The Transparency Trend: Britain Has 225 Nuclear Warheads

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today, Thursday, May 27, 2010: 

Britain Reveals Nuclear Arsenal: 225 Warheads - The Associated Press 

• Britain disclosed Wednesday that it has a stockpile of 225 nuclear warheads, its first public accounting of its total nuclear arsenal.
• The announcement, made without fanfare in the House of Commons, followed the Obama administration’s recent disclosure that the United States has 5,113 nuclear warheads in its arsenal and “several thousand” more retired warheads awaiting the junk pile — the first public description of the secretive stockpile born in the cold war and now shrinking rapidly.
• “We believe that the time is now right to be more open about the weapons we hold,” Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons. “We judge that this will assist in building a climate of trust between nuclear and nonnuclear weapons states and contribute, therefore, to future efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons worldwide.”

As Ugly As It Gets - Thomas Friedman in The New York TImes [link]

• Had Brazil and Turkey actually persuaded the Iranians to verifiably end their whole suspected nuclear weapons program, America would have endorsed it. But that is not what happened.
• So what this deal really does is what Iran wanted it to do: weaken the global coalition to pressure Iran to open its nuclear facilities to U.N. inspectors, and, as a special bonus, legitimize Ahmadinejad on the anniversary of his crushing the Iranian democracy movement.
• In my view, the “Green Revolution” in Iran is the most important, self-generated, democracy movement to appear in the Middle East in decades. We have spent far too little time and energy nurturing that democratic trend and far too much chasing a nuclear deal.
• I’d prefer that Iran never get a bomb. The world would be much safer without more nukes, especially in the Middle East. But if Iran does go nuclear, it makes a huge difference whether a democratic Iran has its finger on the trigger or this current murderous clerical dictatorship.

Obama's New Security Strategy Breaks With Bush - The Associated Press 

• President Barack Obama is breaking with the go-it-alone Bush years in a new strategy for keeping the nation safe, counting more on U.S. allies to tackle terrorism and other global problems.
• The new strategy breaks with some previous administrations in putting heavy emphasis on the value of global cooperation, developing wider security partnerships and helping other nations provide for their own defense.
• The document isn't an academic exercise: it has far-reaching effects on spending, defense policies and security strategy. For example, President George W. Bush's 2002 strategy document spelled out a doctrine of pre-emptive war.
• Obama's document enshrines principles and policies that he has advocated since his election campaign. The strategy makes it clear the United States intends to maintain the world's most powerful military, with unsurpassed reach and capability.

Lee Backs N-Weapons Test Ban Treaty - The Salt Lake Tribune [link]

• U.S. Senate candidate Mike Lee said Wednesday he would likely vote to ratify an international treaty banning nuclear weapons tests, arguing it would serve the nation's strategic interests and still provide flexibility to protect its security.
• "I don't think we need [nuclear testing] and I think, on the whole, we as Americans would be safer if that treaty were in place," said Lee, who last week said he would be open to the resumption of underground nuclear tests.
• His challenger for the Republican Senate nomination, Tim Bridgewater, said he would not support ratification of the test ban treaty.
• The United States hasn't conducted a nuclear weapons test since 1992, when President George H.W. Bush imposed a moratorium. Fallout from hundreds of detonations at the Nevada Test Site are believed to have killed or sickened thousands of Utahns, including the fathers of both Lee and Bridgewater.

A View from the Dark Side

Are We Serious About Deterrence? - Frank Gaffney in The Washington Times [link]

• The two candidates in the runoff for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat in Utah now occupied by Robert F. Bennett - Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater - have both endorsed the Peace Through Strength Platform, unveiled on these pages two weeks ago.
• This platform includes a commitment to maintain "a safe, reliable, effective nuclear deterrent, which requires its modernization and testing."
• It is precisely because of the indispensable role nuclear testing plays in maintaining a viable nuclear deterrent that those opposed to the United States having such a capability have long sought to ban all nuclear testing.
• There is an urgent need for an informed national debate about the future of the U.S. nuclear deterrent - which even President Obama says we will need for the rest of his lifetime - and the prudence of allowing the continued atrophying of the weapons, delivery systems and industrial base that it comprises.