In need of feel-good solutions, Americans believe, erroneously, that the job of military strategists is to envisage the worst and to plan for it. After all, the US security apparatus has been scandalously traumatized: It did not envisage September 11. It did not ponder the "unthinkable." In short, it failed in its mission to protect the nation.

Now we also know that the catastrophe we endured was followed by a period of choleric introspection during which the Pentagon surveyed its arsenal and cast a lustful eye at its vast nuclear stockpile.

Such knowledge in these restive times is disconcerting. Revelations by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times on the secret elements of a January 8 Pentagon report to the White House and Congress are nothing short of chilling. They point to an administration lacking the imagination to draw other than military conclusions in response to 9-11. This on the part of a nation arrayed with the world's most formidable war machine.

What is this Nuclear Posture Review really saying? It recommends that the president order the development of a new generation of nuclear arms. It deems that the United States must be ready to use atomic "mini-bombs" --- miniaturized devices that limit "collateral damage" but can pierce subterranean bunkers where weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and bacteriological) could be stored.

The document further cites several countries against which these bombs might be used. They include China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Russia and Syria.

This stance constitutes a radical departure from America's nuclear doctrine, which prohibits first use against non-nuclear nations that have signed the non-proliferation treaty. Adopting a new doctrine, to reprise a recent New York Times editorial, is "irresponsible madness." Here is why:

o The new doctrine overthrows the principles of non-proliferation and prompts other nations to ask: Why sign or honor a treaty which, in exchange for the irrevocable renunciation of the absolute weapon, reneges on the pledge that it will not be used against us?

o Invoking the right of preemptive first use legitimizes the deployment of weapons proclaimed to be strategic deterrents.

o Trivializing nuclear weapons implies that they can be legitimately used here and there, with the same ease as conventional arms, thus blurring the distinction between nuclear and conventional.

o By pooh-poohing, with what appears to be frightening irresponsibility, the irreducible specificity of nuclear weapons, the new doctrine abets unrestrained worldwide proliferation.

The Pentagon document is that of a nation seized with panic, not a nation conscious of its might and responsibilities. As such it ought to scare the living daylights out of us.

W. E. Gutman is a veteran investigative reporter and commentator.

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