Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms

Image by dbking via Flickr

For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

clipped from www.nytimes.com WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons. But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation. Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office. Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting the United States’ most potent deterrent and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that the country would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

Related articles by Zemanta

• US plans broader nuclear arms talks with Russians (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• No more cold war thinking | Johan Bergenäs (guardian.co.uk)
• Science's nuclear responsibility | Martin Rees and Des Browne (guardian.co.uk)
• One Progressive's Two Red Lines on National Security (tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Former Cold War Foes US, Russia to Slash Nukes (abcnews.go.com)
• Obama: New treaty shows US, Russia intend to lead (sfgate.com)