Researchers from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) asked two physicists who are experts in missile defense issues, Dr. Yousaf Butt and Dr. George Lewis, to weigh in on the announcement on March 15, 2013 regarding missile defense by the Obama administration.

Before exploring their reactions and insights, it is useful to identify salient elements of U.S. missile defense and place the issue in context. There are two main strategic missile defense systems fielded by the United States: one is based on large high-speed interceptors called Ground-Based Interceptors or “GBI’s” located in Alaska and California and the other is the mostly ship-based NATO/European system. The latter, European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) to missile defense is designed to deal with the threat posed by possible future Iranian intermediate- and long-range ballistic missiles to U.S. assets, personnel, and allies in Europe – and eventually attempt to protect the U.S. homeland.

The EPAA uses ground-based and mobile ship-borne radars; the interceptors themselves are mounted on Ticonderoga class cruisers and Arleigh Burke class destroyers. Two land-based interceptor sites in Poland and Romania are also envisioned – the so-called “Aegis-ashore” sites. The United States and NATO have stated that the EPAA is not directed at Russia and poses no threat to its nuclear deterrent forces, but as outlined in a 2011 study by Dr. Theodore Postol and Dr. Yousaf Butt, this is not completely accurate because the system is ship-based, and thus mobile it could be reconfigured to have a theoretical capability to engage Russian warheads.

Indeed, General James Cartwright has explicitly mentioned this possible reconfiguration – or global surge capability – as an attribute of the planned system: “Part of what’s in the budget is to get us a sufficient number of ships to allow us to have a global deployment of this capability on a constant basis, with a surge capacity to any one theater at a time.”

In the 2011 study, the authors focused on what would be the main concern of cautious Russian military planners —the capability of the missile defense interceptors to simply reach, or “engage,” Russian strategic warheads—rather than whether any particular engagement results in an actual interception, or “kill.” Interceptors with a kinematic capability to simply reach Russian ICBM warheads would be sufficient to raise concerns in Russian national security circles – regardless of the possibility that Russian decoys and other countermeasures might defeat the system in actual engagements. In short, even a missile defense system that could be rendered ineffective could still elicit serious concern from cautious Russian planners. The last two phases of the EPAA – when the higher burnout velocity “Block II” SM-3 interceptors come on-line in 2018 – could raise legitimate concerns for Russian military analysts.

A Russian news report sums up the Russian concerns: “[Russian foreign minister] Lavrov said Russia’s agreement to discuss cooperation on missile defense in the NATO Russia Council does not mean that Moscow agrees to the NATO projects which are being developed without Russia’s participation. The minister said the fulfillment of the third and fourth phases of the U.S. ‘adaptive approach’ will enter a strategic level threatening the efficiency of Russia’s nuclear containment forces.” [emphasis added]

With this background in mind, FAS’ Senior Fellow on State and Non-State Threat, Charles P. Blair (CB), asked Dr. Yousaf Butt (YB) and Dr. George Lewis (GL) for their input on recent developments on missile defense with eight questions.

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Q: (CB)On March 15, Secretary of Defense Hagel announced that the U.S. will cancel the last Phase – Phase 4 – of the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) to missile defense which was to happen around 2021. This was the phase with the faster SM-3 “Block IIB” interceptors. Will this cancellation hurt the United State’s ability to protect itself and Europe?

A: (YB) No, because the “ability” you mention was always hypothetical. The Achilles’ Heel of all versions of the SM-3 (Block I A/B and Block II A/B) interceptors — indeed of “midcourse” missile defense, in general, is that it is straightforward to defeat the system using cheap decoy warheads. The system simply does not have a robust ability to discriminate a genuine warhead from decoys and other countermeasures. Because the intercepts take place in the vacuum of space, the heavy warhead and light decoys travel together, confusing the system’s sensors. The Pentagon’s own scientists at the Defense Science Board said as much in 2011, as did the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year.

Additionally, the system has never been successfully tested in realistic conditions stressed by the presence of decoys or other countermeasures. The majority of the system would be ship-based and is not known to work beyond a certain sea-state: as you might imagine, it becomes too risky to launch the interceptors if the ship is pitching wildly.

