At issue is whether the United States should change its decades-old nuclear policy and pursue a new class of "small nuclear weapons" that could be the size of Blackberries.
Congress has taken up the debate this spring in response to the Bush administration's request for $4 million dollars to research a new kind of nuclear weapon that would be both smaller in size and explosiveness.
In a $2.6 trillion dollar annual federal budget, the proposed $4 million is not a lot of money. But the concept is a big one.
Indeed, despite some efforts to downplay its import, the debate over whether to research small nuclear weapons (some of which are called "bunker busters") could be a tipping point in U.S. nuclear policy.
It could reshape fundamental American military policy and influence the international nuclear debate at a crucial time. (Last month, the once every five years, UN-led international Nuclear Non-proliferation Conference ended in utter failure.)
This debate is important -- and not as simple as some on either side would have it.
