At noon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen will hold a press briefing on the new Nuclear Posture Review. The document, however, is now online, and it's worth highlighting some of the key passages ahead of the briefing.
Much of the conversation about arms control has fixated on counting warheads: As part of the New START treaty, the United States and Russia are committing to new limits on deployed warheads and delivery systems. But the technical details are also important: All U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) will be “de-MIRVed” (i.e., limited to a single warhead each instead of carrying multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles).
The current alert posture of U.S. strategic forces – referred to in Cold War shorthand as "hair-trigger" alert -- will be maintained. That means Air Force missile crews will stay on alert, and a significant number of nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines will remain at sea, although nuclear-armed bombers will be off full-time alert. The practice of "open-ocean targeting" for ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles will continue: In the event of an unauthorized or accidental launch, the missiles will be programmed to land in the ocean (or in the case of the ICBMs, drop somewhere in the Arctic Sea).
European allies should also give the document a close read. The United States keeps some forward-deployed "non-strategic" nuclear weapons stationed in NATO countries. The nuclear review says a "small number" of those nuclear weapons will remain. The document also calls for "retain[ing] the capability to forward-deploy U.S. nuclear weapons on tactical fighter-bombers and heavy bombers, and proceed with full scope life extension for the B-61 bombincluding enhancing safety, security, and use control."
Among other things, the administration will press for ratification the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996 but never ratified by the Senate. The document also calls for investment in new facilities to support the requirements of the stockpile stewardship: Maintenance of the nuclear arsenal without testing. And it foresees more funding for chemistry and metallurgy research facilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory to replace the existing 50-year old facility, as well as a a new Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]