So any hypothetical (possibly future) nuclear-armed Middle Eastern nation with ICBMs could be a threat to the Unites States or Europe whether we have no missile defenses, have just Block I interceptors, or even the Block II interceptors. Since the interceptors would only have offered a false sense of security, nothing is lost in canceling Phase 4 of the EPAA. In fact, the other phases could also be canceled with no loss to U.S. or NATO security, and offering considerable saving of U.S. taxpayer’s money.

Q: (CB) What about Iran and its alleged desire to build ICBMs? Having just launched a satellite in January, could such actions act as a cover for an ICBM?

A: (YB) The evidence does not point that way at all. It points the other way. For instance, the latest Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on Iran’s missile program observes: (emphasis added)

“Iran also has a genuine and ambitious space launch program, which seeks to enhance Iran’s national pride, and perhaps more importantly, its international reputation as a growing advanced industrial power. Iran also sees itself as a potential leader in the Middle East offering space launch and satellite services. Iran has stated it plans to use future launchers for placing intelligence gathering satellites into orbit, although such a capability is a decade or so in the future. Many believe Iran’s space launch program could mask the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) – with ranges in excess of 5,500 km that could threaten targets throughout Europe, and even the United States if Iran achieved an ICBM capability of at least 10,000 km. ICBMs share many similar technologies and processes inherent in a space launch program, but it seems clear that Iran has a dedicated space launch effort and it is not simply a cover for ICBM development. Since 1999, the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) has assessed that Iran could test an ICBM by 2015 with sufficient foreign assistance, especially from a country such as China or Russia (whose support has reportedly diminished over the past decade). It is increasingly uncertain whether Iran will be able to achieve an ICBM capability by 2015 for several reasons: Iran does not appear to be receiving the degree of foreign support many believe would be necessary, Iran has found it increasingly difficult to acquire certain critical components and materials because of sanctions, and Iran has not demonstrated the kind of flight test program many view as necessary to produce an ICBM.”

Furthermore, the payload of Iran’s space launch vehicles is very low compared to what would be needed for a nuclear warhead — or even a substantial conventional warhead. For instance, Omid, Iran’s first satellite weighed just 27 kg [60 pounds] and Rasad-1, Iran’s second satellite weighed just 15.3 kilograms [33.74 pound], whereas a nuclear warhead would require a payload capacity on the order of 1000 kilograms. Furthermore, since launching an ICBM from Iran towards the United States or Europe requires going somewhat against the rotation of Earth the challenge is greater. As pointed out by missile and space security expert Dr. David Wright, an ICBM capable of reaching targets in the United States would need to have a range longer than 11,000 km. Drawing upon the experience of France in making solid-fuel ICBMs, Dr. Wright estimates it may take 40 years for Iran to develop a similar ICBM – assuming it has the intention to kick off such an effort. A liquid fueled rocket could be developed sooner, but there is little evidence in terms of rocket testing that Iran has kicked off such an effort.

In any case, it appears that informed European officials are not really afraid of any hypothetical Iranian missiles. For example, the Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, once made light of the whole scenario telling Foreign Policy, “If the mullahs have a target list we believe we are quite low on it.” As if to emphasize that point, the Europeans don’t appear to be pulling their weight in terms of funding the system. “We love the capability but just don’t have the money,” one European military official stated in reference to procuring the interceptors.

Similarly, the alleged threat from North Korea is also not all that urgent.

It seems U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing a project that will have little national security benefits either for the United States or NATO countries. In contrast, it may well create a dangerous false sense of security. It has already negatively impacted ties with Russia and China.

Q: (CB) Isn’t Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program a big concern in arguing for a missile defense? Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel said Iran may cross some red-line in the summer?

A: (YB) Iran’s nuclear program could be a concern, but the latest report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says Iran has not even decided to make nuclear weapons yet. Building, testing and miniaturizing a warhead to fit on a missile takes years – after a country decides to do so. In any case, no matter how scary that hypothetical prospect, one would not want a missile defense system that could be easily defeated to address that alleged eventual threat. Even if you believe the threat exists now, you may want a system that is effective, not a midcourse system that has inherent flaws.

Incidentally, the DNI’s report explicitly states: “we assess Iran could not divert safeguarded material and produce a weapon-worth of WGU [weapons grade uranium] before this activity is discovered.” As for the red-line drawn by Prime Minister Netanyahu: his track-record on predicting Iranian nuclear weaponization has been notoriously bad. As I point out in a recent piece for Reuters, in 1992 Mr. Netanyahu said Iran was three to five years from a bomb. I assess he is still wrong, more than 20 years later.

