White House Is Rethinking Nuclear Policy (Weapons)

[Sgent]

Source: NY Times

WASHINGTON — As President Obama begins making final decisions on a broad new nuclear strategy for the United States, senior aides say he will permanently reduce America’s arsenal by thousands of weapons. But the administration has rejected proposals that the United States declare it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons, aides said.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy — which would annul or reverse several initiatives by the Bush administration — will be contained in a nearly completed document called the Nuclear Posture Review, which all presidents undertake. Aides said Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates will present Mr. Obama with several options on Monday to address unresolved issues in that document, which have been hotly debated within the administration.

First among them is the question of whether, and how, to narrow the circumstances under which the United States will declare it might use nuclear weapons — a key element of nuclear deterrence since the cold war.

Mr. Obama’s decisions on nuclear weapons come as conflicting pressures in his defense policy are intensifying. His critics argue that his embrace of a new movement to eliminate nuclear weapons around the world is naïve and dangerous, especially at a time of new nuclear threats, particularly from Iran and North Korea. But many of his supporters fear that over the past year he has moved too cautiously, and worry that he will retain the existing American policy by leaving open the possibility that the United States might use nuclear weapons in response to a biological or chemical attack, perhaps against a nation that does not possess a nuclear arsenal.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/us/politics/01nuke.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[scottsoperson]

1. the french seem to have

a safe nuclear industry.

[bananas]

4. "seem to" is the key phrase

But things aren't always what they seem.

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/the-reality-of-frances-aggressive-nuclear-power-push

The reality of France's aggressive nuclear power push
By Mycle Schneider | 3 June 2008
Article Highlights

* Developing countries that have expressed interest in French nuclear power technology can't implement it anytime soon.
* A French-led global nuclear power renaissance is problematic, since the country's nonproliferation record is poor.
* French nuclear reactors aren't as safe as its promoters claim.
* Nuclear power provides only a small portion of total French energy consumption.

<snip>

[Confusious]

7. Nuclear power provides only a small portion of total French energy consumption.

Yea, that's true, but it does provide about 78% of it's electricity production.

It's kind of like cars here. factor that in, and the part of the coal plants becomes small.

[Jax]

8. link? n/t

[caraher]

9. Easy enough to google

From Wikipedia:

In France, as of 2002, Électricité de France (EDF) — the country's main electricity generation and distribution company — manages the country's 59 nuclear power plants. As of 2008, these plants produce 90% of EDF's and about 78% France's electrical power production (of which some is exported),<1> making EDF the world leader in production of nuclear power by percentage. In 2004, 425.8 TWh out of the country's total production of 540.6 TWh of electricity was from nuclear power (78.8%).<2>. It is important to note though that this makes up only about 16% of France's final energy consumption.<1>

[Amonester]

2. we... "worry that he will retain the existing" neo-con "policy" but...

we've been told that we're irrelevant

guess they'll 'rahm' it trough again

anyone's got any spare 'change'?

[scottsoperson]

3. i suppose obama may use the nuclear option

of course, repubs used to think the nuclear option was a good thing.

[FrenchieCat]

5. I don't get your cliched talk. Can you come again, so that even I can understand? Thanks!

:shrug:

(from the article) Mr. Obama’s new strategy — which would annul or reverse several initiatives by the Bush administration — will be contained in a nearly completed document called the Nuclear Posture Review, which all presidents undertake.

[bananas]

6. Try these ...

"Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x213000

"Obama’s Youth Shaped His Nuclear-Free Vision"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x200718

"All this is supposed to culminate, next year, ..."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6714342&mesg_id=6721618

edit to add: note that that last one is predictive...

[Kolesar]

10. Obama’s Youth Shaped His Nuclear-Free Vision--super link

:hi:

[Robb]

12. Anything of substance to say?

[zipplewrath]

11. Every President since Kennedy

Basically every president since Kennedy has struggled with this problem to one extent or another. The US always wants to declare "no first use". The problem (besides the fact that of course we already HAVE) is that our entire "defense of Europe" plan relied upon first use as a deterrent. To this day our military plans for deterent and defense against other nuclear enabled countries is based upon "pre-emptive" use. And in our planning for Iran I've heard news stories that they were considering nuclear "bunker busters". I'm dubious that this president will put forth the effort to undo that much military strategy.

[DevinKline]

13. "it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons"

Uhhhhh....did someone forget to call Japan prior to writing that bit?

[high density]

14. Yeah, we rejected the idea of saying that, as the article states. NM

[Javaman]

15. See, that's just political speak for...

we won't use them unless we have to use them but since we already used them, we reserve the right to unuse them to destroy our imaginary enemy.

all clear now, right?

[obliviously]

16. We should sell most of or nukes to our enemies

After all most here are in agreement that everyone else is much more responsible than we are. We could raise money for green energy and health care.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. US plans 'dramatic reductions' in nuclear weapons

Officials say thousands of nuclear weapons could be cut, in many cases by retiring weapons that are now kept in storage.

The new strategy will also seek to abandon plans put in place by the previous administration to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons for penetrating underground targets known as "bunker busters."
...
Ahead of the summit, the Obama administration began a wide-ranging nuclear policy review, which was initially supposed to have been released in December.

The BBC's Jonathan Marcus says all the signs are that the first draft of the document has been rejected as being too wedded to the status quo and not sufficiently "transformational" to use the language favoured by the Obama administration.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8543897.stm

Be happy, people - this is good news.