From Jeffrey Kuhner's April 9 Washington Times column:

President Obama has destroyed the world's last superpower. America is no longer the global cop. Enemies no longer tremble at our military might. Our foes no longer respect us. Washington no longer has the will - or stomach - to maintain its hegemonic status.

This is the real meaning of the administration's dramatic shift in nuclear security policy. The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) announced this week represents a geopolitical watershed: the end of the American moment, the point at which the United States abrogated its decisive leadership on the international stage.

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Also, the NPR means that, if fought today, the United States would be unable to deploy the weapons that won World War II in the Pacific: the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Contrary to liberal myth, the use of the bombs not only effectively ended the war but saved countless American and Japanese lives. It was an act of military humanitarianism. Scholars estimate that a U.S. invasion of the Japanese home islands would have resulted in the deaths of more than 500,000 American soldiers and millions of Japanese civilians. It is why President Truman's decision was supported overwhelmingly by U.S. troops - and the American public.

Yet the America that defeated Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan was a different nation. It was a superpower on the rise, ready and able to crush its enemies - regardless of the cost. Mr. Obama's America is the very opposite: parochial, self-indulgent, effete and in retreat. Even the thought of using atomic weapons frightens us. That is not enlightened statesmanship; it is moral cowardice.