Monday, September 21, 2009

Obama's Nuclear Plans

I’ve been curious about  how President Obama plans to deal with our huge nuclear weapons stockpile along with the threat of nuclear proliferation elsewhere.

nuclear-weapons President Obama's decision to order a review comes as he takes the rare step of chairing a watershed session of the UN security council.

Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country's arsenal, the Guardian can reveal.

Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the "nuclear posture review" as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials.

Those options include:

  • Reconfiguring the US nuclear force to allow for an arsenal measured in hundreds rather than thousands of deployed strategic warheads.
  • Redrafting nuclear doctrine to narrow the range of conditions under which the US would use nuclear weapons.
  • Exploring ways of guaranteeing the future reliability of nuclear weapons without testing or producing a new generation of warheads.

The review is due to be completed by the end of this year, and European officials say the outcome is not yet clear. But one official said: "Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president's weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role."

The move comes as Obama prepares to take the rare step of chairing a watershed session of the UN security council on Thursday. It is aimed at winning consensus on a new grand bargain: exchanging more radical disarmament by nuclear powers in return for wider global efforts to prevent further proliferation… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Guardian>

What can I say?  This policy is just the change we need.

5 comments:

Annette said...

Yes it is.. I know this is something he is passionate about.. and something he and Mededev have spoken about before. They reached a pretty good agreement once before so I am sure they will meet quite a bit this time and probably come to a consensus which will help with worldwide agreements. Of course the rethugs will not think it is wise...

The CDM said...

Just thought you should know, you spelled it n-u-c-l-e-a-r. This is incorrect. It's n-u-c-u-l-a-r. I thought you got the memo.

the walking man said...

I am cool with massive reductions as long as we have every capitol of every nation on earth in the gun sights.

Unknown said...

Pardon my skepticism, but anything done will only be cosmetic; or they'll sit him down to warch the Magruder film again.

TomCat said...

Memo, CDM? I thought it was only a U under Potomac Pinocchio.

Mark, are you referring to foreign capitols or Red State capitols. ;-)

Brother, I don't see where that would make a difference. What more could they do to inspire violence against him without guaranteeing a trip to the big house for openly calling for assassination?