Lastly, even if Iran (or other nations) obtained nuclear weapons in the future, they can be delivered in any number of ways- not just via missiles. In fact, nuclear missiles have the benefit of being self-deterring – nations are actually hesitant to use nuclear weapons if they are mated to missiles. Other nations know that the United States can pinpoint the launch sites of missiles. The same cannot be said of a nuclear device placed in a sailboat, a reality that could precipitate the use of that type of device due to the lack of attribution. So one has to carefully consider if it makes sense to dissuade the placement of nuclear weapons on missiles. If an adversarial nation has nuclear weapons it may be best to have them mated to missiles rather than boats.

Q: (CB) It seems that the Russians are still concerned about the missile defense system, even after Defense Secretary Hagel said that the fourth phase of EPAA plan is canceled. Why are they evidently still concerned?

A: (YB) The Russians probably have four main concerns with NATO missile defense, even after the cancellation of Phase 4 of EPAA. For more details on some of these please see the report Ted Postol and I wrote.

1. The first is geopolitical: the Russians have never been happy about the Eastward expansion of NATO and they see joint U.S.-Polish and U.S.-Romanian missile defense bases near their borders as provocative. This is not to say they are right or wrong, but that is most likely their perception. These bases are to be built before Phase 4 of the EPAA, so they are still in the plans.

2. The Russians do not concur with the alleged long-range missile threat from Iran. One cannot entirely blame them when the Polish foreign minister himself makes light of the alleged threat saying, “If the mullahs have a target list we believe we are quite low on it.” Russian officials are possibly confused and their military analysts may even be somewhat alarmed, mulling what the real intent behind these missile defense bases could be, if – in their assessment – the Iran threat is unrealistic, as in fact was admitted to by the Polish foreign minister. The Russians also have to take into account unexpected future changes which may occur on these bases, for instance: a change in U.S. or Polish or Romanian administrations; a large expansion of the number or types of interceptors; or, perhaps even nuclear-tipped interceptors (which were proposed by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld about ten years ago).

3. Russian military planners are properly hyper-cautious, just like their counterparts at the Pentagon, and they must assume a worst-case scenario in which the missile defense system is assumed to be effective, even when it isn’t. This concern likely feeds into their fear that the legal balance of arms agreed to in New START may be upset by the missile defense system.

Their main worry could be with the mobile ship-based platforms and less with the European bases, as  explained in detail in the study Ted Postol and I did. Basically, the Aegis missile defense cruisers could be placed off of the East Coast of the U.S. and – especially with Block IIA/B interceptors –engage Russian warheads. Some statements from senior U.S. officials probably play into their fears. For instance, General Cartwright has been quoted as saying, “part of what’s in the budget is to get us a sufficient number of ships to allow us to have a global deployment of this capability on a constant basis, with a surge capacity to any one theater at a time.” To certain Russian military planners’ ears that may not sound like a limited system aimed at a primitive threat from Iran.

Because the mobile ship-based interceptors (hypothetically placed off of the U.S. East Coast ) could engage Russian warheads, Russian officials may be able claim this as an infringement on New START parity.

Missile defenses that show little promise of working well can, nevertheless, alter perceptions that the strategic balance between otherwise well-matched states is stable. Even when missile defenses reveal that they possess little, if any technical capabilities, they can still cause cautious adversaries and competitors to react as if they might work. The United States’ response to the Cold War era Soviet missile defense system was similarly overcautious.

4. Finally, certain Russian military planners may worry about the NATO EPAA missile defense system because in Phase 3, the interceptors are to be based on the SM-3 Block IIA booster. The United States has conducted research using this same type of rocket booster as the basis of a hypersonic-glide offensive strike weapon called ArcLight. Because such offensive hyper-glide weapons could fit into the very same vertical launch tubes – on the ground in Poland and Romania, or on the Aegis ships – used for the defensive interceptors, the potential exists for turning a defensive system into an offensive one, in short order. Although funding for ArcLight has been eliminated in recent years, Russian military planners may continue to worry that perhaps the project “went black” [secret], or that it may be resuscitated in the future. In fact, a recent Federal Business Opportunity (FBO) for the Department of the Navy calls for hypersonic weapons technologies that could fit into the same Mk. 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) tubes that the SM-3 missile defense interceptors are also placed in.

