International Nuclear Watch & Discussion

[NRao]

BBC :: US plans 'dramatic reductions' in nuclear weapons

[Airavat]

Nuclear energy options for Singapore

When a country decides to use nuclear power to generate electricity, drive desalination plants or produce heat for industry, it is ‘a 100-year-long-commitment’, says Mr Yury Sokolov, a senior official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Singapore is one of over 60 countries examining whether, and if so how, to include nuclear power in their energy plans. In Asia, 36 per cent of South Korea’s electricity is nuclear-generated, 25 per cent of Japan’s, and 17 per cent of Taiwan’s. China, India and Pakistan get just 2 per cent of their electricity from nuclear power, though China and India plan to boost those shares in coming decades.

Choosing a safe site for a power reactor in a densely-populated island-state is also a problem. Singapore may have to wait for a new generation of smaller, less expensive and inherently safer technologies to be proven. One option is to consider a research reactor. There are 283 such reactors in 56 countries, including several South-east Asian countries.

[abhishek_sharma]

Top senators weigh in on nuke treaty's chances

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts ... ys_chances

Congress could ratify a new nuclear treaty with Russia this year, although that is going to be no easy task, four leading senators told The Cable in separate, exclusive interviews Tuesday.

The delay in the signing of the treaty, known as "New START," combined with the Russian decision to temporarily get up from the table, has led many on Capitol Hill -- on both sides of the aisle -- to argue that there is just not enough time to go through a lengthy treaty ratification process that Congress hasn't attempted in years. Many are skeptical that leading critics of the process will allow the ratification to go through, even when it reaches the Hill.

...

As for whether there are 67 votes for it in the Senate, Kerry said, "I have no idea."

His counterpart, committee ranking Republican Richard Lugar, R-IN, was actually more optimistic.


...

He said it was not a foregone conclusion that Republican senators like Kyl, John McCain, R-AZ, and Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, would oppose the treaty, despite their written objection to the latest reports that Russia is planning to issue a unilateral statement reserving the right to withdraw from the new treaty if U.S. missile defense plans upset "strategic stability."

McCain told The Cable Wednesday he would be "adamantly opposed to including anything that has to do with missile defense, in anything," even a unilateral statement aside the treaty.

...

"I don't think we have 67 votes today," Casey admitted. But he said vote counting should wait until the administration and the treaty's advocates have a chance to really push the debate.

"I don't underestimate the difficulty of making progress on START," Casey said.

[Omar]

How to Read Brazil's Stance on Iran

There are three major factors behind Brazil's posture on Iran today. First, in the eyes of Brazilians, sanctions may well be a prelude to intervention. Amorim in the past few days has warned that the last time the Security Council voted on the basis of inconclusive evidence, the world ended up with a major illegitimate intervention in Iraq that undermined the principle of collective security.

Second, Brazil believes sanctions will only toughen the Iranian stance. Pressure and isolation, the argument has it, will create a major incentive for Tehran to seek a deterrent. Brazil is well acquainted with the rationale: in the face of U.S. opposition to its own civilian nuclear program back in the 1970s, Brazil set up secret nuclear activities that eventually succeeded in developing indigenous enrichment capacity. It took Brazil over a decade after that to sign up to the Nulcear Nonproliferation Treaty. As a high-ranking official in Brasilia recently said, "When Brazil looks at Iran it doesn't only see Iran, it sees Brazil too."

Third, Brazil sees debates over Iran's nuclear program as an opportunity to make a broader argument about the nonproliferation regime. In Brazilian eyes, the regime has become a politically driven tool in the hands of the United States to selectively "lay down the law" on weaker states. Why, Brazil argues, the fuss over Iran when Israel remains in a state of nuclear denial? And why does a member of the NPT like Iran get punished for allegedly seeking civilian enrichment technology, when India, which has chosen to remain outside the regime and challenge it overtly, gets a big reward from Washington instead? Furthermore, why expect compliance with Western preferences in the NPT if the major nuclear powers have been unable to honor their part of the deal and move decisively toward disarmament?

India's foreign ministry needs to be pro-active about making the differences between India's pursuit of a complete nuclear fuel cycle and Iran well known. (ex. India has not proliferated nuclear technology, India didn't sign the NPT then turn around and seek to develop a complete fuel cycle etc.)

