The end of the Cold War marked a shift in American foreign policy. After 50 years of deterrence and nuclear deadlock, the crumbling of the U.S.S.R. meant a change in our approach to diplomacy.

This weekend, the Los Angeles Times obtained a secret Pentagon report detailing a new era of nuclear weapons policy. The new strategy against the “axis of evil” plus four calls for contingency plans to use nuclear weapons in addition to blueprints to create smaller nuclear weapons for battlefield use during engagements in those nations. Seven nations made the list: Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, Russia, Libya and Syria.

The report calls for three situations in which nuclear weapons would be deployed. First, and most obviously, as “retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons” and second, “against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack.” Finally, the Pentagon built in a clause so elastic it could double as the Bush bungee cord, listing situations for potential use of American nuclear weapons including those “in the event of surprising military developments.”

Surprising military developments. According to the Pentagon, surprising military developments in China, Syria, Libya, Russia and the “Axis of Evil” may warrant a U.S. military attack. Forget the U.N. Forget NATO. Any unanticipated military activity in those nations could put them in the American cross-hairs.

Moreover, the Bush administration called for the Pentagon to plan for nuclear intervention in the long-standing Arab-Israeli conflict.

Nuclear policy analysts reacted to the report, the “Nuclear Posture Review,” with shock. Trying to grapple with the volatility of lifting the nuclear taboo, analysts could only draw parallels with “Dr. Strangelove” and science fiction.

With the events of Sept. 11 testimony to the inability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal to deter attacks, the Bush administration logic follows that deterrence is simply not enough. Be prepared to strike first. Leave enough leeway to justify striking anything suspicious.

If our mistrust of most of Asia and North Africa is not already great enough, how much more will our ability to negotiate with them deteriorate if it is public knowledge that we are pursuing a nuclear policy that designs weapons specifically to deploy in underground bunkers in the desert or in the event that China makes a move we do not approve of toward Taiwan?

While our leaders (or their shadows) can hole up the granite safety of the eastern seaboard, the Bush Administration’s itchy trigger finger only puts the American public at greater risk. Open willingness to develop and deploy specialized nuclear weapons against our global adversaries sets the stakes higher. If a radical group in Iran, for example, believes that nuclear attack on their home soil is inevitable, they have no incentive to restrain from unleashing horror on the people of the United States.

Some may argue that if we can only obliterate the threat first, the United States will continue in safety. Shall we then be prepared to drop nuclear bombs on flight schools in Florida where terrorists are training or on German universities where terrorists are studying?

Others may argue that by revamping nuclear weapons warheads the U.S. would be reducing the collateral damage sustained when bombing mountain strongholds. That, in some backhanded way, we are doing our enemies a favor by focusing our fury. This is not a smart bomb or a daisy cutter. It is a nuclear weapon, indicating an entirely different echelon of destruction.

The Bush administration’s charge to alter Pentagon policy on nuclear weapons is unequivocally unacceptable.

We cannot return to a non-nuclear world, but shifting nuclear weapons to become part of the combat arsenal rather than a deterrence strategy creates a dangerous new plan of instability and terror.

Rachel Faber Machacha is a graduate student in international development studies from Emmetsburg.