Under a new national strategy for nuclear weapons, the Obama administration is maintaining the right to use nuclear weapons first and to use them to attack any nation accused of violating the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation, including Iran and North Korea. Anti-nuclear activists and some Democratic lawmakers were hoping Obama would issue a blanket statement that the country would never again be the first to use nuclear weapons. The new policy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review, narrows potential US nuclear targets, and the New York Times reports that for the first time the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As part of the policy, the US is not removing any nuclear weapon from alert.