[Amber G.]

From Washington Post:
Obama's Nuclear Posture Review will set tone for U.S. weapons policy
Some excerpts..

President Obama's top national security advisers within days will present him with an agonizing choice on how to guide U.S. nuclear weapons policy for the rest of his presidency.

Does he substantially advance his bold pledge to seek a world free of nuclear weapons by declaring that the "sole purpose" of the U.S. arsenal is to deter other nations from using them? Or does he embrace a more modest option, supported by some senior military officials, that deterrence is the "primary purpose"?

The difference may seem semantic,....
<snip>

[Neshant]

India's foreign ministry needs to be pro-active about making the differences between India's pursuit of a complete nuclear fuel cycle and Iran well known. (ex. India has not proliferated nuclear technology, India didn't sign the NPT then turn around and seek to develop a complete fuel cycle etc.)

its all beside the point.

nothing gives one country the right to have nukes but not others.

the position is unsustainable.

in the end, all countries will have to do away with nukes for any regime to be fair.

[Sanatanan]

The Nuclear Option

The link above talks about China's efforts in indigenisation of its npps. I think it is worth a read. Apparently in China too there are persons who push for importation in preference to self-development in critical areas of technology.

[ramana]

John Clearwater, "Canadian Nuclear Weapons: The Untold Story of Canada's Cold War Arsenal".
Publisher: Dundurn Press | english | ISBN: 1550022997 | edition: 1998 | 400 Pages |

"We are thus not only the first country in the world with the capability to produce nuclear weapons that chose not to do so, we are also the first nuclear armed country to have chosen to divest itself of nuclear weapons."Pierre Trudeau United Nations, 26 May 1978.From 1963 to 1984, US nuclear warheads armed Canadian weapons systems in both Canada and West Germany. It is likely that during the early part of this period, the Canadian military was putting more effort, money, and manpower into the nuclear commitment than any other single activity. This important book is an operational-technical history and expose of this period.Its purpose is to bring together until-recently secret information about the nature of the nuclear arsenal in Canada, and combine it with known information about the systems in the US nuclear arsenal.

[ramana]

No comments on the Canadian pissful stance on NPT, Indian PNE all the while possessing nukes?

[Gerard]

Russia U.S. Arms Deal stalled

A high level Russian government source tells me an nuclear arms agreement to replace the expired START Treaty, (Strategic Reduction Arms Treaty) which was "weeks away" from being finalized in November, and "days away" from a final draft in Dcember, and "close to being finished" in January, is "still not done and not being done for a reason", "stalled", "threatened", and "going sideways" in March.

[Gerard]

S.Korea Builds Experimental Nuclear Reprocessing Plant

[Gerard]

China’s Nuclear Warhead Storage and Handling System
http://project2049.net/documents/chinas ... system.pdf

[Gerard]

France offers to join forces with UK's nuclear submarine fleet

France has offered to create a joint UK-French nuclear deterrent by sharing submarine patrols, the Guardian has learned. Officials from both countries have discussed how a deterrence-sharing scheme might work but Britain has so far opposed the idea on the grounds that such pooling of sovereignty would be politically unacceptable.

[Gerard]

LHC sets new energy record

[Gerard]

Australia OKs Uranium Exports to Russia But Not India

The government, though, has said it wouldl not sell uranium to nuclear-armed India as it has yet to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

"The signal to India ... is that this is the way in which they can be recipients of our supply and it's for India to respond to that," Crean said

[NRao]

Nuclear Arms Treaty Set for April

[Sanatanan]

CANDU Reactor in China first to directly use recovered uranium fuel

[Hiten]

4 of the 10 part series

Nuclear Terrorism

1.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/pu ... detail.asp

2.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/pu ... detail.asp

3.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/pu ... detail.asp

4.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/pu ... detail.asp

[NRao]

4 of the 10 part series

Nuclear Terrorism

1.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/pu ... detail.asp

2.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/pu ... detail.asp

3.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/pu ... detail.asp

4.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/pu ... detail.asp

the title of that series is "Exclusive: Nuclear Terrorism: How Did We Get Here? Where Are We? And Where Can We Go? (Part One of Ten)"

