U.S. seeks balance in nuclear missions

[unhappycamper]

U.S. seeks balance in nuclear missions
By Kevin Baron, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, October 25, 2009

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — To hearty applause, four Air Force generals in charge of the United States’ nuclear weapons arsenal proclaimed to a ballroom of their peers last month that their newly reunified command would advocate for a strong and ready stable of nuclear weapons to protect America for decades to come.

One week later, their commander-in-chief took the gavel of a rare summit-level United Nations Security Council meeting and dedicated the gathering to ridding the world of nuclear weapons, a significant step in a highly personal mission that recently helped President Barack Obama win a Nobel Peace Prize.

Now the administration must balance the duality of these two renewed missions: the simultaneous need for the Pentagon to modernize and secure America’s aging nuclear arsenal as the president lays the groundwork to negotiate those nuclear weapons out of existence.

In the next year, the White House will take up several nuclear-related treaties that would ban testing nuclear weapons and further reduce the numbers of warheads in Russia and the U.S., of which there remain thousands.

“Now is the time for fresh views on the role of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said during a speech Wednesday at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “We can’t afford to continue relying on recycled Cold War thinking.”


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=65627