By Hans M. Kristensen While defense hawks try to block funding for implementing the US-Russian New START treaty, the US military is making rapid process toward meeting the treaty limits by February 2018. The latest full declassified aggregate data for the US force structure under New START shows that both the ICBMs and bombers appear […]
Read MoreStrategic Security
Review of NASIC Report 2017: Nuclear Force Developments
By Hans M. Kristensen The National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) at Wright-Patterson AFB has updated and published its periodic Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat report. The new report updates the previous version from 2013. At a time when public government intelligence resources are being curtailed, the NASIC report provides a rare and invaluable […]
Read MoreThe Flawed Push For New Nuclear Weapons Capabilities
By Hans M. Kristensen Voices in the United States are once again calling for new and better nuclear weapons. The claim is that adversaries somehow would no longer be deterred by existing capabilities and that new or significantly modified weapons are needed to better match the adversaries and more efficiently destroy targets with lower yield […]
Read MoreThe Pentagon’s 2017 Report On Chinese Military Affairs
By Hans M. Kristensen The Pentagon’s latest annual report to Congress on Chinese military and security developments describes a nuclear force that is similar to previous years but with a couple of important new developments in the pipeline. The most sensational nuclear news in the report is the conclusion that China is developing a new […]
Read MoreB-52 Bomber No Longer Delivers Nuclear Gravity Bombs
By Hans M. Kristensen The venerable B-52H Stratofortress long-range bomber is no longer listed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) with a capability to deliver nuclear gravity bombs. US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) apparently has not been assigning nuclear gravity bombs to B-52 bombers since at least 2010. Today, only the 20 B-2 stealth-bombers are […]
Read MoreNew START 2017: Russia Decreasing, US Increasing Deployed Warheads
By Hans M. Kristensen The latest set of New START aggregate data released by the US State Department shows that Russia is decreasing its number of deployed strategic warheads while the United States is increasing the number of warheads it deploys on its strategic forces. The Russian reduction, which was counted as of March 1, […]
Read MoreWarhead “Super-Fuze” Increases Targeting Capability Of US SSBN Force
By Hans M. Kristensen Under the cover of an otherwise legitimate life-extension of the W76 warhead, the Navy has quietly added a new super-fuze to the warhead that dramatically increases the ability of the Navy to destroy hard targets in Russia and other adversaries. In a new article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Matthew […]
Read MoreTalk At The Nuclear Deterrence Summit
By Hans M. Kristensen Today I spoke at the Nuclear Deterrence Summit about the role and challenges of US-Russian nuclear arms control efforts. My panel partner was Mark Schneider from NIPP and we were under the competent chairmanship of Vice Admiral Van Mauney (US Navu, Ret.), the former deputy commander of US Strategic Command. My […]
Read MoreIn Reuters Interview President Trump Flunks Nuclear 101
By Hans M. Kristensen President Donald Trump in an interview with Reuters today demonstrated an astounding lack of knowledge about basic nuclear weapons issues. According to Reuters Trump said he wanted to build up the US nuclear arsenal to ensure it is at the “top of the pack.” He said the United States has “fallen behind […]
Read MoreObama Administration Announces Unilateral Nuclear Weapon Cuts
By Hans M. Kristensen The Obama administration has unilaterally cut the number of nuclear weapons in the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons stockpile to 4,018 warheads, a reduction of 553 warheads since September 2015. The reduction was disclosed by Vice President Joe Biden during a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace earlier today. This means that […]
Read More