[Hiten]

^^
Not really Sir . Title keeps changing with each part with the only commonality being the Nuclear Terrorism part & the Exclusive tag attached

[Gerard]

US and Russia announce deal to cut nuclear weapons

The treaty limits both sides to 1,550 warheads, about 30% less than currently allowed, the White House said. The deal replaces the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The leaders will sign the pact in Prague on 8 April

The agreement also calls for cutting by about half the missiles and bombers that carry the weapons to their targets. It limits missile delivery vehicles to 800 deployed and non-deployed intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear weapons. The cap on deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine launched missiles is set at 700, the White House said.

[abhishek_sharma]

Nuclear Labs Raise Doubts Over Viability of Arsenals

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/us/27nuke.html

[Gerard]

N.Korea vows nuclear strike against US

"Those who seek to bring down the system in the DPRK ... will fall victim to the unprecedented nuclear strikes of the invincible army," a North Korean General Staff spokesman told the official Korean Central News Agency on Friday.

[Gerard]

Safety Issues Linger as Nuclear Reactors Shrink in Size

[arun]

Pakistan to get two nuclear reactors from China

Has China got IAEA & NSG approval for this ?

It was expected news . Paki will go to any false length to save their H&D.

X Posted. Talk of P.R. China supplying the 3rd and 4th nuclear reactors for the Chasma power plant in defiance of their NSG and IAEA obligations have been around since October 2008.

Wall Street Journal: Pakistan Secures China's Help to Build 2 Nuclear Reactors

CBS News: China To Help Pakistan Build 2 Nuke Plants

Notwithstanding the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s dubious record of fabricating civilian nuclear deals where none exist (Which is not the case in this instance. See paragraph after next.) such as in the case of France, the timing of the resurfacing of the story of P.R. China supplying nuclear power reactors is interesting.

The resurrection of the story within days of the conclusion of the strategic dialogue between the US and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, in which Pakistan asked for an Indo-US like civilian nuclear deal, leaves me with the nagging doubt that the US may have agreed to pacify the Islamic Republic by indicating that it would not obstruct a P.R. China – Pakistan nuclear deal even if it was not in conformity with the NSG and IAEA rules that P.R. China was obliged to follow.

My comment that this was not a case of fabrication by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is based on this May 7, 2009 Press Release by P.R. China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) which is the parent of the Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute (SNERDI):

SNERDI SIGNED ENGINEERING GENERAL CONTRACT FOR CHASHMA III AND IV UNITS TO HELP PAKISTAN BUILD 2 MORE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

On April 28, 2009, Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute (SNERDI), a subsidiary company of the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) signed a General Engineering Contract in Shanghai with China Zhongyuan Engineering Corporation (CZEC) to provide engineering design and technical service for Pakistan Chashma III and IV units. This is the second time SNERDI was chosen to be the general contractor responsible for overall engineering design after its successful completion of Pakistan Chashma unit I and II, which were the largest and the only nuclear export projects in China.

The signing ceremony was chaired by Mr. XU Qian, Vice President of SNERDI with the witness of nearly 30 high level management from relevant parties. Mr. ZHENG Mingguang, President of SNERDI, and Mr. MAO Xiaoming, GM of CZEC gave their greetings and jointly signed the contract.

Chashma Unit 1 and 2 (C1 and C2) were not only considered to be the most successful projects of sincere cooperation between SNERDI and CZEC, but also widely recognized as the typical model of "south-south cooperation" in the peaceful uses of atom energy between two countries. Over the past decade, SNERDI and CZEC have worked together closely and built up a brotherhood friendship with mutual support, exchanging views and open cooperation. For Chashma Unit 3 and 4, both sides are committed to continue this good relationship and make every effort to the successful of the projects as a model for the standardization of nuclear power plants. It is also expected that, through these projects, both sides can make new contributions to build a safe, reliable, economical and clean nuclear power plant in order to promote the China's nuclear industry so as to lead China to a much broader nuclear market.

Chashma NPP III and IV (C3 and C4) is located near Chashma-Jhelum (C-J) Link Canal in the north-western Pakistan province Punjab, district Mianwali. It is about 1,200 km from the first major cities of Pakistan, Karachi. The two units will be of 300 MWe Class in-land NPPs with 340 MWe capacity, the design life will be 40 years.

