Nuclear Policy Issues
April 10, 2010 -- This past several weeks have been historic for nuclear weapons policy. Three major events have occurred that herald the possibility that we are heading toward nuclear abolition.
1) The renewed START Treaty with Russia, which Presidents Obama and Medvedev signed on April 8th in Prague, calls for a 30% reduction in deployed warheads down to 700 by 2018.
2) The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review was announced on April 6th and calls for the limitation of US nuclear use to retaliation against a nuclear attack, taking off the table retaliation for chemical, biological, or other non-nuclear weapons.
3) The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference coming in May at the United Nations in New York will be a test of the Obama Administration's determination to change the Cold War nuclear game of assured mutual destruction.
The counterpoint comes from conservatives in the US Senate, where ratification of all treaties must take place. They are holding out for the upgrading of our nuclear capability even as we decrease the number of warheads and delivery vehicles. This was President Obama's concern in presenting a defense budget that included a 22% increase in funding for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where a new plutonium pit facility will be built to manufacture up to 125 new plutonium pits a year. How this will play at the NPT Review Conference remains a question.
Meanwhile, there are public events locally, nationally, and internationallycalling for nuclear reductions all the way to zero.
