Rethinking U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy

Abstract

There have been remarkable changes in recent years in U.S. nuclear weapons policy under the administration of President George W. Bush that have not been adequately analyzed and that call for serious reconsideration. These changes were announced in 2002 in three official documents and they constitute a new doctrine, the Bush doctrine, ending the security system and nuclear weapons policies of the Cold War period and creating the basis for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq starting in March 2003. They represent a discontinuous sea change in the international security system that calls for discussion, debate, and analysis, none of which has taken place so far. The earlier bipolar world has been replaced by a proposed unipolar world with the United States under President Bush seeing itself as the dominant power or sole superpower. The mutual deterrence system that was part of the Cold War has been replaced by U.S. unilateral actions against possible rivals, including “regime change” as seen in Afghanistan and Iraq. Cooperative approaches to national and international security and alliance systems that had existed in the earlier epoch have been replaced by unilateral U.S. policies and actions. Arms control has been replaced by unilateral U.S. arms initiatives.