Petition Against New National Security Strategy.
A few months ago, physicist Jorge Hirsch [jhirsch@ucsd.edu] of the University of California, San Diego, and others, organized a petition signed by an impressive array of notable scientists. The petition condemns the administration’s new national security strategy for its over-emphasis on nuclear weapons. The petition also emphasized that just using the term “WMD” blurs the distinction between non-nuclear and nuclear weapons, which are in a class of their own. You can see the petition and a partial list of signatories here.
The SIPRI chapter describes the nuclear weapon modernization programs underway in each nuclear-armed state and provides estimates for how many nuclear warheads each country possesses.
FAS researchers Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda with the Nuclear Information Project write in the new SIPRI Yearbook 2024, released today.
The total number of U.S. nuclear warheads are now estimated to include 1,770 deployed warheads, 1,938 reserved for operational forces. An additional 1,336 retired warheads are awaiting dismantlement, for a total inventory of 5,044 warheads.
A military depot in central Belarus has recently been upgraded with additional security perimeters and an access point that indicate it could be intended for housing Russian nuclear warheads for Belarus’ Russia-supplied Iskander missile launchers.