ANOTHER DISGRACE, ABSOLUTELY – AT 10:44 A.M. ET:  While the world gets more threatening, and Iran prepares to go nuclear, our president insists on a 1960s-style, leftist approach to our own nuclear weapons, putting him in a direct confrontation with the nation's military leaders and his own secretary of defense.  From The Politico:

President Barack Obama has been clear. He wants no new nukes.

Pentagon chief Robert Gates has been equally direct, advocating in recent years for a new generation of warheads.

And nearly 14 months into their bipartisan-tinged partnership, Obama and Gates haven’t publicly reconciled their views. Some anti-nuclear activists suspect the pair still don’t see completely eye-to-eye and that Gates has never fully abandoned his goal of refurbishing the American nuclear arsenal with new weapons.

Now, the administration is on the verge of releasing a major nuclear policy review that could call attention to this disagreement between the Democratic president and his holdover Defense Secretary – just in time for a nuclear safety summit Obama is hosting for heads of state next month in Washington.

“Quite clearly,” said Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, “the secretary has been stating he sees a need for replacement warheads and new designs, and I’m not sure those are the words the president would want to use at this stage in the process.”

The Obama administration is acutely aware of perceptions that the Nuclear Posture Review has divided senior officials—with Vice President Joe Biden viewed as heading up an arms-control focused camp, and Gates perceived as speaking for a military and nuclear establishment that favors more funding and new weapons programs.

COMMENT:  The mainstream media isn't much interested in this story, reflecting its ideological biases.  But it's one of the most important stories of our day.  The United States is the only nuclear power not to fully upgrade its nuclear weapons.  We need a new generation of warheads – reliable and modern – and utterly convincing in its deterrent effect.  But the left wing of the Democratic Party is adamantly against this, and that's where Obama resides. 

The president has approved some upgrading of our nuclear weapons, but the military feels it needs a new generation.  The military is right.  We risk an enormous amount if enemies have any question about the reliability of our deterrent arsenal.

March 6, 2010