The Obama administration is adopting a new policy limiting the circumstances under which the U.S. would use nuclear weapons, keeping with the president's pledge to give the nuclear arsenal a less prominent role in U.S. defense strategy.
The document is expected to say the U.S. is moving toward a policy in which the "sole purpose" of nuclear weapons is to deter or respond to nuclear attack, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the policy review has not been released.
That wording would rule out the use of such weapons to respond to an attack by conventional, biological or chemical weapons. Previous U.S. policy was more ambiguous.
In an interview with the New York Times on Monday, Obama said his administration was 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.
Fine. But why in hell would you announce it? An effective deterent policy is intentionally ambiguous.
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