Obama administration makes stopping nuclear terror key goal
The administration, in its February 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, will declare that stopping nuclear terrorism is its central aim on the nuclear front; countering nuclear terrorists — whether armed with rudimentary bombs, stolen warheads, or devices surreptitiously supplied by a hostile state – will become a task equal to the traditional mission of deterring a strike by major powers or emerging nuclear adversaries; shift in nuclear emphasis would mean devoting less money to modernizing bombers, missiles, and submarines, and more to surveillance satellites, reconnaissance planes, and undercover agents
The Obama administration’s classified review of nuclear weapons policy will for the first time make thwarting nuclear-armed terrorists a central aim of American strategic nuclear planning, according to senior Pentagon officials. When completed next year, the Nuclear Posture Review will order the entire government to focus on countering nuclear terrorists — whether armed with rudimentary bombs, stolen warheads or devices surreptitiously supplied by a hostile state — as a task equal to the traditional mission of deterring a strike by major powers or emerging nuclear adversaries.
The New York Times’s Thomas Shanker and Eric Schmitt write that the nuclear review will affect how warheads are developed by the Department of Energy, deployed by the Department of Defense, and limited through negotiations by the Department of State, as well as how the intelligence community and the military do their jobs and spend money. That could mean, for example, devoting less money to modernizing bombers, missiles, and submarines, and more to surveillance satellites, reconnaissance planes, and undercover agents.
To underscore the point that concrete consequences will follow its guiding philosophy, the Nuclear Posture Review is scheduled to be released along with the Obama administration’s next budget in February.
Shanker and Schmitt note that although the internal debate is not quite over, and the president has not approved a final version of the review, a senior Defense Department official said its priorities were taking shape. “The first — and in many ways the most urgent for where we are today — is the threat posed by nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to describe the current draft of the review.
At the core of this threat, which officials say has been growing steadily since the attacks of 9/11, is “the possible transfer of nuclear weapons or materials to a terrorist or substate actor,” he said.
The problem has been that the classical model of deterrence — of threatening to respond with overwhelming nuclear force to a nuclear attack from another country — is of uncertain relevance in the context of transnational terrorism.
Although the government-wide review is led by the Defense Department, the primary tools for countering this new danger are not nuclear weapons, but efforts to halt nuclear proliferation, to identify and attack terrorist networks, and to strengthen security measures with allies and partners. This would include American and international efforts to “secure nuclear weapons and