To conclude, advocates of missile defense who say we need cooperation on missile defense to improve ties with Russia have the logic exactly backward: In large part, the renewed tension between Russia and the United States is about missile defense. Were we to abandon this flawed and expensive idea, our ties with Russia — and China — would naturally improve. And, in return, they could perhaps help us more with other foreign policy issues such as Iran, North Korea, and Syria. As it stands, missile defense is harming bilateral relations with Russia and poisoning the well of future arms control.

Q: (CB) Adding to the gravity of Secretary Hagel’s announcement , last week China expressed worry about Ground-Based Interceptors, the Bush administration’s missile defense initiative in Poland discarded by the Obama administration in 2009, in favor of Phase 4 of the EPAA. Why is there concern with not only the Aegis ship-based system, but also the GBIs on the West Coast?

A: (YB) Like the Russians, Chinese military analysts are also likely to assume the worst-case scenario for the system (ie. that it will work perfectly) in coming up with their counter response . Possessing a much smaller nuclear arsenal than Russia or the United States, to China, even a few interceptors can be perceived as making a dent in their deterrent forces. And I think the Chinese are likely worried about both the ship-based Aegis system as well as the West Coast GBIs.

And this concern on the part of the Chinese is nothing new. They have not been as vocal as the Russians, but it is evident they were never content with U.S. and NATO plans. For instance, the 2009 Bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission pointed out that “China may already be increasing the size of its ICBM force in response to its assessment of the U.S. missile defense program.” Such stockpile increases, if they are taking place, will probably compel India, and, in turn, Pakistan to also ramp up their nuclear weapon numbers.

The Chinese may also be looking to the future and think that U.S. defenses may encourage North Korea to field more missiles than it may originally have been intending – if and when the North Koreans make long range missiles – to make sure some get through the defense system. This would have an obvious destabilizing effect in East Asia which the Chinese would rather avoid.

Some U.S. media outlets have also said the ship-based Aegis system could be used against China’s DF-21D anti-ship missile, when the official U.S. government position has always been that the system is only intended only against North Korea (in the Pacific theater). Such mission creep could sound provocative to the Chinese, who were told that the Aegis system is not “aimed at” China.

In reality, while the Aegis system’s sensors may be able to help track the DF-21D it is unlikely that the interceptors could be easily modified to work within the atmosphere where the DF-21D’s kill vehicle travels. (It could perhaps be intercepted at apogee during the ballistic phase). A recent CRS report was quite explicit that the DF-21D is a threat which remains unaddressed in the Navy: “No Navy target program exists that adequately represents an anti-ship ballistic missile’s trajectory,’ Gilmore said in the e-mail. The Navy ‘has not budgeted for any study, development, acquisition or production’ of a DF-21D target, he said.”

Chinese concerns about U.S. missile defense systems are also a source of great uncertainty, reducing Chinese support for promoting negotiations on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT). China’s leaders may wish to maintain the option of future military plutonium production in response to U.S. missile defense plans.

The central conundrum of midcourse missile defense remains that while it creates incentives for adversaries and competitors of the United States to increase their missile stockpiles, it offers no credible combat capability to protect the United States or its allies from this increased weaponry.

Q: (CB) Will a new missile defense site on the East Coast protect the United States? What would be the combat effectiveness of an East Coast site against an assumed Iranian ICBM threat?

A: (GL) I don’t see any real prospect for even starting a program for interceptors such as the [East Coast site] NAS is proposing any time soon in the current budget environment, and even if they did it probably would not be available until the 2020s. The recent announcement of the deployment of additional GBI interceptors is, in my view, just cover for getting rid of the Block II Bs, and was chosen because it was relatively ($1+ billion) inexpensive and could be done quickly.

The current combat effectiveness of the GBIs against an Iranian ICBM must be expected to be low. Of course there is no current Iranian ICBM threat. However, the current GMD system shows no prospect of improved performance against any attacker that takes any serious steps to defeat it as far out in time, as plans for this system are publicly available. Whether the interceptors are based in Alaska or on the East Coast makes very little difference to their performance.

Q: (CB) There were shortcomings reported by the Defense Science Board and the National Academies regarding the radars that are part of the system. Has anything changed to improve this situation?

A: (GL) With respect to radars, the main point is that basically nothing has happened. The existing early warning radars can’t discriminate [between real warheads and decoys]. The only radar that could potentially contribute to discrimination, the SBX, has been largely mothballed.

