Further evidence that the military-industrial complex is intent on making its own policy even against the President emerges in a report yesterday from Politico on the development of the Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). According to Politico, President Joe Biden directed the Pentagon to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy, and to include consideration of a no-first-use policy and a declaratory statement that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear conflict and to respond to a nuclear attack on the U.S. Biden is on record from his time as Vice President as supporting the reduction of the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy.
Even though the directive comes from the White House and the process includes other agencies, among them the National Security Council, the process is being dominated by the Pentagon, say insider sources. The NPR that’s to be delivered to the White House at the end of the process is unlikely to include no-first-use or sole-purpose statements since the Pentagon is in full control of the options being developed, sources say. The team writing the NPR is even said to include some who helped write the Trump NPR, which advocated a much more aggressive nuclear posture than the Obama Administration’s 2010 NPR.
The pushback not only comes from inside the Pentagon but also from members of Congress in both parties and U.S. allies, all of whom wave the bloody shirt of Russia and China to justify why the U.S. must maintain its confrontational policy towards those two countries and continue the modernization of its nuclear arsenal.
