Obama Must Introduce Bold Nuclear Disarmament Strategy

On March 5, in a statement commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), U.S. President Barack Obama promised to reduce the role and number of American nuclear arms. Today, when the danger of nuclear proliferation is increasing, he remarked that we must transcend the Cold War era way of thinking, in which the world was considered to be based on nuclear threat. He also reminded nuclear nations of their obligation to reduce nuclear weapons, one of the three pillars of the NPT, and proposed a course of ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, previously rejected by George W. Bush. This is definite progress since the Bush administration. One precondition of the NPT is the negative security assurance that nuclear nations, along with nuclear reduction, would not attack non-nuclear nations with nuclear weapons. However, in the case of the Bush administration, not only did it stop at the mere formality of nuclear reduction, it actually proposed a nuclear proliferation theory by adopting a pre-emptive nuclear attack strategy, the so-called “Bush Doctrine.” The doctrine authorized war on nations suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction or that do not even possess such weapons. In correcting the error of the Bush administration, President Obama’s statement is worthy of praise. Although not mentioned in the statement, what can also be considered progress is the Obama administration’s suspension of the development of new bunker busters designed to penetrate hardened targets.

However, the statement still kept the policy of strengthening nuclear capability instead of nuclear disarmament. Furthermore, the rumor is that the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) scheduled for release this month will call for the strengthening of conventional weapons and missile security. If that prediction turns out to be the decision of the Obama administration’s nuclear strategy, it will be a disappointment, especially considering he claimed to the world in Prague that he envisions a world free of nuclear weapons, and it is such determination for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Critics will say that President Obama, like his predecessors who pledged nuclear disarmament but could not fulfill their pledge, is no different.

As long as the U.S. remains mindful of allies who obsess over nuclear umbrellas, a Department of Defense that clings on to nuclear weapons and the military industrial complex that profits through the munitions industry, it will be difficult to reduce the role of nuclear weapons. Not only is it ambiguous, the NPR is not much different from the previous nuclear strategy. We cannot possibly expect effective measures to be taken at the Nuclear Security Summit in April or at the NPT Review Conference in May. In order to send the right message to countries pursuing a nuclear program, President Obama must make bold judgments and a revolutionary departure from past nuclear strategies.