The C-17As of the 62nd Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord serve as the Prime Nuclear Airlift Force (PNAF), the only airlift wing that is authorized to transport the Air Force’s nuclear warheads.
Read moreThe Steadfast Noon exercise will practice employment of non-strategic nuclear weapons, like this unarmed B61-4 nuclear gravity bomb dropped by an F-15E from the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath.
Read moreA new Air Force environmental assessment reveals that it considered basing ICBMs in underground railway tunnels––or possibly underwater.
Read moreClick on graph to view full size. By Hans M. Kristensen The latest New START treaty aggregate numbers published by the State Department earlier…
Read moreClick on image to view full size. Full document here. By Hans M. Kristensen The US nuclear weapons stockpile dropped to 3,822 warheads by…
Read moreLess than a decade after the Pentagon conducted a major review to fix problems in the nuclear management of U.S. nuclear forces, the Pentagon today announced the results of yet…
Read moreLess than a decade after the Pentagon conducted a major review to fix problems in the nuclear management of U.S. nuclear forces, the Pentagon today announced the results of yet another review. The new review identifies more than 100 fixes that are needed to correct management and personnel issues. The fixes “will cost several billion dollars over the five-year defense spending program in addition to ongoing modernization requirements identified in last year’s budget submission.” The Pentagon says it will “prioritize funding on actions that improve the security and sustainment of the current force, ensures that modernization of the force remains on track, and that address shortfalls, which are undermining the morale of the force.” That sounds like a strategy doomed to fail without significant adjustments. The Pentagon is already planning to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on modernizing submarines, bombers, missiles, warheads, and production facilities over the next decade (and even more later). Those modernization plans are already too expensive, under tremendous fiscal pressure, and competing for money needed to sustain and modernize conventional forces. So who is going to pay for the billions of dollars extra needed to fix the nuclear business?
Read moreA group of 58 U.S. Nobel Laureates is urging members of Congress to preserve federal funding of long term scientific research for the 2014 fiscal year budget. Today, President…
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