US Seeks New Nukes for New Kinds of Nuclear War

Pentagon Draft Reveals Push for 'Low-Yield' Nukes

New details continue to emerge on the Pentagon draft proposal on changes to American nuclear policy. This policy would see a focus on acquiring new types of nuclear weapons, with an eye toward more usable ones for limited nuclear wars.

This is something some in the US military brass have been pushing for years, with an eye toward the acquisition of “low-yield” nuclear weapons that officials could readily use in situations where they would currently be unthinkable.

This is now said to include not just the acquisition of these new nuclear arms for more limited and frequent nuclear wars, but also revisions of nuclear policy that would dramatically relax restrictions on such strikes.

With the US spending preposterously large amounts of money on nuclear arms, some bureaucrats are galled at the fact that they get essentially no use out of them. In making smaller, more easily used nuclear arms, however, the US may ultimately end up normalizing nuclear wars, something that would have huge implications.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.