The following is an excerpt from Will Marshall’s op-ed published today in AolNews.com:
President Barack Obama has resumed a vital post-Cold War chore interrupted by his predecessor — reducing America’s nuclear arsenal. The White House reportedly is putting the final touches on its Nuclear Posture Review, which aims to reinforce the world’s nonproliferation regime without undercutting deterrence.
The new strategy reverses the Strangelovian course pursued by George W. Bush during the heyday of conservative infatuation with unilateralism and pre-emptive strikes. For example, rather than build on the momentum of previous arms-reductions efforts, Bush funded research on a new line of nuclear weapons — “bunker-busters” — intended to take out underground nuclear facilities or command centers.
Under Obama’s strategy, America will develop no new nuclear arms. Instead, Obama is contemplating a new system, called “Prompt Global Strike,” that would enable the United States to hit targets anywhere with non-nuclear weapons. And where Bush rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban as an infringement on U.S. sovereignty, Obama, who backs the treaty, will invest in efforts by U.S. weapons laboratories to ensure the reliability of a smaller stockpile.
Expect conservatives to attack these changes as fresh proof of Obama’s “naïve” quest for a world without nuclear weapons — a vision he offered in his first address to the United Nations in September. The right found an improbable ally in French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who reproved Obama for dreaming while rogue states like Iran and North Korea are bent on expanding the nuclear club.
But Obama’s critics don’t explain how the United States can stem the spread of nuclear arms by holding on to many more than we need. Russia also wants to get rid of its superfluous nukes, which is why it’s been pressing Washington for a new arms-reduction treaty. What’s more, under the 1965 Non-Proliferation Treaty, the nuclear powers are obliged to reduce their nuclear stockpiles in return for agreement by nuclear “have-nots” to forgo building nuclear weapons.
Read the full column at AolNews.com.