Q: (CB) Let’s say the United States had lots of money to spend on such a system, would an East Coast site have the theoretical ability to engage Russian warheads? Regardless of whether Russia could defeat the system with decoys or countermeasures, does the system have an ability to reach or engage the warheads? In short, could such a site be a concern for Russia?

A: (YB) If you have a look at Fig 8(a) and 8(b) in the report Ted Postol and I wrote you’ll see pretty clearly why an East Coast site might be a concern for Russia, especially with faster interceptors that are proposed for that site. Now I’m not saying it necessarily should be a concern – because they can defeat the system rather easily – but it may be. Whether they object to it or not vocally depends on other factors also. For instance, such a site will obviously not be geopolitically problematic for the Russians.

Charles P. Blair is the Senior Fellow on State and Non-State Threats at the Federation of American Scientists.

Dr. Yousaf Butt, a nuclear physicist, is professor and scientist-in-residence at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The views expressed are his own.

Dr. George N. Lewis is a senior research associate at the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Cornell University.

Senator Sam Nunn has often underscored that humanity is in “a race between cooperation and catastrophe.” As co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, he has urged greater and faster international action on reducing nuclear dangers. He has also joined with former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a bipartisan group of senior statesmen, to put forward an agenda for taking the next steps to achieve a nuclear weapon free world. They are making progress in convincing more and more political leaders to support their initiative.

To complement their efforts, we now need a dedicated coalition of scientists, engineers, and other technically trained people to work together and devote their knowledge and skills toward reducing the risks of catastrophes. As the founders of the Federation of American Scientists knew very well from their experience serving in the Manhattan Project, humanity has within its power the capability to destroy itself. Even though there would have been survivors from a massive thermonuclear war during the Cold War, they would have envied the dead (as Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev observed after the Cuban Missile Crisis) because the effects of such a war would have been catastrophic on billions of people worldwide, not just in the countries directly targeted. “Nuclear War is National Suicide,” warns a sticker pinned to my office’s bulletin board. Emblazoned with a mushroom cloud, the sticker was made by FAS more than thirty years ago.

While the likelihood of nuclear war between Russia and the United States has faded with the receding shadow of the Cold War, nuclear dangers have arguably grown even more threatening, with the race to secure vulnerable nuclear materials before they land in the hands of terrorists, the possibility of inadvertent nuclear war between Russia and the United States, the increasing nuclear arsenal of North Korea, the continuing build up of nuclear arms in India and Pakistan, the expanding latent weapons capability of Iran’s nuclear program, and the interest among some non-nuclear weapon states such as Japan and the Republic of Korea to use or continue to use plutonium in nuclear fuels.  Today more than ever, the Federation of American Scientists must redouble its efforts to lessen these threats.

I am pleased to announce that FAS is nearing the conclusion of more than a yearlong strategic planning process to assess its future direction. I am very grateful to all of you who took part in the membership survey and other interviews last year. Your advice was essential to help guide us and refocus our work in what matters. In effect, we are launching a “back to the future” strategy that will replant FAS’s roots from its founding in 1945 to its new beginning in the 21^st Century. That is, we will not just counter nuclear threats that stemmed from the Second World War, but we will become the organization that will provide science-based analysis and solutions

to catastrophic risks. I purposely use the word “risks” (defined as probability times consequences) to make clear that FAS will work to reduce the probability of the threats occurring as well as offer ways to mitigate massively destructive or disruptive consequences that these threats can cause.

Catastrophic threats can affect millions or perhaps billions of people through huge numbers of deaths and serious illnesses, massive economic damage, extensive and lasting harm to food, water, and energy supplies, or widespread dislocations of populations. These threats can be human-induced, such as use of biological or nuclear weapons or too much emissions of greenhouse gases, or naturally occurring, such as pandemics, massive earthquakes, tsunamis, or major asteroid collisions with earth. Moreover, new catastrophic threats could emerge with the misuse of cyber technologies, synthetic biology, or robots, to name a few possibilities.

In this renewed mission, FAS has multi-fold audiences: the scientific and engineering communities, policymakers in the executive and legislative branches of the United States and other governments, the public, and the news media. FAS will serve as the bridge between the technical communities and the policymaking community. In the coming months, we will improve our communications to these audiences and communities. For example, we will refresh FAS.org, which is a treasure trove of tens of thousands of documents, features innovative analysis and tools such as uranium enrichment and nuclear weapon effect calculators, and receives up to one million visitors monthly. But this website needs significant updating and a more user-friendly structure. We will keep you informed of the updates.

