WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration could pursuedevelopment of new nuclear weaponry and explicitly leave open thepossibility of nuclear retaliation for major non-nuclear attacks, if aleaked draft policy document becomes reality.
The Pentagon did not comment on the document, which was published by theHuffington Post website and prompted sharp criticism from arms controlexperts, who voiced concerns it could raise the risks of nuclear war.
The Defense Department said on Friday it did not discuss “pre-decision,draft copies of strategies and reviews.”
“The Nuclear Posture Review has not been completed and will ultimately bereviewed and approved by the President and the Secretary of Defense,” thePentagon said in a statement.
One source familiar with the document told Reuters the draft was authentic,but did not say whether it was the same version that will be presented toTrump for approval.
The Republican Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, declared hisintent to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in his Nuclear Posture Reviewin 2010, the last time the policy document was crafted.
The Trump administration’s draft document, said, however, that Obama-eraassumptions of a world where nuclear weapons were less relevant provedincorrect.
“The world is more dangerous, not less,” it said.
It more readily embraces the role of nuclear weapons as a deterrent toadversaries, and, as expected, backs a costly modernization of the aging USnuclear arsenal.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that modernizing andmaintaining the US nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years will cost morethan $1.2 trillion.
The document sought to put those costs in perspective, noting thatmaintenance of the existing stockpile would account for nearly half theprojected costs. An effective nuclear deterrent was also less expensivethan war, it said.
The draft document noted that Russia and China were modernizing theirnuclear arsenals, while North Korea’s nuclear provocations “threatenregional and global peace.”
The draft document said the United States, while honoring all treatycommitments, would pursue development of a new nuclear-armed sea-launchedcruise missile. It would also modify a small number of existingsubmarine-launched ballistic missile, or SLBM, warheads to provide anuclear option with a lower payload.
In what arms control experts said appeared to be a nod to the threat of adevastating cyber attack, perhaps one that could knock down the US powergrid, the document also left open the possibility of nuclear retaliation in“extreme circumstances.”
“Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategicattacks,” it said.
Kingston Reif, director for disarmament research at the Arms ControlAssociation advocacy group, said the draft document was a departure fromlong-standing US policy.
“It expands the scenarios under which the United States might use nuclearweapons and therefore increases the risk of nuclear weapons use,” Rief said.
Although it reaffirmed an Obama-era pledge not to use or threaten to usenuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states if they joined andadhered to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the draft introduced acaveat. The United States reserved the right to alter that assurance, giventhe evolving threat from non-nuclear technologies.
Michaela Dodge, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said thedraft document appeared to be intentionally ambiguous about when and howthe United States might retaliate, to better deter adversaries.
“If we are explicit about saying (when) we will not retaliate with thestrongest weapons we have, we are implicitly telling our adversaries youcan plan for these scenarios more freely,” Dodge said. – Agencies