Do we come out of last night’s Democratic sweep with every faction confirming their priors, or do we really try to start charting out a unified vision for a diverse party going into ‘26 and ‘28? I vote for the latter.

I'm not at all confident that any leaders would do so. I think the "be a good ally" syndrome far outweighs any real alternative imaginaries there might be.

Why would you keep nuclear forces of an irresponsible power in your country? It’s the one thing D.C. might listen to. I think some European thinkers could read up on New Zealand's bet in the 80s to push back on US nuclear policy by being willing to take costs to ANZUS.

If the US resumes nuclear testing, NATO states hosting US bombs should end their involvement in nuclear sharing, and push hosted weapons and the associated USAF personnel out.

Ik zie het praktisch nut van proeven niet in, want alle kennis die ze kunnen opdoen, hebben ze al. Het is dus gewoon niet nodig en je provoceert er alleen maar andere landen mee, stelt HCSS expert @davhellison in @RTLnieuws. https://t.co/jlSaHI3OoQ

I would also not even put it past this administration to not limit it to underground tests. They love a spectacle. Hegseth wants a photo op with a mushroom cloud in the background. All that rhetoric you always here of the US as a "responsible nuclear power" is and was crap.

Y'all just know that some person just signed their papers, and in 18 months will be walking towards mushroom clouds with new nuclear tests going on. And before some dorks come to defend the decision, this is bad for stability, bad for arms control, just bad.

I had a fantastic talk on all things problematic in the defence and IR intellectual world with Van Jackson from the @UnDiplomaticPod (among many other things) on my latest episode of Official Positions! Be sure to check out all of Van’s stuff! https://t.co/NeBSr51BSi

So what might all this mean for Steadfast Noon today? The main historical takeaway is that, while annual and routine exercise, there is a LOT going on behind the scenes that not even all practitioners are aware of. Nuclear history is never reassuring....nor should it be...

Did the Pentagon create a Cold War risk that left NATO allies exposed to nuclear blackmail or overconfident in US assurances? Interesting stuff to keep working on.

Taken together with much other evidence, which you can find here, https://t.co/Rk8GFb3eSk, There are a lot of questions still out there. If the US was not actually planning for flexible response, what it did it mean that NATO was?

2) SecGen Dirk Stikker had begun at least in 1983 to "question our continued public assertions concerning the absolute nature of NATO's political control over the employment of nuclear weapons."

In relation to NATO, my research found two things: 1) A Carter administration document showing SecDef Brown's knowledge that US plans and NATO plans differed to a significant degree and...

Both Miller and Gavin have shown that, from Eisenhower through to at least the first Bush administration, the JSTPS and SAC kept civilians in the dark about whether presidential guidance actually made it into plans (it did not). US plans did not reflect flexible response at all!

That the military planners at the Pentagon, particularly the JCS and Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff, resisted assertions of civilian control over planning and even release procedures. https://t.co/FdqMgqLkpx https://t.co/9iBjIzZCXQ

In short, part of my broader doctoral research on NATO, building on the great works of Francis Gavin and Frank Miller, answers that: 1) No the US did not, and 2) Yes it very much did Frank Miller wrote, and other sources have substantiated like Daniel Ellsberg's memoirs....

Intriguingly, there have been open questions both during and since the Cold War on two major points: 1) does the US really have solid civilian control over these weapons and 2) does US planning differ significantly from NATO thinking on nuclear use?

...featured general nuclear use, initiated by NATO, against Warsaw Pact forces. By 1981, these exercises featured only "selective" use, and was almost always done on allied territory to stop an advance. All the way in 1989 NATO simulated nuclear strikes inside Turkiye!

This type of exercise has been going on for a long time, throughout the Cold War. However, there were some differences. First, simulated nuclear strikes were a staple of both NATO and Warsaw Pact exercise scenarios. Up until at least 1975, every NATO exercise...

...by the Nuclear Planning Group in coordination with the United States, specifically the White House, in that only the US president has the formal authority to authorise the release and use of American nuclear weapons.