George W. Bush's mid-February directive ordering the Pentagon to review and restructure the US nuclear arsenal is a wake-up call for supporters of arms control and disarmament. Under the guise of revising nuclear policy to make it more relevant to the post-cold war world, the Bush Administration is pushing an ambitious scheme to deploy a massive missile defense system and develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. If fully implemented, Bush's aggressive new policy could provoke a multisided nuclear arms race that will make the US-Soviet competition of the cold war era look tame by comparison.

To understand the danger of Bush's emerging nuclear doctrine, you have to read the fine print. Some elements of his approach--first outlined at a May 23, 2000, speech at the National Press Club--sound sensible. Bush implied that if elected President, he would reduce the nation's arsenal of nuclear overkill from its current level of 7,500 strategic warheads to 2,500 or less. In tandem with these reductions, which go beyond anything the Clinton Administration contemplated, Bush also promised to take as many nuclear weapons as possible off hairtrigger alert status, thereby reducing the danger of an accidental launch.

So far, so good: fewer nuclear weapons, with fewer on high-alert status, would be a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, Bush also committed himself to deploying, "at the earliest possible date," a missile defense system capable of defending "all fifty states and our friends and allies and deployed forces overseas." Unlike the $60 billion Clinton/Gore National Missile Defense scheme, which involved land-based interceptors based in Alaska and North Dakota, Bush's enthusiasm for a new Star Wars system knows no limit. The President and his Star Warrior in Chief, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, are willing to put missile interceptors on land, at sea, on airplanes and in outer space in pursuit of continued US military dominance.

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