The long-delayed Nuclear Posture Review Report of earlier this month asserts the Pentagon's plans for "maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent and reinforcing regional security architectures with missile defenses...." [3]
It also confirms that the addition of "non-nuclear systems to U.S. regional deterrence and reassurance goals will be preserved by avoiding limitations on missile defenses and preserving options for using heavy bombers and long-range missile systems in conventional roles."
At an April 6 press conference on the Nuclear Posture Review with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Gates said "we will maintain the nuclear triad of ICBMs [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles], nuclear-capable aircraft and ballistic-missile submarines" and "we will continue to develop and improve non-nuclear capabilities, including regional missile defenses." Mullen spoke of "defend[ing] the vital interests of the United States and those of our partners and allies with a more balanced mix of nuclear and non-nuclear means than we have at our disposal today." [4]
The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report of February 1 stated "The United States will pursue a phased adaptive approach to missile defense" and "develop capabilities that are mobile and relocatable."
Furthermore, "the Administration is committed to implementing the new European Phased Adaptive Approach within a NATO context. In East Asia, the United States is working to improve missile defenses through a series of bilateral relationships. The United States is also pursuing strengthened cooperation with a number of partners in the Middle East." [5]
The Quadrennial Defense Review Report of February spoke of similar plans.
The Review "advances two clear objectives. First, to further rebalance the capabilities of America's Armed Forces to prevail in today's wars, while building the capabilities needed to deal with future threats."
It states "The United States remains the only nation able to project and sustain large-scale operations over extended distances" with "400,000 U.S. military personnel...forward-stationed or rotationally deployed around the world," and which is "enabled by cyber and space capabilities and enhanced by U.S. capabilities to deny adversaries' objectives through ballistic missile defense...."
One of its key goals is to "Expand future long-range strike capabilities" and promote the "rapid growth in sea- and land-based ballistic missile defense capabilities." [6]
The U.S. is also intensifying space and cyber warfare programs with the potential to completely shut down other nations' military surveillance and command, control, communications, computer and intelligence systems, rendering them defenseless on any but the most basic tactical level.
The program under which Washington is developing its conventional weapons capacity to supplement its previous nuclear strategy is called Prompt Global Strike (PGS), alternately referred to as Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS).
Global Security Newswire recently wrote of the proposed START II that "Members of Russia's political elite are worried about what the agreement says or does not say about U.S. ballistic missile defense and 'prompt global strike' systems...." [7]
In fact the successor to START I says nothing about American interceptor missile or first strike conventional attack policies, and as such says everything about them. That is, the new treaty will not limit or affect them in any manner.
After the signing ceremony in Prague on April 8 the U.S. State Department issued a fact sheet on Prompt Global Strike which stated:
"Key Point: The New START Treaty does not contain any constraints on current or planned U.S. conventional prompt global strike capability."
By way of background information and to provide a framework for current U.S. military strategy it added:
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