"We have more robust deterrents today, because we've added to the nuclear
deterrent missile defense. And - and with the phased adaptive approach
that the president has approved, we will have significantly greater
capability to deter the Iranians, because we will have a significantly
greater missile defense.
"We're also developing this conventional prompt global strike, which
really hadn't gone anywhere in the - in the Bush administration, but
has been embraced by the new administration. That allows us to use long
range missiles with conventional warheads. So we have - we have more
tools if you will in the deterrents kit bag than - than we used to." [4]
In her "Face the Nation" appearance Clinton said "we leave ourselves a lot of room for contingencies" and Gates stated that if other countries don't, in Washington's estimate, adhere to the stipulations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) then "all bets are off." Both addressed Iran and North Korea, the remaining two-thirds of George W. Bush's "axis of evil," as the main targets of their attention.
So much for the new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) reversing the U.S. doctrine of "reserving the right" (see below) to wage nuclear attacks, even so-called preemptive nuclear attacks, against non-nuclear nations. The other key point is Clinton's use of the phrase "our partners and allies," which is an expression that is repeated like a red thread throughout the Nuclear Posture Review and the new Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
The NPR includes the contention that "In pursuit of their nuclear ambitions, North Korea and Iran have violated non-proliferation obligations" - and as such are not excluded from nuclear strikes - and "as long as nuclear weapons exist, the United States will sustain safe, secure, and effective nuclear forces. These nuclear forces will continue to play an essential role in deterring potential adversaries and reassuring allies and partners around the world." [5]
The U.S. "will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states" only if the latter "are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations."
"The United States is...not prepared at the present time to adopt a universal policy that deterring nuclear attack is the sole purpose of nuclear weapons," and "reserves the right to make any adjustment in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and U.S. capacities to counter that threat."
Just as the U.S. will decide itself which countries are and are not in compliance with the NPT (whatever the International Atomic Energy Agency says on the matter) and which that are not will be subjected to sanctions and even direct military attacks, so it "reserves the right" to use nuclear weapons, including in advance of an attack, against any state that is accused of developing biological weapons or harboring non-state actors that are doing so. Precisely the language of President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after September 11, 2001.
With the unspoken assumptions added in parentheses, the NPR statement on biological weapons reads: The United States reserves the (exclusive, arbitrary, unilateral) right to make any adjustment in the (non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states) assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the (real or hypothetical or contrived) biological weapons threat and U.S. capacities to counter that threat (as was done with Iraq in 2003).
To demonstrate that Iran and North Korea are not the only countries that the NPR is developing contingency plans against, it also mentions that "Russia remains America's only peer in the area of nuclear weapons capabilities," and "the United States and China's Asian neighbors remain concerned about China's current military modernization efforts, including its qualitative and quantitative modernization of its nuclear arsenal."
Though its main emphasis remains the one that served as the pretext for the war against Iraq seven years ago: "In coming years, we must give top priority to discouraging additional countries from acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities and stopping terrorist groups from acquiring nuclear bombs or the materials to build them." The occupant of the Oval Office and the name of his worldwide military campaign - transformed from the global war on terror to overseas contingency operations - may have changed, but nothing else has except the public inclusion of a nuclear component to the strategy. The next Niger "yellow cake" fabrication may lead to a far more catastrophic conflagration.
Hillary Clinton reinforced the point on April 11: "We fear North Korea and Iran, because their behavior as - the first case, North Korea being - already having nuclear weapons, and Iran seeking them - is that they are unpredictable. They have an attitude toward countries like Israel, like their other neighbors in the Gulf that makes them a danger." [6]
Gates added on "Face the Nation": "Because North Korea and Iran are not in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty....All options are on the table." [7]
On April 12 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that an attack on Iran would be "the worst possible scenario," and "if conflict of that kind happens, and a strike is performed, then you can expect anything, including use of nuclear weapons. And nuclear strikes in the Middle East, this means a global catastrophe. Many deaths." [8]
On the same day the chief of the Russian General Staff Nikolai Makarov said that air strikes against Iran by the U.S. and Israel would be "unacceptable," and that "This is a last resort that exists in the plans of both the United States and Israel." [9]
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