Nuke cutbacks

[WazOz]

President Obama will today announce that he is to dramatically narrow the conditions under which the United States will use nuclear weapons, even for self-defence.

In an interview with The New York Times ahead of the unveiling of his much anticipated revamped nuclear policy, Mr Obama said an exception would be made for "outliers like Iran and North Korea" that have violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But in a striking departure from the position taken by his predecessors, he said that the US would explicitly commit for the first time to not using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that adhere to the nuclear treaty, even if they attack with biological or chemical weapons.

The review of the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal has involved, among others, the Pentagon, the Department of Energy and the intelligence services, as well as the White House. Mr Obama's re-written policy comes as he prepares to fly to Prague on Thursday to sign the landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) with President Medvedev of Russia.


The Obama Administration has come under pressure from arms control analysts to redefine the circumstances in which the US might consider using nuclear weapons, and to state beyond doubt that the justification for keeping them is purely as a deterrent.

In the interview, he stopped short of the hoped-for blanket declaration that the US would never be the first to use nuclear weapons — no first-use, as it is called. Arguing instead for a slower course of action, he said: “We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons, to make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.”

But he went further than expected in other areas, saying that the new strategy would renounce the development of any new nuclear weapons to set an example for moving the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete.

He said threats such as biological or chemical attacks could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and newly designed conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview,which took place in the Oval Office.

Asked asbout the threats posed by Iran and North Korea, Mr Obama said he was convinced the course Iran was one would provice them with nuclear weapons capabilities, and added that it was clear that North Korea had moved from being simply a nuclear capable state to being a self-professed nuclear states.

“Rather than splitting hairs on this, I think that the international community has a strong sense of what it means to pursue civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes versus a weaponizing capability,” he said.

He also said he hoped to use the treaty signing with Russia as a stepping stone toward more ambitious reductions in nuclear arsenals. “We are going to pursue opportunities for further reductions in our nuclear posture, working in tandem with Russia but also working in tandem with Nato as a whole," he said.

[micah719]

The Manchurian Candidate is wrecking your country. When the next hitler comes on the scene, there won't be a USA to defect to, or come to rescue of the oppressed and persecuted.