US President Barack Obama plans “dramatic reductions” in the country’s nuclear arsenal, a senior US official said on Monday, but it remains unclear if he will opt for a radical break from past policy.
A review of nuclear strategy under way “will point to dramatic reductions in the stockpile, while maintaining a strong and reliable deterrent through the investments that have been made in the budget,” a senior administration official said.
The review, due to be completed later this month, will also “point to a greater role for conventional weapons in deterrence” and rule out the need to develop low-yield “bunker-buster” nuclear weapons for penetrating underground targets, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was expected on Monday to present final options to Obama on the long-delayed Nuclear Posture Review, which was initially supposed to be released in December.
Gates, an influential figure in Obama’s Cabinet and former CIA director, has been portrayed by arms control advocates as reluctant to back major changes in nuclear arms policy.
It remains unclear how Obama will decide the crucial question of whether the US should openly declare the conditions for the possible use of nuclear weapons, or retain the ambiguous language of previous administrations.
Some of Obama’s allies in Congress are pushing to change standing US policy that permits using nuclear weapons in response to a biological or chemical attack, even against a country without an atomic bomb.
The lawmakers want Obama to declare that the exclusive purpose of the arsenal is to deter nuclear attack, which would allow for more drastic cuts in the arsenal.
Amid an intense debate among Obama’s advisers, arms control experts and media reports say such a shift appears unlikely and the Obama may back only modest policy changes.
Accounts of the long-delayed policy review suggest “a very conventional document that will fall far short of the president’s rhetoric,” Jeffrey Lewis recently wrote on ArmsControlWonk.com.
The effort likely will produce “a very status-quo document,” said Lewis, a leading expert on proliferation.
In April, Obama promised in a speech in Prague to work toward a world without nuclear weapons and to put an end to “Cold War thinking” in US strategy.
He has called for nuclear powers to make major cuts in stockpiles in return for stepped up global efforts to counter the spread of atomic weapons.
During the Cold War, US nuclear strategy focused on two potential enemies, the Soviet Union and China.
Current strategy assumes six possible adversaries — China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria and a terrorist organization with weapons of mass destruction, said an analysis of strategy documents by the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based non-partisan group.
Three of those possible “adversaries” do not have nuclear arms and two have signed on to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
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