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.... Several U.S. officials briefed on the options told me they include declaring a “no first use” policy for the United States’ nuclear arsenal, which would be a landmark change in the country’s nuclear posture. Another option under consideration is seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution affirming a ban on the testing of nuclear weapons. This would be a way to enshrine the United States’ pledge not to test without having to seek unlikely Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The administration is also considering offering Russia a five-year extension of the New START treaty’s limits on deployed...

Senator opposed to back-door ratification of test ban accord The Obama administration will seek a formal political agreement at the United Nations that would legally bind the United States to a nuclear test ban treaty rejected by the Senate 17 years ago. The plan was outlined in a letter from the State Department to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), who is challenging the administration’s effort to lock in American adherence to the signed but unratified Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT. The treaty bans nuclear testing and was signed by then-President Bill Clinton in 1996....

Defense: The administration proudly reveals a state secret to our enemies before a U.N. conference on nuclear nonproliferation. It wants to lead by example on disarmament, but Iran and North Korea aren't following. Not since the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact that sought to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy has there been such a stunning display of dangerous naivete. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton disclosed U.S. nuclear secrets to the U.N. conference while proudly proclaiming it showed America is sending "a clear, unmistakable signal" that this nation is committed to nuclear disarmament. Kellogg-Briand laid the groundwork for Munich in...

National Security: Aiming at a world where nuclear weapons are obsolete, the administration's nuclear posture review leaves a world without American nuclear weapons and the backbone to use them. After his stunning bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that all that had been accomplished was to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. Under policies announced by the Obama administration, a devastating chemical or biological attack on this country might merely awaken our very own Hamlet and fill him with a terrible sense of angst. We have said before that rather...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ___________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release September 15, 2009 Statement by the Press Secretary on the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty The President has asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to lead the U.S. delegation and deliver the U.S. national statement at the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), to be held on September 24 and 25 in New York City. Since...

US nuclear gurus see signs of more Indian nuclear tests Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN 28 August 2009, 05:24am IST WASHINGTON: US nuclear pundits feel the Indian establishment -- political, scientific, or both in concert – may be lining up to conduct more nuclear tests to validate and improve the country’s arsenal before the Obama administration shuts the door on nuclear explosions. ''You bet he wants to test again,'' said Henry Sokolski, Executive Director of the Washington DC-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, when asked about the remarks from a key Indian nuclear scientist suggesting India’s thermonuclear test was not up to mark....

Defense: President Obama dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Unless testing and maintenance of our nuclear deterrent is resumed, it will be a world without American nuclear weapons.In his Prague speech this spring, the president spoke of "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," ignoring the fact that before 1945 we lived in such a world and it was neither peaceful nor secure. We recently observed the anniversaries of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, actions that brought an abrupt end to the carnage of World War II and arguably...

{snip}The United States has wisely been very cautious about sharing nuclear technology – military or civilian. Just a few months ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Wall Street Journal that any decision to sell civilian nuclear technology to India would have "quite serious" implications for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So why did President Bush decide this week to help India build nuclear power plants and import advanced weapons? Certainly, a domestic civilian nuclear power program will aid India's economy and gives the United States another strong ally in the region against Muslim extremism, the emerging military and economic...

On August 5, 2004, speaking to about 7,000 minority journalists at the "Unity 2004: Journalists of Color Conference", John Kerry reportedly said "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror" than President Bush. While briefly reported by USA Today, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution, it was largely ignored by the press at the time the comment was made. John Tierney's commentary in The New York Times "Political Points" did award Kerry the "Kumbaya Prize" for the week based on the comment. (Kumbaya Prize, Runner-Up: Teresa Heinz Kerry, for telling...

(Islamabad/Moscow, October 25) There is now a nuclear dimension to the Afghan war. A second retired Pakistani atomic scientist was picked up by Islamabad on Tuesday night on the suspicion that he was developing a nuclear device for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. The arrests followed tip-offs by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to the Pakistani authorities. Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood and Abdul Majeed, both scientists who had retired from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), were picked up after the FBI provided evidence of their links to jehadi outfits. The Pakistan Interior Minister, Moinuddin Haidar, said on ...

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Government scientists conducted an underground nuclear materials experiment Friday at the Nevada Test Site, the National Nuclear Security Administration said. The subcritical experiment, dubbed Piano, involved detonating high explosives to chart the behavior of plutonium in a non-nuclear explosion. It did not trigger a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, NNSA spokesman Kevin Rohrer said. Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California completed the test at 1:44 p.m. in a cavern 960 feet below ground, Rohrer said. No abnormalities and no surface damage were reported at the vast site, about 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas....