US President Barack Obama’s administration is unveiling a new nuclear weapons policy that seeks to narrow the circumstances under which the US would use such weapons while preserving long-standing assurances of nuclear protection for allies, US officials said.
It is a delicate balance that the administration will describe in a policy document, called a nuclear posture review, that was to be released yesterday following a full year of deliberation led by the Pentagon and consultations with allied governments.
The document is expected to include language reducing US reliance on nuclear weapons for its national defense by narrowing potential US nuclear targets. That reflects Obama’s pledge to move toward a nuclear free world, and could strengthen US arguments that other countries should either reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons or forego developing them.
PHOTO: AFP
The review of nuclear weapons policy is the first since 2001 and only the third since the end of the Cold War two decades ago.
The White House also planned to urge Russia to begin talks on adopting first-ever limits on shorter-range nuclear weapons, an arena in which Russia holds an advantage, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the nuclear policy review prior to its release.
These would be follow-on negotiations to the newly completed “New START” treaty reducing long-range nuclear weapons — to be signed by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague tomorrow.
The officials said the administration’s new policy would stop short of declaring that the US would never be the first to launch a nuclear attack, as many arms control advocates had recommended. However, it would describe the weapons’ purpose as “primarily” or “fundamentally” to deter or respond to a nuclear attack.
The officials said the document would say it is a US goal to move toward a policy in which the “sole purpose” of nuclear weapons is to deter or respond to nuclear attack. That wording would all but rule out the use of such weapons to respond to an attack by conventional, biological or chemical weapons. Previous US policy was more ambiguous.
In an interview with the New York Times on Monday, Obama said his administration was explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the US with biological or chemical weapons. Those threats, he told the newspaper, could be deterred with “a series of graded options” — a combination of old and newly designed conventional weapons.
The Obama administration plans to urge Russia to return to the bargaining table following Senate ratification of the new START arms reduction treaty. The White House hopes to overcome Russia’s expressed reluctance to move beyond START, especially if it means cutting Moscow’s arsenal of tactical, or short-range nuclear arms.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday the treaty to be signed tomorrow takes relations between the two former Cold War foes to a new level.
The treaty “reflects a new level of trust between Moscow and Washington,” Lavrov told reporters ahead of the formal signing ceremony.
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