With this issue of the Public Interest Report, you will see a new look, which aims to provide a user-friendlier online magazine with articles focused on our renewed mission of science-based analysis and solutions to catastrophic risks. We very much welcome your advice about how to further improve the PIR. FAS can only do its work with members and supporters like you.

Similarly, humanity can only reduce the risks of catastrophes though cooperation. We need to break free of zero-sum mindsets and urgently come together in the spirit of cooperative games. I am heartened that one of the most popular recently released games is Pandemic^TM in which the players work as a team to cure four diseases before the globe becomes engulfed in a pandemic. One of the team members is a scientist. But the scientist alone does not have enough skills and powers to win the game. She needs an operation officer, a medic, a dispatcher, and a researcher.

The core belief of FAS’s founders is as relevant today as it was in 1945. Scientists and engineers have the ethical obligation to ensure that the fruits of their intellectual labor benefit humankind. I look forward to continue working with you to support that endeavor.

Charles D. Ferguson, Ph.D.

President, FAS

.By Hans M. Kristensen

Tonight I’ll be debating additional nuclear weapons reductions with former Assistant Secretary of State Stephen Rademaker at a PONI event at CSIS.

I will argue (prepared remarks here) that the United States could make more unilateral nuclear arms reductions in the future, as it has safely done in the past, as I argued in Trimming Nuclear Excess, in addition to pursuing arms control agreements. Mr. Rademaker will argue against unilateral reductions in favor of reciprocal or negotiated ones.

I suspect there will be a fair amount of overlap in the arguments but it is certainly a timely debate with the Obama administration pursuing additional reductions with Russia, the still-to-be-announced Nuclear Posture Review Implementation Study having determined that the United States can meet its national security and extended deterrence obligations with 500 fewer deployed strategic warheads, and budget cuts forcing new thinking about how many nuclear weapons and of what kind are needed.

The doors open at CSIS on 1800 K Street at 6 PM for a reception followed by the debate starting at 6:30 PM.

Document: Prepared remarks

By Hans M. Kristensen

The United States has quietly reduced its nuclear weapons stockpile by nearly 500 warheads since 2009. The current stockpile size represents an approximate 85-percent reduction compared with the peak size in 1967, according to information provided to FAS by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

The reduction is unilateral and not required by any arms control treaty. It apparently includes retirement of warheads for the last non-strategic naval nuclear weapon, the nuclear Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile (TLAM/N).

85 Versus 87

One of the interesting moments at the Deterrence Summit last week came when Dr. Donald Cook, who is NNSA’s administrator for defense programs, talked about the size of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

At one point, Dr. Cook said that there are “roughly 5,000” warheads in the stockpile today.  And then he added: “Today it’s, I’ll just say it’s a bit under about 5,000…about an 87 percent reduction” compared with the peak in 1967. (The 87 percent statements occurs 2:52:25 into the CSPAN recording).

Since the peak size of the stockpile has been declassified (31,255 warheads in 1967), an 87 percent reduction would in fact be quite a bit under 5,000 – a stockpile of 4,063 warheads, to be precise. If so, the stockpile would have shrunk by 1,050 warheads since September 2009 when the stockpile contained 5,113 warheads.

The number didn’t fit the stockpile estimate that Norris and I currently have (4,650 warheads), so I contacted Dr. Cook to double check if he meant to say 87 percent. He told me that it was an error and that the correct figure was “approximately 85% reduction.” That corresponds to a stockpile of roughly 4,688 warheads (depending on how many digits “approximately” implies), or about 38 warheads off our estimate of 4,650 warheads.

The warheads retired since 2009 apparently include the W80-0 warhead previously used on the nuclear Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile (TLAM/N). The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review decided the weapon was no longer needed, and “a very substantial number of W80-0″ warheads already have been dismantled, Dr. Cook told Congress last week.  [Update 21 Mar: FY12 Pantex Performance Evaluation Report states (p.24): “All W80-0 warheads in the stockpile have been dismantled.” (Thanks Jay!)].

The last remaining U.S. non-strategic naval nuclear weapon – the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile (TLAM/N – appears to have been retired in accordance with the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review determination that the weapon is no longer needed.

.

