NUCLEAR POLICY REVIEW

The Nuclear Policy Review Project is directed by Morton H. Halperin, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former Defense Department and National Security Council official. The Council on Foreign Relations takes no institutional position on the issue.

The core recommendation of this project is that the government, led by the White House, needs to conduct a fundamental review of U.S. nuclear policy that reconsiders the conclusions of the Defense Department's 1993 Nuclear Posture Review. Resolving that the current nuclear posture was optimal for the post Cold War period, that review determined that the United States could not meet its security requirements with deep reductions in nuclear forces and that further progress in Great Power nuclear disarmament was not necessary, and might even be counterproductive, to nonproliferation. As a result, only modest changes were made in U.S. nuclear policy.

In order to achieve its objective of persuading the Clinton administration to conduct such a review, the project has produced three documents, which are attached. These documents consist of

1. a one page memorandum summarizing the basic argument of the project;
2. a memorandum laying out the argument in more detail and describing why the study is needed, how it should be conducted, and what issues it needs to address; and
3. the proposed terms of reference for the study.

These documents may be sent to others via email or in hard copy, provided the explanatory text is attached. Dr. Halperin can be contacted at mhalperin@igc.org.