Nuclear Posture Review to be Released in March 2010

Former Defense Secretary William Perry said that “North Korea has gone nuclear and Iran is following close in its footsteps. If those countries develop their own arsenals I believe we will cross over a nuclear tipping point, greatly increasing the danger of a nuclear catastrophe in the world.” This statement is in light of the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review that will be released in March 2010.

The Pentagon-led Nuclear Posture Review is to establish policies for the U.S. nuclear deterrent over the next five to 10 years.

The highly anticipated review should also “endorse unambiguously” the sweeping nonproliferation goals U.S. President Barack Obama laid out in his 2009 speech in Prague and be “explicit about concrete steps” toward achieving those milestones, Perry said Friday during the U.S. rollout of the report from the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament.

The administration of Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush defined U.S. nuclear doctrine as reserving the right to respond by any means, including nuclear strike, to attacks made against the country.

The study includes 76 policy recommendations for world leaders to follow as they work toward a world free of nuclear weapons. It was issued last month in hopes of helping to guide deliberations at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference, scheduled for May in New York.

The document suggests a worldwide nuclear arms rollback to 2,000 weapons, or about 10 percent of today’s stockpile, by 2025.

It urges countries with nuclear weapons to refine their nuclear doctrines to limit the role of nuclear weapons and provide assurances that they would not consider a nuclear strike against any nation that does not possess such weapons.

The United States should “at the very least accept the principle that the ‘sole purpose’ of possessing nuclear weapons is to deter others from using such weapons” against it and its allies, the study states.

Embracing that position would “be a significant contribution” to reducing the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy and place “very strong pressure on the other nuclear-armed states to change their own position in a more forthcoming way,” according to the report.

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