U.S. to announce new nuclear weapons strategy

The United States will swear off the development of new generations of nuclear weapons and reduce its reliance on them in a sweeping overhaul of its nuclear strategy due out Tuesday.
The Obama administration's Nuclear Posture Review will alter decades of U.S. policy to provide an incentive for countries to stay within the rules of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, a senior administration official told CNN. The focus of U.S. nuclear policy will be on isolating countries that are flouting their obligations under that pact, the official said.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to announce the new strategy on Tuesday, two days before he plans to sign a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia that reduces both countries' missile stockpiles. The president is expected to be joined by several Cabinet members, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Under the new strategy, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and their use by terrorists becomes the top priority of the U.S. nuclear agenda. And the United States will make "substantial investments" in managing its current weapons rather than build new ones, said the senior administration official, who did not want to go on record ahead of Tuesday's announcement.

"It will also extend the life of warheads currently in the nuclear arsenal," the official said. "This is an alternative to developing new nuclear weapons, which we reject."
That policy is aimed at encouraging further cuts in world stockpiles and stem the proliferation of atomic bombs, the official said.
In 2009, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists estimated the current U.S. nuclear stockpile at 5,200 nuclear bombs, including 2,200 operational, long-range strategic weapons.
Seven other nations -- Britain, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea -- are declared nuclear powers. Israel is widely believed to have developed nuclear weapons, but has never declared that publicly.
Obama has made reducing the global nuclear threat a top priority of his presidency, and will host a summit on reducing the global nuclear threat later this month. The purpose of the new strategy is to prevent nuclear terrorism and proliferation while maintaining an effective nuclear deterrent for the United States and its allies "for as long as nuclear weapons exist," according to the senior administration official.
Continued investment in the nuclear weapons system will enable the simultaneous reduction in overall warheads and increase in strategic effectiveness, the official said.