Obama's Golden Nuclear Option

Sometime this month, after receiving a year's worth of research and analysis from the Pentagon and his national security advisers, President Obama will get to decide for the first time in his term what the United States' nuclear war strategy should look like. Every four years, the strategy comes up for review and revision; Obama could determine its scope, where it's aimed, and whether the US could use nukes for a first strike.

In light of the deficit cold war gripping Washington and the post-Iraq move toward a more conventional military strategy, Obama has an unprecedented opportunity to reduce the world's danger of nuclear attack, security expert Joseph Cirincione wrote in Foreign Affairs on Thursday. (Full disclosure: Cirincione is president of the anti-proliferation Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation which has provided funding to Mother Jones.)

Since early in his presidency, Obama has insisted that the US should work to reduce and eventually...

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