Source

Barack Obama's radical review on nuclear weapons reverses Bush policies

• Report shifts focus away from cold war strategy

• Iran and North Korea could still be targeted

Ewen MacAskill in Washington

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 April 2010 19.41 BST

Around 200 tactical nuclear weapons, the type carried by the US Seawolf submarine, above, will remain in five European countries Photograph: Jim Brennan/AFP/Getty Images

The Obama administration announced a major shift in US nuclear weapons strategy today that included ruling out for the first time their use to retaliate against attacks involving biological or chemical weapons or large-scale conventional forces.

The 72-page Nuclear Posture Review, published after a year's work, marks one of the biggest changes in strategic thinking since the end of the cold war and reverses policies introduced by the Bush administration. Among the changes is a pledge not to develop any new nuclear weapons, a move pushed through in the face of strong resistance by the Pentagon.

In spite of the reduction in scenarios in which the US would use nuclear weapons, there are crucial loopholes that would still permit their use against countries such as Iran or North Korea. The secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, at a joint press conference at the Pentagon with the defence secretary, Robert Gates, described the changes as a milestone .

Organisations that have campaigned for the elimination or reduction of nuclear weapons generally welcomed the strategy, though expressing disappointment that it had not gone as far as they would like. Campaigners want the US to declare it would only retaliate against a nuclear attack on the US or its allies.

Publication of the review comes at the start of a week that will be dominated by the issue. President Barack Obama is to go to Prague on Thursday to sign a nuclear weapons treaty with Russia and next week he will host a 47-nation nuclear proliferation summit in Washington. Gordon Brown had been due to attend the summit but pulled out because of the British election.

The Nuclear Posture Review shifts the focus away from a cold war strategy that saw the main threat as coming from Russia or China, recognising the major threat now is from nuclear proliferation or from a terrorist organisation. It also regards having a huge nuclear stockpile as redundant.

The biggest change is recognition that the circumstances in which nuclear weapons could be used had to be narrowed. The key passage in the review says that the strategic situation has changed since the end of the cold war and the US has a strong enough conventional capability to deter a biological or chemical warfare attack.

As a result, the review says: "The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations." This contrasts with the Bush administration, which in 2001 declared that nuclear weapons would be used to deter a wide range of threats, including weapons of mass destruction and large-scale conventional military force.

The problem for Iran and North Korea is that the pledge does not cover them because the US regards them as in non-compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. North Korea pulled out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003, while the US claims Iran is covertly engaged in developing a nuclear weapons capability, which Tehran denies. Gates, in a warning to Iran, called on Tehran to "play by the rules".

There is also an anomaly in the review in that it allows the retention of about 200 tactical nuclear weapons held in five European countries. This may have been a sop to European countries worried about too many concessions being given to Russia.

Lisbeth Gronlund, co-director of the Global Security Programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists, welcomed ruling out nuclear strikes against countries using chemical or biological weapons.

"I think this is positive. Does it go far enough? No. But would it be possible for Obama to make the great leap we want? No," Grolund said. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said: "I think overall the review moves the US to a more appropriate commonsense nuclear strategy," he said. "I think this represents further progress away from heavy reliance on nuclear weapons for a wide range of missions.

"It makes it clear that a lot of nuclear weapons are not relevant in the 21st century. The priorities that have driven US policy for decades have shifted."

Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, described it as a big, positive step forward. "It could go further, faster, but it is the best we can hope for under the circumstances. It is a solid, pragmatic document that strives to be transformational. It is transformation in two aspects: It re-orients the US nuclear forces away from massive retaliations and towards today's threats of nuclear terrorism and new nuclear states. It orients US policy towards dramatically fewer weapons and greatly reduced roles."

Makes perfect sense to me. Any non-retaliatory nuclear strike would be met with extreme international censure, and possible counter-strikes from other nuclear powers. It's hard to imagine a scenario where the US would ever stand to gain more than it would lose by doing so.

As for defending itself against nuclear powers, the current US arsenal has been more than capable of deterring any nuclear threat for many decades now, and there's no sign that it will need more or better nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future.

Despite the policy making all kinds of sense, no doubt the Pentagon fought hard against it. They hate to take anything off the table when it comes to defense, no matter how distasteful the technology is to the American public or the world community.

The nuclear age has had its advantages. There's only been one overt conflict between nuclear-armed countries, and that was India and Pakistan in the late 90s (after their public tests). The threat of total annihilation will have that effect

I'll grant that i'm actually rather opposed to the Cold War mentality that exists between us and the Russians (both powers should realize that they have little to lose and a lot to gain from overt cooperation), but nukes have been an excellent guarantor of global security, especially through the artificial restrictions imposed on who *can* be a nuclear power. It helps keep rising countries down (except when they choose to buck it like India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have)

Just so long as we keep enough nukes to nuke potential enemies and the mutated zombies that will be born as a result of the first wave of nukes, i'll be happy.

In all seriousness though- i'm glad we're scaling back on nukes. When you have an arsenal capable of destroying every major city in the world 10 times over, chances are you should scale back a bit.

I applaud President Obama. It takes the countries with the most nuclear weapons to let the rest of the world know that this is not the way we should relate to each other. Russia and the US are on the right path.
Are military is already easily the largest in the world and we have better ways to defend ourselves other than nuclear war.
PEACE!

Cool, although most of it doesn't really have any practical meaning since none of the newly ruled out things has a chance of happening... and if it did he'd probably swing right back and threaten nuclear attacks.

I had a friend who worked at Boeing working on the rockets for nuclear weapons. Looks like he was smart to change departments.

Russia also apparently reserves the right to "opt out" of the treaty's provisions, whatever that means...

I'd guess either.

1) We still feel the need to act like tough guys because of... China?

or

2) We may have a reason to break it soon.

Either way, it's really only a good thing.  There isn't much need for more Nuclear Weapons development, unless the plan is to make them MIDAS like.

Which, nobody is going to get since Front Mission 3 is an old PS1 game that wasn't that popular in the west anyway, so i'll put it anotherway.

A Nuclear weapon with almost no harmful radiation making it a powerful weapon that is "enviroment friendly"  well... outside of putting a giant whole in said enviroment.

And if I'm an enemy of the US I'm thinking - Boy those chemical and biological attacks seem like a good area to look into now that I won't get nuked for it.

I don't have any problem with him deciding to not use nukes in response to such attacks...well I disagree with it, but I see where he is coming from. What I cannot understand is the absolute stupidity in publicly saying you won't.

Like it or not nuclear weapons make for a fantastic deterrent, and while their detonation may be distasteful it has long been the case that their primary use lies in the threat of detonation and not actual detonation. Even if you would never use them in a given scenario the threat of using them in that scenario provides an immensely valuable deterrent, and you don't have to be overtly threatening for it to work either.

This policy is overwhelmingly naive...which in all honesty pretty much characterizes the man and the ideology driving the decision. So not that surprising really.

Who is actually in a place to hit the US with chemical or biological weapons though?  Doing so would likely end your life whether it was with a nuclear weapon or not.