New report calls for fundamental changes to US nuclear war planning

Washington, April 9 (ANI): The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have released a report calling for fundamental changes to US nuclear war planning, a vital prerequisite if smaller nuclear arsenals are to be achieved.

Titled "From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence - A New Nuclear Policy on the Path Toward Eliminating Nuclear Weapons", the report calls to abandon the almost five-decade-long central mission for US nuclear forces, which has been and continues to be "counterforce," the capability for US forces to destroy an enemy's military forces, its weapons, its command and control facilities and its key leaders.

"The current rationale for maintaining an arsenal of nuclear weapons no longer exists," said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program at FAS and one of the report authors.

"And to get future reductions in the number of weapons, we have to eliminate the missions they are assigned," he added.

The nuclear mission flows from directives and guidance given by the president, through the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Strategic Command where it is implemented into elaborate war plans.

The report calls for eliminating all but one mission for nuclear forces.

"President Obama has already taken the first step by stating America's commitment to a world without nuclear weapons," said Robert S. Norris, senior research associate with the Natural Resources Defense Council and report co-author.

"We present the radical changes needed in US policies to make disarmament a reality," he added.

That sole mission is deterrence, narrowly defined, to mean the certain capability to retaliate if any nation was unwise enough to use nuclear weapons against the United States or certain allies.

According to Hans Kristensen, director of the FAS Nuclear Information Project and report co-author, "Under minimal deterrence, all requirements for war planners to achieve an advantage in a nuclear exchange or limit damage to ourselves will disappear, leaving only in place the most basic mission of a sure retaliatory response." (ANI)