Nuclear Mirage, Is it a case of do as I say not as I do?

Nuclear Mirage

Nuclear Mirage
Even as it strives to keep nuclear weapons from proliferating around the world, the Bush administration is moving toward research on a new generation of less powerful nuclear warheads. That effort, recently endorsed by Congress, unwisely overturns a decade of restraint intended to discourage development of a new nuclear arms race.
The new weapons are portrayed as a way to meet emerging threats that the existing nuclear arsenal, aimed at obliterating the Soviet Union in an all-out war, was not designed for. Some would be relatively small, low-yield weapons that could be used against a variety of targets, ranging from mobile targets to underground bunkers. Others would be even larger bunker-buster warheads.
The trouble is that the smaller weapons might be tempting to use in situations where no one would dream of dropping a more massively destructive nuclear bomb. That could speed the end of the "nuclear taboo" that has kept the world free of nuclear warfare since World War II.


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/02/opinion/02MON1.html?th

The US is railing against the development of nuclear weapons by other nations while engaged in such development of their own. Is it a case of do as I say not as I do?
Does the justification for such development out weigh the possible consequences? Can we expect the other nations to cease development while the US does not?