<p>But the administration has rejected proposals that the US declare it would never be the first to use nuke weapons. 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 Defence Robert M Gates will present Obama with several options to address unresolved issues in that document, which have been hotly debated within the administration. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Critics’ concern<br />Obama’s decisions on nuclear weapons come as conflicting pressures in his defence policy are intensifying. His critics argue that his embrace of a new movement to eliminate nuclear weapons around the world is naive 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. <br /><br />That is one of the central debates Obama must resolve in the next few weeks, his aides say. Many elements of the new strategy have already been completed, according to senior administration and military officials who have been involved in more than a half-dozen Situation Room debates about it, and outside strategists consulted by the White House. <br /><br />As described by those officials, the new strategy commits the United States to developing no new nuclear weapons, including the nuclear bunker-busters advocated by the Bush administration. But Obama has already announced that he will spend billions of dollars more on updating America’s weapons laboratories to assure the reliability of what he intends to be a much smaller arsenal. Increased confidence in the reliability of American weapons, Vice President Joseph R Biden Jr said in a speech in February, would make elimination of “redundant” nuclear weapons possible. <br /></p>
<p>But the administration has rejected proposals that the US declare it would never be the first to use nuke weapons. 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 Defence Robert M Gates will present Obama with several options to address unresolved issues in that document, which have been hotly debated within the administration. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Critics’ concern<br />Obama’s decisions on nuclear weapons come as conflicting pressures in his defence policy are intensifying. His critics argue that his embrace of a new movement to eliminate nuclear weapons around the world is naive 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. <br /><br />That is one of the central debates Obama must resolve in the next few weeks, his aides say. Many elements of the new strategy have already been completed, according to senior administration and military officials who have been involved in more than a half-dozen Situation Room debates about it, and outside strategists consulted by the White House. <br /><br />As described by those officials, the new strategy commits the United States to developing no new nuclear weapons, including the nuclear bunker-busters advocated by the Bush administration. But Obama has already announced that he will spend billions of dollars more on updating America’s weapons laboratories to assure the reliability of what he intends to be a much smaller arsenal. Increased confidence in the reliability of American weapons, Vice President Joseph R Biden Jr said in a speech in February, would make elimination of “redundant” nuclear weapons possible. <br /></p>
