I suspect he knows what he is talking about

It was just a four line brief bio introducing the author of the article, "Nuclear Insecurity" in Foreign Affairs: Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky is a particle physicist...worked on the Manhattan Project....served as Science Policy Adviser to Presidents. The four lines don't really give a clue as to what Panofsky has accomplished in his career. If you follow the previous link, you have to agree that we should listen to him when he talks about nuclear weapons. His basic message is that our current policy vis-a-vis nuclear weapons focuses on chimeras and rather than protect this country makes it less secure. Here are some excerpts.

The problem is that this capabilities-based approach destroys a rational response to emerging threats. Rather than encouraging decision-makers to interpret the political context, judiciously measure the capability and intent of an adversary, and do what is necessary, it encourages them to respond to threats simply based on what they can do.

The administration's current policy provides little clear guidance on the deployment and readiness of nuclear forces; if pressed on these questions, officials generally say only that "all options are on the table." Even after the recent Bush-Putin talks in Kennebunkport, Maine, queries regarding future nuclear force levels have been answered with vague references to "the minimum level consistent with national security." Worse still, the notion that the Bush administration's broader defense strategy, which is known in shorthand as "assure, dissuade, deter, defeat," can be applied to nuclear policy is misguided and dangerous.

Instead, it would make more sense to adopt the narrowest interpretation of assurance, stating clearly that a U.S. nuclear response would only follow a nuclear attack on the United States or its allies.

The United States' large nuclear arsenal does nothing to dissuade minor states from acquiring nuclear weapons; on the contrary, it only adds to their incentives to do so. Nuclear weapons have become the great equalizer: once a state acquires, or appears to have acquired, a small number of deliverable nuclear weapons, it can deter attacks itself and thus gains a substantial degree of political clout. Large U.S. military deployments, particularly of nuclear forces, thus do not dissuade potential adversaries from a military buildup -- they help persuade them to acquire nuclear weapons of their own.

Under the new threat environment, the same deterrent effect as before can be achieved with much smaller nuclear arsenals. Consequently, MAD does not have to be the necessary implication of a prudent deterrence policy in today's world.

A dramatically reduced U.S. arsenal would still provide more than enough weapons to deter such a threat. Small and elusive nonstate actors, such as terrorist groups, meanwhile, having no fixed or independent home address, are not subject to the logic of nuclear deterrence. Whatever one thinks of the "war on terror," it would be hard to maintain that nuclear weapons should play any significant part in it.

The defeat concept, finally, implies that nuclear weapons remain a usable military tool for the United States in actual warfare. But beyond deterrence, these weapons serve no useful mission in this day and age. As President Ronald Reagan declared in 1985, "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."

At the same time that the Bush administration has pursued such misguided nuclear doctrines, it has allowed international nonproliferation efforts to wither.

The existing nuclear weapons states, in general, and the United States, in particular, bear a substantial share of the responsibility for these disquieting developments. Washington has consistently disregarded its obligations under the NPT to minimize the role of nuclear weapons in international relations and to work in good faith toward their eventual elimination. The United States' effort to build and deploy a new, modernized arsenal -- exemplified by the Bush administration's proposal for a Reliable Replacement Warhead program, which would create a new generation of nuclear weapons deemed safer than their Cold War predecessors -- is the most recent example of such disregard. Rather than seizing the opportunity to limit the role of nuclear weapons, the current administration is searching for new nuclear missions with narrow military goals.

For instance, the United States condemns Iran's fledgling uranium-enrichment activities while condoning very similar activities by Brazil.

Guaranteeing a supply of nuclear fuel to non-nuclear-weapons states would reduce this risk. Access to an assured supply of fuel for peaceful nuclear power initiatives would remove any justifiable motive for states to acquire indigenous enrichment and reprocessing facilities. But providing such a fuel supply while inhibiting countries from developing dual-use elements of the nuclear fuel cycle would require international or multinational ownership of nuclear fuel stockpiles with strong safeguards against diversion to rogue states or terrorist groups. The indigenous production of all forms of plutonium and highly enriched uranium would have to be suspended pending the establishment of such a regime. Only a broad international approach that does not discriminate between "good states" and "bad states" can secure each state's "inalienable right" to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes without increasing the risk of proliferation.

Therefore, interdiction efforts must rely instead on high-quality intelligence and rigorous physical searches at borders and cargo terminals.

Finally, all parties to the NPT should be required to subscribe to the International Atomic Energy Agency's Additional Protocol, which allows the agency to conduct more comprehensive and frequent inspections of declared and undeclared nuclear facilities than provided for under the current minimum protocols. At the same time, states that opt to withdraw from the NPT should be deemed a threat to international peace and security and referred to the UN Security Council, which could then take action against them.

Policymakers crafting a new nuclear posture need to start their deliberations by considering the extremely limited number of justifiable uses for nuclear weapons today and the grave risks and costs generated by the maintenance and improvement of vast nuclear arsenals. If they do so, they will conclude that the United States can reduce its nuclear stockpile substantially while still maintaining a strong enough deterrent to prevent the use of nuclear weapons against the United States or its allies.

In the meantime, Washington should withdraw all U.S. nuclear forces from Europe and de-alert its deployed strategic nuclear forces, thus sending an unequivocal signal to Moscow that it is serious about nuclear disarmament.

Similarly, Washington would send an important message by adhering to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Washington's insistence on maintaining its prerogative to test new weapons and its refusal to ratify the CTBT have been major obstacles to the treaty's coming into force and a continued blow to the world's nuclear nonproliferation efforts. The purely technical leverage of the CTBT is limited: modern technology allows states to develop and deploy safer and more reliable nuclear weapons without testing them in advance. But stopping nuclear tests, which the CTBT mandates, would make it harder to upgrade nuclear arsenals and would prevent non-nuclear-weapons states from developing any but the most primitive weapons. Accordingly, U.S. ratification of the CTBT would be an important political step forward.

The United States is faced with many decisions concerning nuclear weapons development, acquisition, and deployment as well as the reliability and readiness of its current stockpile. These decisions should be guided by a risk-benefit analysis of nuclear weapons policy. Since the Cold War, the risk-to-benefit ratio of nuclear weapons has grown dramatically. Maintaining a U.S. nuclear arsenal presents only one benefit today: deterring the use of nuclear weapons by others. Thus, there is simply no reason for nuclear weapons to play a central role in U.S. defense policy any longer. On the other hand, there is good reason for Washington to commit to a major nuclear rollback and to strengthening multilateral nonproliferation initiatives: doing so would demonstrate that it is serious about minimizing the role of nuclear weapons both at home and abroad. These moves would greatly enhance the national security of the United States.