NEW U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY

Abstract

THE ADMINISTRATION announced last week that it would reduce the number of ready-to-launch nuclear weapons in the U.S. by 30% over the next seven years, limit the actions that could trigger a U.S. nuclear attack, and raise the threshold for construction or testing of new nuclear weapons. The announcements were part of the April 6 release of the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), an internal government assessment document outlining the nation’s nuclear weapons strategy, and the April 8 signing of the international Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The START agreement would cut deployed strategic nuclear weapons from 2,200 each for the U.S. and Russia to 1,550. It does not, however, address tactical nuclear weapons that number in the thousands, some of which are several times larger than those dropped by the U.S. in Japan during World War II. When announcing the NPR, Secretary of ...