NPR details leaking

From the Times, this morning (emphasis added):

As President Obama begins making final decisions on a broad new nuclear strategy for the United States, senior aides say he will permanently reduce America’s arsenal by thousands of weapons. But the administration has rejected proposals that the United States declare it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons, aides said.

Mr. 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 Defense Robert M. Gates will present Mr. Obama with several options on Monday to address unresolved issues in that document, which have been hotly debated within the administration.

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.

Mr. Obama’s decisions on nuclear weapons come as conflicting pressures in his defense policy are intensifying. His critics argue that his embrace of a new movement to eliminate nuclear weapons around the world is naïve 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.

That is one of the central debates Mr. 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.

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 Mr. 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.

“It will be clear in the document that there will be very dramatic reductions — in the thousands — as relates to the stockpile,” according to one senior administration official whom the White House authorized to discuss the issue this weekend. Much of that would come from the retirement of large numbers of weapons now kept in storage.

Other officials, not officially allowed to speak on the issue, say that in back-channel discussions with allies, the administration has also been quietly broaching the question of whether to withdraw American tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, where they provide more political reassurance than actual defense. Those weapons are now believed to be in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Turkey and the Netherlands.

At the same time, the new document will steer the United States toward more non-nuclear defenses. It relies more heavily on missile defense, much of it arrayed within striking distance of the Persian Gulf, focused on the emerging threat from Iran. Mr. Obama’s recently published Quadrennial Defense Review also includes support for a new class of non-nuclear weapons, called “Prompt Global Strike,” that could be fired from the United States and hit a target anywhere in less than an hour.

The idea, officials say, would be to give the president a non-nuclear option for, say, a large strike on the leadership of Al Qaeda in the mountains of Pakistan, or a pre-emptive attack on an impending missile launch from North Korea. But under Mr. Obama’s strategy, the missiles would be based at new sites around the United States that might even be open to inspection, so that Russia and China would know that a missile launched from those sites was not nuclear — to avoid having them place their own nuclear forces on high alert.

A couple of thoughts:

1. If you thought that Global Zero was a lovely little childish fantasy that would be properly ignored by the adults at the table (as I did), you were right to hope, but wrong to expect. The Administration is looking to codify it in any means possible. The task falls upon the Republican minority in the Senate, led on this front primarily by the inestimable Jon Kyl, to do what they can to stop this insanity.

2. The notion that some sort of equitable trade is being established, here, in terms of modernization for no new nukes is ridiculous. Our forces are effectively being held together by duct tape, gum, and prayers. A few cake parties later, and we won't even have a scientist on the job that knows how to build these things. We need to field a completely new force, including the RNEP. RNEP was effectively dead-on-arrival, yes, but political reality =/= actual reality. When countries like Iran are willing to disperse, bury, and harden their assets ahead of a strike by the US, and the political leadership is willing to pass the buck and try to fall-back on assured destruction in their strategic approach, then it follows that the US should actually be able to target and hold at-risk the assets that these countries value.

3. The President seemingly places little value on the Transatlantic Alliance, the bedrock of Western (and, really, global) security for the past 65 years. Unless this is matched with a complete declaration and verified withdrawal/elimination of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, then the Obama Administration will effectively allow the recusitation of a de facto Soviet sphere of influence. The old captive nations will be held hostage again by a revanchist Russia with no means to check or counter the thousands of nuclear weapons that are still remaining in their stockpile.

Though Moscow may sound sweet and conciliatory, today, what is to stop them from cutting off European gas supplies again? From trying to assassinate foreign political leaders to ensure their desired outcomes in elections? From fomenting separatist movements in neighboring countries, invading them, and effectively annexing their territory? Will they do anything on Iran? On North Korea? Will they change their defense doctrine, which lists NATO expansion as one of the principal threats to Russian security? Really, what material benefit can this "Reset Button" strategy hope to achieve?

To willfully throw Eastern and Central Europe to the wolves again after twenty years of doing everything possible to secure their partnership is nothing less than a complete abdication of American strategic and moral leadership.

4. Seriously, the CTBT? Really, Mr. President, what gave you any indication that the Senate was going to let that one pass?