On March 1, 2009, SNERDI officially launched the design work for C3 and C4. To tie in with the time requirement for the long lead equipment manufacturing, SNERDI decided and has already finished the drawing in advance for the six major equipments out of seven by the end of 2008. ............................

SNPTC

Forget two fingers, P.R.China has given a whole fist to the NSG / IAEA, though possibly minus the US if they have indeed decided to look the other way following the conclusion of the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue.

[Neshant]

Who's to say the nuke bomb material is not coming under the table from China with or without reactors.

[abhishek_sharma]

Obama's atomic agenda is finally looking like more than just fantasy. Now for the hard part.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... ar_options

[Gerard]

Iran Nuclear Scientist Defects to U.S. In CIA 'Intelligence Coup'

[abhishek_sharma]

Obama nuclear policy review expected out next week

http://www.politico.com/blogs/lauraroze ... _week.html

The Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review is expected out early next week, before President Barack Obama heads to Prague to sign the new START treat with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on April 8.

It is likely to be the only nuclear posture review produced by the Obama administration and will be only the third NPR to date, the previous ones issued by the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.

As POLITICO previously reported, non proliferation experts expect that despite Obama's non-proliferation aspirations, the NPR will not make a no-first-use declaration, as some progressives had hoped. Instead, it is likely to assert that the U.S. maintains nuclear weapons in order to deter or respond" to a nuclear attack. The administration also hopes to move to a posture that increasingly relies on non-nuclear deterrent capabilities, including its superior conventional capabilities, non-proliferation experts said.

...

The May NPT Rev-Con will bring to the table all NPT members, including Iran, making a consensus document out of the conference seemingly unlikely. Iran is expected to try to gum up the conference, perhaps with some support from Egypt which some sources expected to make a fuss about non-NPT member Israel's suspected nuclear weapons arsenal.

The U.S. hopes to use the NPT RevCon in May, which lasts for the month, to try strengthen the three pillars of the NPT, including disarmament, safeguards and peaceful nuclear energy. It would also like to get more countries to sign the additional protocol agreement. It would also like to make it harder for a country to exit the NPT, as North Korea unilaterally did.

[abhishek_sharma]

Obama’s nuke deal with Russia: unprecedented but incomplete

http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2 ... incomplete

The discrepancy comes from what each treaty actually limits. The earliest treaties (SALT I and II) limited but did not reduce stockpiles, and established "counting rules" on the basis of how many warheads each system could deliver. The 1992 START Treaty was structured to give the Russians incentives to shift from fast-flying missiles to bombers. In the theology of nuclear deterrence, it is believed that "slow-flying" bombers are more stabilizing because a leader could reconsider the decision after launching, and the target country would have greater warning of an impending attack. So the 1992 Treaty gave generous discounts to bombers, counting the newer B-1 and B-2 bombers as a single weapon although they have the capacity to carry up to 20 warheads. The older B-52s that carry air-launched cruise missiles were counted at half their true capacity, so tallied as 10 warheads each. The Obama administration's new START treaty counts all bombers as a single nuclear weapon, leading the Federation of American Scientists to conclude that 450 U.S. warheads and 860 Russian warheads will be excluded from the count.

...

An agreement that gives us more latitude than its predecessor! Except that there are two significant problems the Treaty doesn't deal with that our approach ought to address:

No. 1: Unlimited short-range nuclear weapons. As Frank Miller, George Robertson and I have written elsewhere, the Obama administration is missing a huge opportunity to engage the Russians in negotiations to reduce short-range nuclear weapons, which are wholly unconstrained. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has unilaterally reduced its nuclear forces by 90 percent, down to about 200 weapons, with no corresponding reductions in the Russian force. The Russians retain 5,400 tactical nuclear weapons. Yet some Obama administration officials have even encouraged the German government's irresponsible proposal for further unilateral NATO reductions (yet one more effort to shift greater burden from Germany onto other allies), without linking those reductions to any action to reduce the far larger Russian force. Some even claim entering into TNF negotiations would make Congress less likely to ratify START. But this is exactly wrong -- as we move down to such low levels of strategic nuclear forces, the 5,400 tactical nuclear weapons in Russia's arsenal loom even larger as a circumvention of the strategic limits. Controlling tactical nuclear weapons would increase confidence in strategic nuclear reductions. The administration could help itself and the NATO alliance, and gain more of the credibility it so deeply desires at NPT conference, by proposing such a negotiation at the Talinn NATO Ministerial this spring.

