Jeffrey Lewis defuses the recent "threat" by Chinese General Zhu Chenghu to attack the U.S. with nuclear weapons if the U.S. interferes in Taiwan by examining its relevance given China's long-standing committment to "No First-Use."
The new U.S. strategy for combating weapons of mass destruction marks a significant departure from long-standing U.S. policy by publicly advocating a nuclear response in the face of a chemical or biological attack, according to government officials and private analysts.
The United States recently reminded Iraq and other countries that it was prepared to use nuclear weapons if necessary to respond to an attack from weapons of mass destruction.
The author tracks the evolution of U.S. nuclear policy to the current policy of preemption of WMD threats and concludes that U.S. adoption of a "No First Use" policy is highly unlikely for the forseeable future.
President Bush's emerging doctrine advocating pre-emptive military strikes against America's adversaries or terrorists possessing weapons of mass destruction could lead to unintended, and in some cases disastrous, consequences, defense analysts warn.
The Bush administration is developing a new strategic doctrine that moves away from the Cold War pillars of containment and deterrence toward a policy that supports preemptive attacks against terrorists and hostile states with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
The Pentagon's new blueprint on nuclear forces has raised the question whether the Bush administration is lowering the threshold for using nuclear arms.
Defense experts suggest that the new U.S. nuclear doctrine blurs the line between conventional and nuclear weapons by raising the issue of their adaption for use in combat rather than in deterrence as was the case during the Cold War.
Recently leaked information about U.S. nuclear weapons policies indicates the Pentagon might reduce the threshold for using nuclear weapons, according to some analysts.
The U.S. military may be providing President George W. Bush a broader range of options for using nuclear weapons in contingencies around the world, analysts say, even as the Bush administration last week said it is sticking by a long-standing U.S. pledge to not use nuclear weapons on non-nuclear states.