Implications

Why is the size of the stockpile an issue? Well, first, because the Obama administration in 2010 declassified the 64-year history of the stockpile from 1945 through September 2009 because, as the Pentagon explained at the time, increasing transparency is important for U.S. nonproliferation efforts and additional arms reductions beyond the New START treaty. In his briefing, Dr. Cook also pointed to the importance of transparency.

Second, the size of the stockpile is important because although the administration has declassified 64 years of its history, its current size is – yes, you guessed it – still a secret. In fact, officials have told us that the 2010 disclosure was a one-time decision, not something that would be updated each year. So all stockpile numbers after September 2009 are still secret. Deep in the dark corridors of the Pentagon there are still people who believe this is necessary for national security.

Third, the unilateral retirement of roughly 500 warheads from the stockpile since 2009 – an inventory comparable to the total stockpiles of China and Britain combined – is political dynamite (no pun intended) because conservative Cold Warriors in Congress (and elsewhere) vehemently oppose unilateral reductions of U.S. nuclear weapons. Their argument is (as best I can gauge) that Russia and China are modernizing their nuclear weapons, and North Korea has just conducted a nuclear test. Therefore, so the thinking goes, it would somehow be detrimental to U.S. national security to unilaterally reduce its nuclear weapons.

The argument is, of course, deeply flawed because the reductions that Dr. Cook describe are warheads that the military has decided it no longer needs to meet presidential guidance for maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent in support of national security and reassurance of allies. Similar unilateral adjustments of the stockpile have been made by both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past.

The saga about stockpile classification and declassification is also important because it exemplifies a deeply schizophrenic policy. On the one hand, the administration has declassified decades worth of formerly secret stockpile information, emphasizes the continued importance of nuclear weapons transparency to support nonproliferation and arms control efforts, and urges other nuclear weapons states to be more open about their arsenals. At the same time, the administration continues to keep secret the current size of the stockpile, which, among other effects, forces officials such as Dr. Cook to be unnecessarily vague about the extent to which the United States continues to make progress on reducing nuclear weapons in compliance with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Recommendations

If the administration believes that nuclear transparency is important, then it must continue to disclose stockpile numbers and avoid drifting back into automatic nuclear secrecy. It should also declassify how many weapons are dismantled each year and how many retired warheads are in storage awaiting dismantlement.

The Pentagon said in 2010 that it was looking at declassifying the number of weapons awaiting dismantlement, but so far nothing has happened.

The Nuclear Posture Review stated in 2010: “Today, there are several thousand nuclear warheads awaiting dismantlement, and this number will increase as weapons are removed from the stockpile under New START.” Actually, the New START Treaty does not require that nuclear warheads be removed from the stockpile, but the military will nonetheless probably retire the roughly 500 warheads assigned to the 48 SLBMs and 50 ICBMs that will be retired under the treaty.

We estimate that “several thousand” currently means about 3,000 retired warheads, and that 300-400 warheads are dismantled each year.

Declassification of the back-end (dismantlement numbers) of the nuclear posture goes hand in hand with declassification of the front-end (stockpile size) because dismantlement numbers prove that the United States is actually getting rid of the weapons and not just putting them in storage. That is the key message that unnecessary secrecy prevents U.S. officials from being able to convey to the international nonproliferation community.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) expects additional delays in production and delivery of the B61-12 nuclear bomb as a result of so-called sequestration budget cuts.

During testimony before the Hours Energy and Water Subcommittee last week, NNSA’s Acting Administrator Neile Miller said an expected $600 million reduction of the agency’s weapons activities budget could “slow the B61-12 LEP” and other weapons programs.

The Nuclear Posture Review set delivery of the first B61-12 for 2017, but that timeline has since slipped to 2019. Miller did not say how long production could be delayed but it could potentially slip into the 2020s.

The B61 LEP is already the most expensive and complex warhead modernization program since the Cold War, with cost estimates ranging from $8 billion to more than $10 billion, up from $4 billion in 2010. The price hike has triggered Congressional questions and efforts to trim the program. B61-12 proponents argue the weapon is needed to provide extended nuclear deterrence to NATO and Asian allies, but the mission in Europe is fading out and a cheaper alternative could be to retaining the B61-7 for the B-2A bomber and retire other B61 versions.

