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Strategic Policy

  • Universal Transparency: A Goal for the U.S. at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit
    Arms Control Today
    January 10, 2011
  • NATO Struggles to Define New Nuclear Doctrine
    Arms Control Today
    September 3, 2010

    NATO is likely to defer major decisions on its future nuclear weapons policy until after the alliance’s Nov. 19-20 Lisbon summit, according to answers given by the German government to the Bundestag July 20. Diplomatic sources from several countries made similar comments during interviews in recent weeks.
  • Reassessing the Role of U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Turkey
    Arms Control Today
    June 4, 2010

    NATO is revising its Strategic Concept; the alliance is due to complete work on the document in November. A key issue in the revision is the deployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe as part of the alliance’s policy of extended nuclear deterrence. Although Turkey has long been in agreement with its allies on the value of these forward deployments, it may soon find itself in a delicate position on the question of how to continue the policy effectively.

    With other NATO countries such as Luxembourg and Norway supporting them, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands have indicated a desire to reassess the case for continued deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons on their territories. Should these countries advocate withdrawal of U.S. weapons from Europe, Turkish decision-makers might conclude that two fundamental principles of the alliance, namely solidarity and burden sharing, have been seriously weakened. Those principles have been the basis for Turkey’s agreement, since the early 1960s, to the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons on its soil.
  • Obama’s NPR: Transitional, Not Transformational
    Arms Control Today
    May 5, 2010

    On April 5, 2009, in Prague, President Barack Obama embraced the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. In pursuit of that objective, he called for “an end to Cold War thinking” and pledged to “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in [U.S.] national security strategy.”[1] One year later, his administration released its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which fleshes out policies to meet those aspirations.

    The new NPR narrows the circumstances under which the United States might use nuclear weapons and formally establishes some commonsense constraints on U.S. nuclear warhead modernization. It does so in ways that should help reduce the salience of nuclear weapons, help curb proliferation, and open the way for further nuclear arms cuts.
  • A New Nuclear Posture
    Arms Control Today
    May 5, 2010

    A year after President Barack Obama set very high expectations with an April 2009 speech in Prague outlining his vision of a world without nuclear weapons, his administration has released its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which goes some distance toward meeting Obama’s stated goal of reducing U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons.

    Perhaps more importantly, the NPR, made public in its entirety, places U.S. nuclear policy within a conceptual framework based on two important ideas. First, the United States has a compelling interest in preventing any use of nuclear weapons. Second, preventing the use of nuclear weapons requires cooperation as much as, if not more than, it requires deterrence. This is a profound change.

     
  • U.S. Nuclear Review Shifts Threat Focus
    Arms Control Today
    May 5, 2010

    Flagging nuclear terrorism and proliferation as the top U.S. national security priorities for the first time, the White House released its long-awaited Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) April 6. The congressionally mandated report provides a comprehensive description of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and strategy for the next five to 10 years. The 2010 NPR is the third post-Cold War review—the others were in 1994 and 2001—and is the first to be published in an unclassified form.
  • Ministers Urge NATO Nuclear Policy Review
    Arms Control Today
    March 3, 2010

    The foreign ministers of five NATO countries last month called for a discussion of what the alliance can do to advance nuclear arms control and said “the inclusion of sub-strategic nuclear weapons in subsequent steps towards nuclear disarmament” should be part of the discussion.
  • Burnishing Reagan’s Disarmament Credentials
    Arms Control Today
    September 4, 2009

    A Review of Reagan’s Secret War: The Untold Story of His Fight to Save the World From Nuclear Disaster by Martin Anderson and Annelise Anderson (Continue)
  • Change U.S. Nuclear Policy? Yes, We Can.
    Arms Control Today
    September 3, 2009

    As the administration of President Barack Obama works to complete the congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) by early 2010, it is clear to most that yesterday’s nuclear doctrines are no longer appropriate for today’s realities.

    In an April address in Prague, Obama made clear that he wants “to put an end to Cold War thinking” and pledged that “we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and urge others to do the same.” (Continue)
  • Daryl Kimball Discusses the Role of Nuclear Weapons at STRATCOM
    Arms Control TV
    July 29, 2009

    On July 29, 2009 ACA Executive Director Daryl Kimball spoke to STRATCOM at its 2009 Deterrence Symposium. He was a member of a panel on the "Role of Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century U.S. National Security Strategy."