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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...

US will push for all states that are not members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) including India and Pakistan to join the nuclear accord during the NPT Review Conference to be held next week at the U.N. headquarters. “The U.S. has had a long—standing policy of supporting the universal adherence to NPT,” Susan Burk Special Representative of the President for nuclear non—proliferation told PTI, in response to a question whether Washington will address the question of New Delhi and Islamabad’s absence from the NPT. “And I am quite confident that the issue will be raised during the review conference,...

WASHINGTON, April 13 (UPI) -- All 47 countries pledged to secure vulnerable nuclear material in four years, U.S. President Barack Obama said at the end of the first Nuclear Security Summit. The goal of the two-day summit was "not simply to talk but to take action ... to commit to meaningful steps" to secure nuclear materials and prevent them from falling into terrorists' hands, Obama said Tuesday after the afternoon plenary session. "We have a mutual interest in security these nuclear materials," Obama said. "We have embraced our shared responsibility (to) solve problems." The time line is both bold and...

Realpolitik: At the start of the Nuclear Security Summit, we see an all-too-familiar gesture from our president. Is it a matter of courtesy, an idiosyncrasy or the administration's acceptance of a new world order? If there ever was an iconic tribute to the idea of U.S. exceptionalism, it was the fact that the American flag was never dipped during the parade of athletes at the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. We never dipped or bowed to anybody, with the possible exception of figurehead royalty.

Leaders from 46 nations, the most gathered together since the United Nations was formed in San Francisco in 1945, will meet over the next two days in Washington, DC. The stated goal of this Obama administration-hosted summit is laudable: keeping nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands. Who could argue with that? And this Nuclear Security Summit comes less than a week after President Barack Obama released a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and just days after he signed a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. As many of the White House’s allies pointed out last week, President...

The United States announced this week a new strategic policy for its nuclear weapons that puts unprecedented emphasis on the nuclear threat from terrorists and rogue states, as opposed to traditional nuclear powers like Russia and China. Some analysts see the new policy as an important step in meeting the changing international situation. But critics call the move reckless and irresponsible. The Nuclear Posture Review - the third since the end of the Cold War - limits the circumstances under which the United States would use nuclear weapons, with a long-term goal of achieving a nuclear-free world. The Obama administration's...

Later today, the Obama administration will release the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) which will set the framework for decisions on U.S. nuclear policy for the next five to 10 years. Coupled with the follow-on Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) to be signed in Prague this Thursday, these documents begin to implement the “road to zero” nuclear dream President Barack Obama outlined in Czech Republic last year. their exclusive interview with President Obama about the NPR, David Sanger and Peter Baker report in The New York Times: Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new...

Arms Deal: President Obama signs away U.S. nuclear security and gives the Russians a veto over whether we can defend ourselves. Our nuclear umbrella is in tatters as another piece of paper proclaims peace in our time. Completing a process of disarmament and appeasement that manifested itself in the dismantling and defunding of U.S. military power that began with his inauguration, President Obama signed a new strategic arms limitation treaty with a grinning and very happy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday in the Czech capital. How fitting this document was signed in Prague, which isn't far from Munich where...

PRAGUE: Barack Obama met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague last night to sign a landmark nuclear disarmament treaty that slashes their nations' atomic arsenals. The two heads of state were expected to sign a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty a year after the US President called for a nuclear-free world in a keynote speech. The new treaty, which must be ratified by the US Senate and Russia's parliament to take effect, also imposes limits on the intercontinental ballistic missiles needed to deliver the warheads. The White House hopes the treaty will help yield warmer relations with...

Earlier this year Barack Obama raised eyebrows among supporters when he proposed a double-digit increase in the US nuclear weapons budget. The move, accompanied by a proposed freeze in all US domestic non-defence spending, was seen as flying “in the face of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize”, in the phrase of one excitable British tabloid. In fact the boost, which would refurbish US nuclear weapons laboratories after years of cuts, was Nobel-esque in its underlying aims. Subsequent events – including the signing in Prague on Thursday by the US president and Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart, of a fresh treaty to...

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...

A top Australian nuclear disarmament diplomat has welcomed the new United States doctrine limiting the potential use of its nuclear weapons, but says it could have gone further. The US says it will only use atomic weapons in "extreme circumstances", will not attack non-nuclear states and has pledged that no new nuclear weapons will be developed. The former Australian foreign minister and co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, Gareth Evans, says the new US doctrine takes a step in the right direction by ending a long-standing policy of ambiguity and states clear limits to US nuclear...

The United States on Tuesday announced a new nuclear weapons policy that gives top priority to fighting terrorism and proliferation, rather than deterring or responding to a nuclear attack by a foreign country. The policy promises not to use atomic weapons against non-nuclear states, but issues a stern warning for countries that ignore global non-proliferation rules. Initial reaction among experts and members of Congress has been mixed. The policy document called the Nuclear Posture Review specifically says the United States will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the nation's security strategy. It lays out a plan to expand conventional...

New Zealand's nuclear free policy should be reviewed if the country wanted to forge stronger links with the United States, according to American ambassador to New Zealand, Charles Swindells, who was the guest speaker at the Electra Business Forum at Southwards Car Museum, Otaihanga, last Wednesday.Information disclosed at the forum was supposed to be kept in house but the ambassador gave the all clear for people to comment afterwards on his address.He said there was a close relationship between both countries but it could be better.From his travels, there were many people passionate about New Zealand's nuclear-free policy but he...

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said he will ask President Bush to clarify the United States position on the use of nuclear weapons when he meets with the president at the White House on Thursday. Radio Canada reported that Chretien decided to act after news reports over the weekend said the U.S. has considered a nuclear option against states such as Iraq and North Korea, but only as part of routine contingency planning. Chretien said he doubts the Bush administration is seriously considering the use of nuclear weapons, but he wanted to receive clarification in any case. The Los Angeles...

war storiesMushroom Clouded MindsThe press cheap-shots Bush's nuclear policy.By Scottnbsp;ShugerPosted Tuesday, March 12, 2002, at 10:53 AM PT Beware of any newspaper story breathlessly reporting X when you know the paper would treat not-X as just as big a scoop. That's the situation with the recent revelations about the Bush administration's classified review of U.S. nuclear policy. The Los Angeles Times, which broke the story, ran it under the headline, quot;U.S. WORKS UP PLAN FOR USING NUCLEAR ARMS,quot; and its lead sentence said that the quot;Bush administration has directed the military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against...