Senior policy analyst Sara Z. Kutchesfahani wrote an op-ed in The Hill, discussing priorities for the forthcoming nuclear posture review.
“President Trump’s NPR, in his words, will “ensure that the U.S. nuclear deterrent is modern, robust, flexible, resilient, ready, and appropriately tailored to deter 21st Century threats and reassure our allies.” Overall, we should expect to see a reversion to the 2001 NPR and a re-emphasis on the role of nuclear weapons within U.S. security strategy. Iran, North Korea and Russia are likely to be singled out as key nuclear threats. None of that would be surprising. What would be surprising — and dangerous — would be an abandonment of the 2010 NPR nuclear security goals.
Primary among those goals is the prevention of nuclear terrorism — an ever-present danger confronting the United States. Nuclear, fissile and radioactive materials — ingredients for a nuclear weapon, crude weapon or dirty bomb — are quite literally all around us. They are stored in thousands of universities, hospitals and laboratories across the world because of their applications in medicine and research. Preventing these materials from ending up in the wrong hands keeps the world safe from a nuclear attack.”
