Obama rethinking new US nuclear strategy
US President Barack Obama speaks at an America's Promise Alliance education eventin WashingtonD.C. on Monday. (EPA)
Published: Mar 2, 2010 00:09 Updated: Mar 2, 2010 00:15
WASHINGTON: More than 18 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there are still 23,000 nuclear weapons remaining in the world.
Now, in an effort to permanently reduce the US nuclear arsenal by thousands of weapons, President Barack Obama is making final decisions on a broad new nuclear strategy for the United States.
These are tough decisions as Obama is also being urged by those both inside the Pentagon and White House to reject proposals that the United States declare it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.
Obama’s new strategy — which will void or reverse several initiatives taken by the former Bush administration — will be included in a nearly completely document called the Nuclear Posture Review, which offers a comprehensive review of US nuclear weapons strategy and policy for the next five to 10 years.
The 2010 NPR is the third such comprehensive study since the end of the Cold War. The first was completed by the Clinton administration in 1994 and the second by the George W. Bush administration in 2002. While the 1994 and 2002 reviews were classified, the current study will release an unclassified report.
The much-awaited review of US nuclear forces in Washington’s global strategy is expected to reduce the role of atomic weapons in regional scenarios and retire the nuclear-armed Tomahawk sea-launched land-attack cruise missile, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
Time is of the essence. Both the NPR and New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) have been delayed considerably. The NPR will probably not be out until late March or April; and the New START negotiators have taken a break and will meet again sometime in March.
Understandably, given the administration’s ongoing emphasis on nuclear weapons issues, the pundits, political observers and national security reporters are all trying to read the tea leaves regarding these delays. Commentary on the NPR has ranged from tersely worded admonishments to constructive attempts to discover reasons for the delay.
Meanwhile, White House aides said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Monday gave Obama several of the Pentagon’s options which addressed several of the unresolved issues in the NPR document that have been hotly contested within the administration.
Obama’s critics argue that his embrace of a new movement to eliminate nuclear weapons around the world is naive and dangerous, especially at a time of new nuclear threats, particularly from Iran and North Korea.
But many of Obama’s supporters fear that over the past year he has moved too cautiously, and worry that he will retain the existing US policy by leaving open the possibility that Washington might use nuclear weapons in response to a biological or chemical attack, perhaps against a nation that does not possess a nuclear arsenal.
However one looks at it, Obama has a lot on his plate: Not only does he have to deal with the NPR — which has to be sent to Congress soon; there is also the new START which expired last December and is nearing completion with Russia.
There is also a nuclear materials security summit is to be held in Washington in April, plus a new push is to be made for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. There’s also a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty to ban the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons purposes, and there’s a review conference for the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in May.
And that’s just what’s on the calendar — there’s no predicting what unexpected nuclear proliferation and security challenges will arise from Iran, North Korea, South Asia, or elsewhere.
