Thoughts on the Nuclear Posture Review

For a long time I've wanted to write about foreign policy issues that have nothing to do with Malaysia, I do study Political Science as a minor after all. Well, today brought some news that I could not help writing about.

On Tuesday, President Obama released the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. The report outlines what "the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security strategy should be."

The NYT article states:

"Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary... 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."

I think this is a very positive step in the RIGHT direction for strengthening the international nonproliferation regime AND US national security.

I imagine that critics on the right will be quick to portray the move as "weak" and "inviting an attack on the US." I think these criticisms are made clearly by those stuck in a Cold War mindset. I was lucky enough to have been born at the end of the Cold War and thus "mutually assured destruction" is not part of my regular vocabulary. I'd argue it should be out of everyone's vocabulary and only come out of the mouths of IR scholars and appear in print in IR textbooks. MAD is obsolete. Completely.

Now let me get a bit wonky here for a moment.

I'd argue that Obama's plans for drawing down nuclear arsenals and redefining the situations when nuclear weapons would be employed is completely in sync with recent moves the military has taken in restructuring itself. In short, the military structure was designed most in part with an emphasis for conventional warfare between two opposing powers (ie US and USSR) on a battlefield etc etc. However, the conflicts that our military has been involved in lately (Afghanistan and Iraq) are unconventional. How does a conventional military fight an unconventional war (counterinsurgency being the big one)?

The military has begun to adapt itself in order to better handle unconventional conflicts. It's a measure that is being taken in response to the realities: no a war with China isn't imminent, but executing a population-centric counterinsurgency is something that is going on right now.

Obama's decisions reflect this same reality. Nuclear warfare is obsolete, thank God.

If you don't agree with my analysis, seriously consider threats to the security to the US that would call for the use of nuclear weapons in the year 2010. If you answer: Iran or North Korea, you didn't read the Times article close enough. If you answer: Al Qaeda and other terrorists, consider how a nuclear warhead would be guided to wherever the terrorists are. If you answer China, consider that our economic ties will never bring us further than arguing about Taiwan or the Dalai Lama.

Also, consider the implications this will have for the NPT, Iran, and North Korea.

Many seemed to be baffled as to why President Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize. I wasn't.