April 4, Easter Sunday, marks the start of an era of major nuclear changes. Minor changes are no longer desirable as we have nowhere to retreat on nuclear weapons issues and various nuclear problems.
All these problems are directly linked with Russia, U.S. President Barack Obama, the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the current uncertainty surrounding Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, elements of the U.S. missile defense system in Europe, U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, the future of nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear terrorism and the safety of nuclear materials.
Nuclear discussions will last on an unprecedentedly great scale from April 5 and until late May. However, it is difficult to predict their outcome.
Apart from the signing of the new START agreement by U.S. and Russian Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in Prague, the Czech Republic, all other discussions will be held in the United States. First, the United States will unveil its new nuclear strategy. On April 12-13, Washington will host a two-day nuclear security summit. On May 3-28, 2010, the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), organized every ten years, will take place in New York.
The 44th U.S. President, the only person capable of overhauling the crisis-ridden U.S. nuclear infrastructure, is expected to become the main newsmaker. The success or failure of these events will depend on the way he manages to accomplish this objective.
On April 5-6, the U.S. administration will be expected to finally unveil a new version of Obama's nuclear doctrine. Since 1993, all U.S. Presidents must draft a brief declassified version of the Nuclear Posture Review every eight years and submit the document to the Congress. During the Clinton and Bush presidencies, assessments were made in 1994 and 2002, respectively. Obama will have to do the same before flying over to Prague for negotiations with Medvedev.
In effect, the Nuclear Posture Review will provide an insight into the White House administration's nuclear strategy, including the size of operational nuclear arsenals, their designation and a list of theoretical enemies, the relevant weapons-use status, as well as a multitude of extremely complicated strategic and technical details.
The Obama administration was to have published the document in December 2009. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates submitted the draft document to the White House in May 2009. The presentation was delayed several times, and the ultimate deadline was set for late March.
These delays imply that the Pentagon, which usually opposes various innovations, and the White House administration have conducted extremely heated debates of the new nuclear doctrine.
The Department of Defense allegedly insisted on preserving the status quo and said nuclear warheads should be reduced by natural attrition, specifically at the end of their service life.
The Obama administration wanted to go further, to renounce the first use of nuclear weapons, to drastically cut warhead ceilings, to stop developing new nuclear warheads and to upgrade available warheads.
The relevant weapons-use status will become the main criterion for telling who has gained the upper hand in the debates. To what extent has Obama managed to reduce the parameters of a hypothetical U.S. nuclear strike?
In effect, the Bush administration stipulated a pre-emptive nuclear strike against non-nuclear states if Washington decided that they would inevitably use chemical or bacteriological weapons against the U.S.
As a rule, analysts closely study the wording and terminological nuances of such doctrines. U.S. arms control and disarmament experts are waiting for Obama to set out his position on the nuclear arsenal's designation.
It will be a great step forward if the doctrine pledges that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. If the doctrine prioritizes nuclear deterrence, then this would mean that the Pentagon has won and facilitated legally vague nuclear strike substantiations stipulating a few more reasons to use nuclear warheads.
Analysts say Obama's new doctrine has renounced the intention of the Bush administration to develop new low-yield warheads and will opt for the Prompt Global Strike plan instead. The plan calls for launching high-explosive conventional warheads from U.S. territory against terrorist bases in any part of the world.
Such strikes involving strategic delivery vehicles could be launched against Al Qaeda or even North Korea or Iran if they develop functional nuclear weapons. This is obviously to be done by strategic delivery vehicles. Washington is allegedly ready to allow Moscow to conduct regular inspections of such launchers, due to be deployed separately of operational nuclear warhead launchers along the U.S. perimeter.
Until now, Moscow has insisted that strategic delivery vehicles should not be re-equipped with conventional warheads which are extremely difficult to distinguish from nuclear warheads. Medvedev may have agreed to inspections as a compromise solution pending the signing of the new START document.
Obama has invited 44 participants for the April 12-13 nuclear security summit in Washington. Technically speaking, all these countries either have nuclear weapons or nuclear power plants and other related facilities or want to expand their nuclear power industry.
Russia, an active participant in the upcoming summit, has helped the U.S. to draft the agenda, materials for discussion, as well as documents and commitments, due to be passed at the summit.
The Washington summit will discuss the safety of nuclear and fissionable materials, as well as counter-terrorist measures.
The U.S. administration expects the summit to become a "grand prelude" for sanctions against Iran. Obama hopes to convince many national leaders, including the Presidents of Russia and China, who have agreed to come to Washington, to support the White House stance on sanctions.
Iran, which expects possible repercussions, plans to host a nuclear disarmament conference under the motto "Nuclear Energy For All, Nuclear Weapons For No One" in Tehran on April 17. But the list of conference delegates has not been published to date.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin).
