US to unveil new, more restrictive nuclear policy
WASHINGTON
It is a delicate balance that the administration will describe
in a policy document, called a nuclear posture review, to be
released Tuesday following a full year of deliberation led by the
Pentagon in consultation with allied governments.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Joint Chiefs
chairman Adm. Mike Mullen planned to unveil the new policy at a
noon Pentagon briefing.
The document is expected to include language reducing U.S.
reliance on nuclear weapons for its national defense by narrowing
potential U.S. nuclear targets. That reflects President Barack
Obama's pledge to move toward a nuclear-free world, and could
strengthen U.S. arguments that other countries should either reduce
stockpiles of nuclear weapons or forgo developing them.
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 on
Thursday.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia reserves
the right to withdraw from the new treaty if it decides a U.S.
missile defense shield, now planned for Romania, threatens its
security.
He also said Moscow shares Obama's goal of a nuclear-free world,
but other nations must join the disarmament process.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in Kazakhstan Tuesday
visiting a former Soviet nuclear testing range, called the new U.S.
nuclear policy "an important initiative."
The U.S. officials said the administration's new policy would
stop short of declaring that the United States would never be the
first to launch a nuclear attack, as many arms control advocates
had recommended. But 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 U.S. 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
U.S. 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 United
States 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
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.
These so-called theater nuclear weapons play a key role in
Russia's overall defense strategy and are regarded in Moscow as an
important bargaining chip on security issues.
The timing of a planned U.S. push for new, broader arms talks
with Russia is uncertain. But officials said the proposal would
only come after U.S. and Russian legislative approval of the new
START pact, which isn't expected until the end of this year.
The Russian parliament is almost certain to sign off on any deal
negotiated by the Kremlin, but the U.S. Senate's ratification of
the new START treaty is far from a sure thing.
Ellen Tauscher, the under secretary of state for arms control,
told reporters March 29 that the administration has a "big
agenda" for the next set of nuclear arms talks, and that it
includes limiting short-range weapons.
Obama is hosting dozens of world leaders in a nuclear security
summit in Washington next week.
One senior administration official said the U.S. wants another
round of talks between the White House and the Kremlin that would
include not only short-range weapons but also so-called
"non-deployed" nuclear weapons -- the thousands of warheads,
long-range and short-range, on both sides that are held in reserve
and not ready for immediate use.
George Perkovich, a nuclear weapons expert at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, said the Russians have a strong
incentive to limit reserve weaponry because the U.S. could, in
theory, quickly mount its stored warheads back onto missiles.
Russia's struggling military forces would have a harder time
preparing their reserve warheads for use in the event of war.
U.S. officials believe talks on reducing stockpiled warheads
could persuade Russia to negotiate limits on short-range weapons --
a category of arms in which the Russians hold a large numerical
advantage.
Reducing the short-range bombs and stored warheads would involve
more intrusive inspections than agreed in the treaty Obama and
Medvedev will sign this week. But new technologies for verifying
and counting warheads could ease concerns on both sides about
protecting the secrecy of their weapons designs, the officials
said.
These technologies allow inspectors to verify narrow
characteristics of warheads without revealing details of their
structure.