The New York Times reports that the Obama Administration will probably change the United States’ nuclear policy in its upcoming Nuclear Posture Review. Specifically, President Obama would like to reduce the American nuclear arsenal by thousands of weapons but update the technology of the existing stockpile.
The Nuclear Posture Review will outline important steps toward the new American policy on nuclear weapons, which is expected to further depart from a Cold War era posture.
“The Heritage Foundation has proposed a ‘protect and defend’ strategic posture for the U.S. that is based on shifting away from the retaliation-based strategic posture of the Cold War toward a more defensive posture that is adapted to the emerging international structure.”
It is possible that the Obama Administration’s policy will rely more on missile defense for protection against an attack from a country like Iran as it reduces the nuclear arsenal. Adopting a “protect and defend” strategy is the most effective way to minimize the nuclear threat.
An effective strategy promotes nuclear modernization, superior conventional weapons, and effective missile defense while reducing the likelihood of armed conflict. Arms control is not the end in itself, but an outcome of the strategy.
Heritage Fellow Baker Spring argues that “those who strongly favor nuclear disarmament should recognize that robust strategic defensive measures–including ballistic missile defenses–and conventional superiority can create a circumstance where nuclear disarmament is appropriate.”
The delay in the Nuclear Posture Review’s release is reportedly a result of intense debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates over U.S. “declaratory policy.” Biden supports limiting the circumstances under which the U.S. is willing to use nuclear weapons, which will eliminate America’s ability to strike first and prohibit the use of nuclear weapons in response to a chemical or biological attack. Gates, on the other hand, wants to maintain a flexible policy closer to the “calculated ambiguity” currently in place.
Jeffrey Chatterton is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm
Yesterday, on Larry King Live, Vice President Joe Biden stated that the Iraq war could be one of the greatest successes of the Obama Administration. That is quite a shift of opinion. Considering that the success of Iraq is largely due to the “surge” that was ordered by President Bush and President Barack Obama and Biden have been the chief critics of the surge.
In 2007 then Senator Barack Obama said that the surge would not work. In fact, he stated in an MSNBC interview that the surge would actually increase violence in Iraq. Obama played coy, only saying that he did not think the surge would work. Whereas, Biden stated that the surge was a failure:
The purpose of the surge was to bring violence in Iraq down so that its leaders could come together politically. Violence has come down, but the Iraqis have not come together… There is little evidence the Iraqis will settle their differences peacefully any time soon.
In 2007, General Petraeus testified before Congress saying that the surge was starting to work and that there could be military reductions as soon as summer of 2008. This is when Obama started to change his tune, saying that the surge did not go as he expected. Luckily, for us, and the US military, Obama was wrong on the surge. While on the campaign trail Obama further conceded that the success of the surge was beyond his “wildest dreams” stating:
The surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated
Well, almost nobody. President Bush and General Petraeus thought that there was a good chance that the surge could work, and that is why they proceeded with it. Now that violence in Iraq is down and a seemingly stable government, Biden is lauding the Obama Administration’s success in being able to bring troops home this summer. Trouble is, that is what the plan was before Obama got into office. The Status of Armed Forces Agreement was ratified by the Iraqi Parliament in November of 2008 when George Bush was still in office. The agreement called for the removal of troops in most Iraqi cities by 2009 and a complete withdrawal of US Troops by the end of 2011. The Obama Administration loves to point out things that were “inherited” from the Bush Administration, but they seem to be taking credit for something good that they truly did inherit.