U.S. Nuclear Strategy Goes to Congress

The Bush Administration today sent its nuclear strategy to Congress. It's just three pages.

Writing on his Early Warning blog on the Washington Post, Bill Arkin calls the statement "essentially a justification for the U.S. nuclear arsenal and a new nuclear warhead." He refer, however, to a "glimmer of hope":

The glimmer is in the paper's tone, which is almost pleading. Amid the arguments -- that nuclear weapons have been an essential element of "deterrence" since President Truman, and that the principal U.S. national security goal is deterring "aggression against ourselves, our allies, and friends" -- there is the sense that the U.S. is trying too hard to justify a policy that perhaps it realizes is becoming obsolete.

Well, it could be the administration wanted to keep things short and sweet, but it doesn't look like this will do much to sway congressional critics of the Reliable Replacement Warhead.