MOSCOW/WASHINGTON. March 5 (Interfax) - The United States may replace its tactical nuclear weapons in Europe with planned non-nuclear missiles that would be deployed on U.S. soil but take less than an hour to reach any spot on the globe, Kommersant said on Thursday, citing American sources.
This may follow a review of the American nuclear potential that the U.S. administration is preparing, the Washington correspondent for the Kommersant newspaper said.
The U.S. has tactical nuclear weapons deployed at American military bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, and the Netherlands, Kommersant said. The daily newspaper cited U.S. administration officials as saying these weapons serve a political rather than military purpose.
Kommersant, which said a review would be published at the beginning of April at the earliest, cited experts as saying the U.S. is ready to officially abandon designing new types of nuclear weapons this year.
The newspaper deduced from all this that the White House is going to opt for non-nuclear weapons. The paper said last month's Quadrennial Defense Review, a review of Defense Department strategy and priorities, announced a plan to develop a new class of non-nuclear missiles that would take less than an hour to reach any spot on the globe.
Kommersant said, citing American sources, that missiles of this class, called Prompt Global Strike, are planned to be deployed in the U.S. and that their launch pads might be open for international, including Russian, inspectors to make sure the rockets carry no nuclear warheads.
Weapons of this type would be capable of massive strikes against Al Qaeda positions in Afghanistan or preventing North Korea from firing a missile.
Supporters of Prompt Global Strike are sure the proposed missiles would be as effective as tactical nuclear weapons but could rule out a full-scale nuclear war, Kommersant said.