President Donald Trump signed on Friday a national security memorandum that calls for rebuilding the U.S. military and requires the development of a new Nuclear Posture Review.
The order directs the development of a National Defense Strategy, encompassing a new Nuclear Posture Review “to ensure that the United States nuclear deterrent is modern, robust, flexible, resilient, ready, and appropriately tailored to deter 21st-century threats and reassure our allies.”
The president signed it at the Pentagon following the swearing-in ceremony of new Secretary of Defense James Mattis.
The Nuclear Posture Review establishes the nation’s nuclear policy for five to 10 years. The last review was crafted under former President Barack Obama and highlighted the prevention of nuclear terrorism as a policy goal, as well as the reduction of the number and role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy.
A draft version of Trump’s new presidential memorandum that was circulating last week featured slightly different language, calling for a Nuclear Posture Review to ensure reliability of the “U.S. nuclear triad” – the final version did not explicitly mention the triad, but rather the “nuclear deterrent.”
The order also directs a 30-day military readiness review and the development of a Defense Department budget request for fiscal 2018.
