Talk:Single Integrated Operational Plan

UK participation - I'm all for mentioning us humble Brits but when we've only got around 67 trident D5 missiles and only 400 (or is it 200 hundred, numbers available on FAS< CDI, global security, etc) warheads how on earth can we hit 500+ targets (we could have in the past when we had more warheads and the We-177 was dropped from tornadoes but that ended with the strategic defence review of 1998 160.5.247.213 03:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The President's Authority
My understanding is that the President, alone, cannot authorize _any_ nuclear attack, be it tactical or strategic. This goes beyond the statement in the article that reads "the President by himself cannot order a strategic nuclear strike on any country."

Note that "order" and "authorise" are two different things. For example, as far as I know, the Prime Minister here in the UK can *authorise* the use of nuclear weapons, but cannot order them to be used - whether or not they are used, and how they are used, is up to the military, once so authorised.94.175.244.252 (talk) 07:55, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

SIOP-62
A lot has been published about the inflexibility of the early SIOP, and the shift in 1963 was ordered as a result of McNamara finding the plan both inflexible and barbaric. It paid no attention to the Sino-Soviet split and called for the obliteration of China, Eastern Europe and Albania as a result of Soviet actions. Pentagon generals referred to it as "wargasm" and I believe it was LeMay who said it would leave the Soviet Union a "smoking radiating ruin" in 2 hours. Should this information be included in the history section?--csloat 23:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The "wargasm" quote was from Herman Kahn, and LeMay was exaggerating in many respects. In 1962, there were relatively few ICBMs, and bombers certainly were more than 2 hours from most of their targets. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 21:50, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

OPLAN-8044
Revision 05 went into effect on October 1 2004, and has been unofficially quoted in some defence and military circles as having a particular emphasis on "deterrence through pre-emption" but also "deterrence through massive disproportionate response" - to be exact, it supposedly foresees an actual “response ratio” to a Chinese nuclear strike - literally a 10:1 ratio for strikes; China hits Okinawa and the US hits ten Chinese bases in retaliation. Now given that the point of deterrence is that the other side knows about it, has there been any reference to this in the none-English press that anyone can find? It does not seem to publicly confirmable —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.101.4.34 (talk • contribs)
 * This thread is long cold, but anyway: the US could have communicated this fact to the Chinese in any number of official, non-official, or deniable ways - it doesn't have to become public. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:25, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Is it still correct to use 'SIOP'? Shouldn't 'OPLAN' be used instead? Gentleman wiki (talk) 07:14, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

No-first-use policy
The existing article refers to a US policy of no first use in two places:

' in SIOP-63... the 'no first use' policy became implicit.'

'Under Reagan, through NSDD-13, ... first-strike was still explicitly removed'

My own understanding is that the United States has always explicitly refused to pledge no first use of nuclear weapons. Indeed, the original doctrine of 'massive retaliation' was envisioned as being invoked in case the Soviets were to launch a conventional attack on Western Europe. Robert McNamara gave a speech in 1962 pledging no first attacks against cities (i.e. US nuclear strikes would be counterforce as long as the opponent did not attack US cities?), and after leaving office McNamara became an advocate of no-first-use. However I am unable to locate any indications of an operational policy that the US would not be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

Therefore, I propose editing the article to remove or clarify any references to a US no-first-use policy.

Gaffer Gamgee 18:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Sources? Availability?
Has any SIOP ever been released? If so, why does the article lack direct citations? If they're not, why would these documents continue to be classified after almost 50 years, without even a heavily redacted version available? -Rolypolyman (talk) 20:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * No SIOP has ever been released. Some of the planning documents that went into the SIOP objectives are available, in redacted form, at the George Washington University National Security Archive. These documents dealt with general targeting objectives, such as taking out nuclear forces with various levels of restriction of collateral damage. Some pre-SIOP nuclear targeting plans, such as DROPSHOT, have been released.


 * Part of the confusion here involves the "P" in SIOP. When the actual SIOP documents are created, certain sections contain assignments, authentication mechanisms, and other things that have to do with the actual order generation process. The exact format of Emergency Action Messages, for example, is unlikely to be released when any part of the old system is still in use -- and there's no real reason to believe that aspects of EAMs needed change. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 21:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Removing "Effects" section
Is there any need for this section? It's generic technical material of dubious quality that has nothing specifically to do with the SIOP. I'm going to remove unless someone has a good counterargument. Maury (talk) 19:09, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, removing... Maury (talk) 21:35, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It's your article now. I simply don't want to get into any Wikipedia-style debates, with no means of content resolution. I believe the material is and was relevant;we are unlikely to convince one another; and I am simply not going to get involved. Please do not ask me further about it; I just don't care enough about Wikipedia. If you are interested in a serious discussion of the merits, try Citizendium.

Unsourced edits
Please don’t add “facts” to this article without citing sources for them, and definitely don't add things which contradict the sources already cited. Richard75 (talk) 18:02, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

"Forced out of US Air Force for asking about sane president" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Forced_out_of_US_Air_Force_for_asking_about_sane_president&redirect=no Forced out of US Air Force for asking about sane president] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Hog Farm Talk 01:36, 29 April 2024 (UTC)