A strategic review ordered by the White House earlier this year is considering whether to reduce the number of US warheads from today's 7,500 to 2,500, or lower. The study is also weighing whether such reductions should be made unilaterally, outside the framework of arms-control agreements that has shaped the nation's nuclear stockpile for so long. Packaging missile defense with arms cuts might make the former more palatable to Moscow, say Bush officials. The presidential order directing the nuclear review is classified. It's likely, however, that officials are weighing the manner in which targets are selected, plus potential future threats, and comparing that with the number and nature of US atomic bombs and missile warheads.
Officials are tight-lipped about study details.
One of the report's authors, Stephen Hadley, is now deputy national security adviser. Another, Stephen Cambone, has become a special aide to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. US nuclear requirements may, indeed, be met with forces reduced from current levels, concludes the NIPP report. But its primary emphasis is on the need for flexibility. While the US may need fewer warheads today, it would be wrong to lock in those lower levels via arms pacts with the Russians, study authors argue.