Lest New Mexicans begin celebrating prematurely, they might do well to understand the implications of the Obama Administration's recently released Nuclear Posture Review. The New Mexican's April 11 editorial is a case in point.

The Chemical and Metallurgical Research Replacement Building at Los Alamos, in spite of what is distributed for public consumption here at home, is understood by all parts of the administration and in Congress as part of a new pit factory and, coupled with unprecedented public hand wringing by lab directors and hawks regarding concerns about the reliability of the stockpile, can be viewed for what it is: a step toward building new weapon designs at Los Alamos. Not just for research purposes, but production.

What effect this merging of these two very different cultures, research and manufacturing, will have at Los Alamos remains to be seen. But let's be clear, the reality is not reconcilable with the rhetoric coming out of the White House.

Independent experts assure Congress that our stockpile will remain reliable and perform as designed well into the second half of this century or longer with existing Life Extension programs.

The lab directors, particularly at Los Alamos, clamor for more investment; to make weapons, that have already been tested and certified reliable, more so? No. To make novel new weapons, which will never be tested unless the U.S. really abandons all concern about world opinion.

There will always be those who suggest, as some do now about the reliability of the current stockpile, that if we don't test, we cannot be sure the new generation of weapons will function as designed. The pursuit of a new generation of weapons will do absolutely nothing to enhance our national security and may well have the opposite affect. It's a shell game to maintain, at any cost, a relic of the cold war that is long overdue for the scrap yard.

The New Mexican erred when it stated that Iran was not a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It is. However, its nuclear-armed regional neighbor Israel is not. In terms of reducing proliferation pressures in the region, might it not be more effective to develop a nuclear-free Middle East initiative? Israel would still be nestled comfortably under the protection of the U.S., but the pressure for its Arab neighbors to pursue a nuclear capability would be substantially reduced.

The Obama Administration has gotten a lot of mileage out of its rhetorical commitment to disarmament and nonproliferation.

But the paucity of substantive measures that would actually lead the U.S. on a firm path toward disarmament must be acknowledged. We cannot expect other nations to forgo that which we will not make concrete steps to give up ourselves. They will see this infrastructure reinvestment for what it is, and our duplicity will undermine our credibility.

The NPT has turned out to be a clever maneuver by the nuclear-weapons states to lock in a two-tiered system of haves and have-nots in perpetuity. The frustration of the rest of the world mounts and empty rhetoric will no longer do the trick: A credible nuts and bolts program leading to the prudent, coordinated disarmament of the nuclear weapons states by a date which is certain is the only engine that will successfully drive nonproliferation efforts. The U.S. ought to lead, rather than resist, this effort.

For New Mexico to rise out of its derelict standing at, or very near, the bottom of virtually every measure of social well being, we might try a livelihood that is not centered on weapons of mass destruction. That strategy has clearly failed us.

Francine Lindberg of El Prado is a 21-year resident of Taos County. She works with at-risk youth in Taos Public schools, and is active in nuclear weapons disarmament.