U.S. Acts on Nuclear Grand Strategy

President Obama has completed a remarkable foreign policy trifecta. First he redefined the U.S. nuclear strategy governing when the U.S. would use nuclear weapons, then he signed a new arms control treaty with Russia aimed at reducing nuclear weapons, and then this week he hosted a large gathering of countries in Washington who pledged to control nuclear materials and reduce the threat posted by loose nukes. It’s clear that President Obama formulated and has now implemented a nuclear “grand strategy” that has shown more progress in a few short days than several of his predecessors accomplished in all their years in office. The nuclear security summit that concluded today has been called a working success, working in that it will take many years (and lots of money) to follow up on all the actions that were pledged. Assessing the close of the summit, The New York Times concluded:

At the end of two days of meetings, Mr. Obama could claim two major accomplishments: The summit meeting forced countries that had failed to clean up their nuclear surpluses to formulate detailed plans to deal with them, and it kicked into action nations that had failed to move on previous commitments. A second summit meeting will be held in two years in South Korea, Mr. Obama said, to make sure countries are on track.

When they convene that follow-up conference in two years, I’m certain they will pay special attention to Pakistan, as this analysis from Brookings scholar Bruce Riedel makes clear, Pakistan remains one of the most problematic cases among those nations willing to control their nuclear materials. Dealing with willing countries is the easy part though, it remains to be seen if this summit and the other recent nuclear policy efforts have generated sufficient momentum to make progress with those famously unwilling rogue state of North Korea and Iran.

Finally, for a video overview of the nuclear security summit and related issues, see this MSNBC report:



Image Credit: BBC News-AP