No. 2: Constraints on conventional strike capability. Counting delivery vehicles rather than warheads themselves is also problematic because it places limits on some bombers and missiles we might use in conventional strikes. DOD's planned expansion of our non-nuclear "strategic" strike force plans to use long-distance precision strike to greater effect. It could be that nuclear-capable bombers are not envisioned to be used in conventional roles; but since the administration's nuclear posture review is not yet completed, it's impossible to tell. The administration needs to clarify its intentions on conventional strike. Constraints on delivery systems should not be allowed to impede U.S. conventional operations -- the canonical example of old weapons used to unexpected purposes being Eisenhower era bombers providing air support to special forces troops operating in small units in Afghanistan. Innovation is a crucial part of what makes the U.S. military so dominant, and it is questionable whether the limits imposed on nuclear forces in START outweigh the possible limits on our freedom of action for conventional strike assets.

The Senate should strongly press the Obama administration on these issues as they determine whether or not to ratify the START treaty.

[Gerard]

A whine in Xinhua
U.S.-Russian nuke deal no cure for real threat

U.S. standards on nuclear proliferation are also inconsistent. It gives tacit approval to Israel's nuclear weapons program, and makes no effort to discourage Japan from stockpiling raw materials that could, in theory, produce thousands of nuclear weapons.
...
Out of political considerations, the U.S. has adopted two completely different standards on the use of nuclear technology by various nations.

[Gerard]

Tuareg Activist Takes on French Nuclear Company

[abhishek_sharma]

All quiet on the nuclear front

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts ... lear_front

Leading Republican critics of the Obama administration are holding their fire ahead of a big week in the world of nuclear weapons, with a series of landmark documents expected to drop in the coming days.

Several government sources said they anticipate the White House will release the unclassified portion of what's called the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) on Tuesday, Apr. 6, just two days before President Obama is set to sign the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia in Prague. The timing of both events is meant to show successes for the president's ambitious nuclear agenda before a 44-nation nuclear security summit convenes in Washington on April 12.

...

[negi]

This is interesting

China to give 82pc: Financing pact for Chashma-3, 4 approved

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has formally approved $1.91 billion inter-governmental framework agreement for financing of Chashma 3 and 4 nuclear power projects with Peoples Republic of China, sources told Dawn on Monday.

The federal cabinet in its last meeting had ratified the agreement under which China would provide 82 per cent of the total $1.91 billion financing to Pakistan for the projects as soft loan for a period of 20 years with eight-year grace period, the sources said.

The Chashma nuclear power project 3 and 4 of 320 MW each are being built by Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and China Zongyuan Engineering Corporation at the existing Chashma site in district Mianwali.

The government of Pakistan would arrange 18 per cent of the total financing of these projects and 82 per cent will be provided by Chinese Eximbank.

The Inter-Governmental Framework Agreement has loaning facility in three phases. The first loan agreement would amount to $104 million with an annual interest rate at one per cent, management fee at 0.2 per cent and commitment fee at 0.2pct.

Baki papers conveniently missed this.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP_Ch ... 03101.html

However, questions remain about China's supply of Chashma 3 and 4. Contracts for units 1 and 2 were signed in 1990 and 2000, before 2004 when China joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which maintains an embargo on sales of nuclear equipment to Pakistan as a country without full-scope safeguards on nuclear technology and materials.

Also afaik the Chasma reactor is essentially the same CNP-300 design operational in Qinshan phase I constructed by Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research & Design Institute (SNERDI) and they source their pressure vessel from Mitsubishi , I don't see this deal going through without Unkil's approval.

May be this was the deal Pakis were yapping about.

