Nukes -- what are they good for?

In trying to convince other countries to take tougher control of fissile materials and pour more resources into security measures, the United States will try to present itself as a leader.

The Obama administration is on the verge of signing a new arms reduction treaty with Russia and the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is near completion. Both will lend credibility to Obama's ambitious nuclear agenda.

The NPR, which is published at the beginning of every administration, declares the roles and missions for U.S. nuclear forces and the associated production, maintenance infrastructure.

Most experts are confident that the paper will reverse several of former President George W. Bush's initiatives, like producing high- or low-yield atomic weapons. This would go a long way in assuring non-nuclear weapons states that the United States, although far from ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, would not be pursing qualitative improvements of its atomic warhead stock.

"I don't think we will get everything we want out of the NPR but certainly we'll walk back from the previous administration's attempt to produce new low-yield nuclear weapons and to produce a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator," said Gard, referring to a nuclear weapon that burrows into the ground before exploding.

Time will only tell how far the NPR goes in deemphasizing the role of atomic weapons in U.S. national security, but Collina doubted that the policy paper would explicitly rule out using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states, a stance that would have put the United States in a better position to convince other nations to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) at May's review conference.

"I don't think we're going to get that," he said. "We're going to see something less that leaves open the option of using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states."

The difference between declaring that deterrence is the "sole" purpose of nuclear weapons and their "primary" purpose will have far-reaching implications for how the United States will be greeted at major events like the security summit, the NPT review conference and beyond.

"If we as the world's remaining superpower with our conventional superiority find it necessary to make use of nuclear weapons in our strategy, what does that tell the other nations?" asked Gard.

"It tells them that even the most powerful country in the world has to have nuclear weapons integrated into its strategy and that might let them know that it would be useful for them to develop them as well."