Strategic Policy

On the evening of October 12, 1986, as the Reykjavik summit between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev broke up, a huge crowd of journalists, including myself, waited expectantly, not knowing of the drama that had unfolded over the previous two days. When Secretary of State George Shultz took the podium at the press conference, I noticed the U.S. arms control negotiator, Max Kampelman, standing off in the wings. His face sagged with disappointment. Shultz then went on to describe how the two leaders had come close to the deal of the century—to eliminate all nuclear weapons—before breaking up in disagreement over limits on Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.

The White House is “weighing options” for sharp reductions in U.S. nuclear forces as part of its study of how to implement the results of its 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the Associated Press reported Feb. 14.

Within his first 100 days in office, President Barack Obama delivered a stirring address in Prague on the steps necessary to move toward a world free of nuclear weapons. On April 5, 2009, he pledged to “put an end to Cold War thinking” by “reduc[ing] the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”

(Washington, D.C.) At 2 p.m. today, the Pentagon is scheduled to release major budget decisions stemming from its Jan. 5 strategic guidance review, which states that: "It is possible that our deterrence goals can be achieved with a smaller nuclear force, which would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in our inventory as well as their role in U.S. national security strategy."