[Gerard]

Uranium-mining nations flout U.N. on nuclear terror

[Sanatanan]

From New York Times, April 03, 2010
New York Denies Indian Point a Water Permit

In a major victory for environmental advocates, New York State has ruled that outmoded cooling technology at the Indian Point nuclear power plant kills so many Hudson River fish, and consumes and contaminates so much water, that it violates the federal Clean Water Act.

The decision is a blow to the plant’s owner, the Entergy Corporation, which now faces the prospect of having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build stadium-size cooling towers, or risk that Indian Point’s two operating reactors — which supply 30 percent of the electricity used by New York City and Westchester County — could be forced to shut down.

. . .

From the photo accompanying the article, it appears that one of the two reactors already has a cooling tower - probably it is not meant for the main heat rejection from the turbine cycle, but is for cooling any of the auxiliary cooling water systems of the npp.

"Inland" PHWRs in India have cooling towers.

[negi]

Nothing new apart from agreement with Belarus.

China discusses nuclear with Belarus, Pakistan

Earlier this month China's Vice President, Xi Jinping, met Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk. Belarus has been progressively preparing itself for the use of civil nuclear power over the last few years and Lukashenko took the opportunity to raise the possibility of nuclear cooperation with his Chinese visitor.

Belarus publicised a range of contracts worth some $3.4 billion, as well as a loan for $1 billion and aid from China worth $60 million. Official announcements said that Lukashenko had proposed to cooperate with China in nuclear power, including the construction of a power plant although Chinese official sources did not confirm the conversation. Xi however recalled a 2005 bilateral between the nations that "symbolized a new phase of comprehensive development and strategic cooperation."

[Amber G.]

Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms

For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons, or launched a crippling cyberattack.
... he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

[abhishek_sharma]

Nuclear Posture Review (or Nuclear Public Relations?)

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/201 ... _relations

No matter what the U.S. government says about its nuclear strategy, no potential adversary can confidently assume that the U.S. would stick to its declared policy in the event of a crisis or war. If you were a world leader thinking about launching a major conventional attack on an important U.S. ally or interest, or contemplating the use of chemical or biological weapons in a situation where the United States was involved, would you conclude that it was safe to do so simply because Barack Obama said back in 2010 that the U.S. wasn't going to use nuclear weapons in that situation?

Of course you wouldn't, because there is absolutely nothing to stop the United States from changing its mind. You'd worry that the United States might conclude that the interests at stake were worth issuing a nuclear threat, and maybe even using a nuclear weapon, and that it really didn't matter what anyone had said in a posture review or an interview with a few journalists. And you'd also have to worry that the situation might escalate in unpredictable or unintended ways -- what Thomas Schelling famously termed the "threat that leaves something to chance -- and thereby ruin your whole day.

To the extent that nuclear weapons deter -- and I happen to think they do -- it is the mere fact of their existence and not the specific words we use when we speak about them. In short, nobody can know for certain if, when or how a nuclear state might actually use its arsenal to protect its interests, and that goes for any potential aggressor too. Because the prospect of nuclear use is so awful, no minimally rational aggressor is going to run that risk solely because of some words typed in a posture statement.

...

The real target of this exception is Iran (and conceivably North Korea and Syria). At best, this new statement will have little or no effect, for the reasons noted above (i.e., no one know what we might do in a crisis or war, so pledges of no-first-use are essentially meaningless). At worst, however, excluding Iran in this fashion -- which amounts to saying that Iran is still a nuclear target even when it has no weapons its own -- merely gives them additional incentives to pursue a nuclear weapons option. In particular, declaring that we reserve the right of "first use" against Iran now (when it has no weapons at all), sounds like a good way to convince them that their own deterrent might be a pretty nice thing to have.

Remarkably, U.S. policymakers never seem to realize that the same arguments they use to justify our own nuclear arsenal apply even more powerfully to states whose security is a lot more precarious than America's. If the U.S. government believes that "the fundamental role" of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attacks on the United States, and the United States is now proclaiming that it still reserves the option of using nuclear weapons first against non-nuclear Iran (under some admittedly extreme circumstances), then wouldn't a sensible Iranian leadership conclude that it could use a nuclear arsenal of its own, whose "fundamental role" would be to deter us from doing just that?

[abhishek_sharma]

Press Conference on Nuclear Posture Review

http://hillary.foreignpolicy.com/posts/ ... ure_review