Global Security Newswire

The United States is expected make efforts to stop terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons a core tenet of its revised nuclear policy, the New York Times reported Saturday (see GSN, Oct. 26).

The congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review would require a comprehensive effort by the government to combat nuclear terrorism regardless of whether the extremists are armed with crude weapons, warheads acquired through theft or armaments illicitly obtained from a rogue nation. This effort would be given the same status as ongoing efforts to discourage a nuclear attack from existing and developing nuclear-armed states.

The review is expected to be finished next year and would impact development, fielding and diplomacy of nuclear weapons. The elevated status of efforts against nuclear terrorism could boost funding for undercover operatives, monitoring aircraft and spy satellites while leaving less money for updating the nation's nuclear triad of bombers, submarines and land-based missiles.

"The first -- and in many ways the most urgent for where we are today -- is the threat posed by nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism," said a high-level Defense Department official.

There is great concern over "the possible transfer of nuclear weapons or materials to a terrorist or substate actor," said the official.

The nuclear review is expected to urge more intensive intelligence collection on the illicit transfer of nuclear materials and technology and on predicting future terrorist strikes. It is also thought that U.S. nuclear laboratories will be encouraged to boost their nuclear forensic capabilities so that the originating nation of any nuclear material passed along to terrorist organizations can be identified.

The nuclear posture is predicted to call for augmented deterrence for the United States and "extended deterrence" for its allied nations while also decreasing in the future the number of nuclear arms.

However, until all nuclear weapons are gone the country should continue to have a secure and effective nuclear deterrent, the review is expected to recommend.

Military and Pentagon officials said that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen have given their approval to the reduced nuclear arsenal numbers that the review is expected to promote.

For the foreseeable future, there are expected to be enough nuclear weapons to equip each arm of the country's nuclear triad (see GSN, Dec. 16).

Still unsettled is whether Washington should declare a no-first-use policy for its nuclear arms and how the country's nuclear arsenal should be brought up-to-date and maintained.

"There is no urgent problem that we need to address in terms of our arsenal or stockpile or maintaining them that requires immediate decisions," said Stephen Young, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists (Shanker/Schmitt, New York Times, Dec. 19).