism and the Collective Field of Human Freedom
Tony Robinson October 4, 2026 Violence is easy to recognise when someone is being beaten, shot or killed. It becomes more difficult when nobody is holding a weapon. Poverty, discrimination, exploitation and repression can restrict a human life just as effectively, although they do so in very different ways and with very different consequences. Simply adding more categories to an ever-growing list of forms of violence does not really solve the problem. The more interesting question is what all these different situations have in common and why it makes sense to describe them using the same word. Human beings do not simply react to what happens around them. They remember the past, imagine things that do not yet exist, make plans and undertake projects. Workers organise because they imagine different working conditions; people migrate because they imagine another life somewhere else; social movements emerge because people refuse to accept the...
b54a1f10-8c65-4f0b-9dd5-4abc0a7d04cc_2659x2659
Blog
Of course, we can we abolish war before it destroys us!
It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...
010
Blog
The World Beyond Global Disorder
Johan Galtung 1930-2024October 2015 Published here on October 3, 2026 Let us focus on Civilization for conflict analysis and remedies. Major forms of disorder use violence; war is state organized violence. The most belligerent states are the United States of America and Israel, both with civilization roots. National Evangelism, the US Protestant Christian civilization– more national than evangelical–justifies US warfare as exceptionalism of a people chosen by God, with a manifest destiny to run the world. Orthodox Judaism justifies Israeli warfare to conquer and expand from Nile to Euphrates as a religious right and duty to the Eternal One. The third most belligerent country, the UK, no longer believes it is God-chosen but chosen by the USA; not quite the same but something. But the root cause of global disorder lies in the Occident–with Islam–seeing itself as the single, universal civilization valid for all at all times, all others being...
Screenshot 2026-10-02 011738
TFF Blog
Q & A for China Social Science Academy Journal: How to promote innovation?
Jan Oberg PhD, director, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFFLund, Sweden October 2, 2026 This is my full original manuscript. The Chinese Academy of Social Science, CASS, makes two publications out if it. 1. China’s Five-year plan emphasized the capabilities of basic research and original innovation. It is regarded as the goal of the future social development, which, as required, should be significantly enhanced. Can you comment on the importance of original innovation in research and academic study? I believe it is easier to define “original innovation” in the natural sciences than in social sciences. The breaking points of what constitutes something new, or innovative, are not quite as sharp in the latter. But in both fields it is about opening up something that was closed, unseen, unexplored before – making manifest what was earlier latent. Innovations come in many forms and shapes – naming something that was...