US nuclear review calls for low-yield weapons

WASHINGTON, D. C.: The US military wants to overhaul its atomic arsenal and develop a new type of low-yield weapon that experts worry could lead to greater proliferation and heighten the risk of nuclear war.

The proposed changes to the nuclear weapons program, out“The United States now faces lined in a draft version of the Pena more diverse and advanced tagon’s Nuclear Posture Review, nuclear-threat environment than ever before.” vision for America’s nuclear future The new strategy calls for a conunder Barack Obama, who durtinuation of the nuclear modernizaing a famous speech in Prague in tion program ordered by Obama, 2009 called for the elimination of but notable changes include a call nuclear weapons. for the increased development of

Arguing today’s security envilow-yield nuclear weapons. ronment is vastly more complex These devices, also known as than in 2010—the last time the “tactical” nukes, are still extremely Pentagon published a nuclear powerful and can pack as much review—the draft document states destructive punch as the bombs that the US needs to realign its dropped on Hiroshima and Nanuclear policy with a “realistic gasaki at the end of World War II. assessment” of the threats it now Policymakers worry that regular, faces, including from North Korea, large-yield weapons are essentially Russia and China. too big to ever be detonated, as

“Global threat conditions have their use would likely result in worsened markedly” since the large- scale retaliation from an 2010 nuclear policy review, Deadversary and wipe too much of fense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote humanity off the map. in the document’s introduction, The Pentagon argues that by a leaked version of which was having more, smaller nukes it will counter adversaries’ “mistak States would not respond to another country using its own low-yield bomb.

options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression,” the document states.

The proposed policy says the Defense Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration will develop a low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile for deployment.

Such a capability would ensure “a prompt response option that is able to penetrate adversary defenses.”

Barry Blechman, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan anti-nuclear proliferation think tank in Washington, warned that the review contains major steps backward from the goals of previous administrations—to reduce the risk of nuclear war and prevent nuclear weapons spreading to additional nations.

“Nuclear ideologues maintain that the US has to match the adversary’s arsenal, weapon for weapon, yield for yield, to deter nuclear use,” Blechman said in a statement to Agence France-Presse.

“There is no empirical basis for this view, but it is widely held among civilians being appointed to positions in the” administration of President Donald Trump.

As president- elect in December 2016, Trump called for the United States to “greatly strengthen and expand” its nuclear capabilities—and within days new nuclear policy.

The nuclear review states that the development of new, loweryield nuclear weapons is not intended to enable “nuclear war military using the weapons on

The Pentagon declined to comment on the policy review, saying it remained “pre-decisional” and not approved by Trump. The February 2.

The document also states that Russia is upgrading its nuclear “triad” of air-, sea- and land-based missiles to include a new “hypersonic glide vehicle” and a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed, undersea autonomous torpedo.