The B61-12 program extends the life of the tactical B61-4 warhead, incorporates selected components from three other B61 versions (B61-3, B61-7, and B61-10), adds unknown new safety and security features, and adds a guided tail kit to increase the accuracy and target kill capability of the B61-12 compared with the B61-4.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

By Hans M. Kristensen

When the news media reported that a meteor had exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia, the location name sounded familiar: the region is home to some of Russia’s most important nuclear weapons production and storage facilities.

Impact sites still have to be found but one reportedly was Chebarkul Lake, some 72 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of the city of Chelyabinsk. Another piece impacted near the town of Zlatoust some 80 kilometers (49 miles) to the northwest.

Approximately 88 kilometers (55 miles) northeast of Chebarkul Lake is Chelyabinsk-65 (Mayak), a plutonium production and fissile material storage complex. Another 40 miles to the north is Chelyabinsk-70 (Snezhinsk), a nuclear warhead design and storage complex.

Right in the meteor’s path, approximately 115 kilometers (72 miles) southwest of Chebarkul Lake, is Zlatoust-36, one of the two main warhead assembly and disassembly facilities in Russia. Adjacent to the facility is a national-level nuclear weapons storage site.

The odds of a meteor hitting one of these nuclear weapons production or storage site are probably infinitely small, but on a cosmic scale it got pretty close. Just how much damage a direct hit of a sizable chunk of the meteor could have caused is unknown, but the 17-meter (55 feet) meteor reportedly released energy equivalent to nearly 500 kilotons of TNT. That’s roughly the explosive yield of one of the W88 warheads carried on Trident II missiles onboard U.S. ballistic missile submarines.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

.By Hans M. Kristensen

The United States and Russia have some 1,800 nuclear warheads on alert on ballistic missiles that are ready to launch in a few minutes, according to a new study published by UNIDIR. The number of U.S. and Russian alert warheads is greater than the total nuclear weapons inventories of all other nuclear weapons states combined.

The report Reducing Alert Rates of Nuclear Weapons is co-authored by Matthew McKinzie from the Natural Resources of Defense Council and yours truly.

France and Britain also keep some of their nuclear force on alert, although at lower readiness levels than the United States and Russia. No other nuclear weapon state has nuclear weapons on alert.

The report concludes that the warning made by opponents of de-alerting, that it could trigger a re-alerting race in a crisis that count undermine stability, is a “straw man” argument that overplays risks, downplays benefits, and ignores that current alert postures already include plans to increase readiness and alert rates in a crisis.

According to the report, “while there are risks with alerted and de-alerted postures, a re-alerting race that takes three months under a de-alerted posture is much preferable to a re-alerting race that takes only three hours under the current highly alerted posture. A de-alerted nuclear posture would allow the national leaders to think carefully about their decisions, rather than being forced by time constraints to choose from a list of pre-designated responses with catastrophic consequences.”

During his election campaign, Barack Obama promised to work with Russia to take nuclear weapons off “hair-trigger” alert, but the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) instead decided to keep the existing alert posture. The post-NPR review that has now been completed but has yet to be announced hopefully will include a reduction of the alert level, not least because the Intelligence Community has concluded that a Russian surprise first strike is unlikely to occur.

The UNIDIR report finds that the United States and Russia previously have reduce the alert levels of their nuclear forces and recommends that they continue this process by removing the remaining nuclear weapons from alert through a phased approach to ensure stability and develop consultation and verification measures.

Full report: Reducing Alert Rates of Nuclear Weapons (FAS mirror)

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Swiss Government. General nuclear forces research is supported by the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors.

By Hans M. Kristensen

In early February, I participated in a conference in Warsaw on non-strategic nuclear weapons. The conference was organized by the Polish Institute of International Affairs, the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, with the participation of the U.S. State Department.

The conference had very high-level government representation from the United States and NATO, and included non-governmental experts from the academic and think-tank communities in Russia and NATO countries. The Russian government unfortunately did not send participants.

The United States and NATO want to broaden the arms control agenda to non-strategic nuclear weapons, which have so far largely eluded limitations and verification. The objective of the conference was to try to identify options for how NATO and Russia might begin to discuss confidence-building measures and eventually limitations on non-strategic nuclear weapons.

The conference commissioned eight working papers to form the basis for the discussions. My paper, which focused on identifying common definitions for categories of non-strategic nuclear weapons, recommended starting with air-delivered weapons as the only compatible category for negotiations on U.S-Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons.

Background: Working papers and lists of participants are available on the PISM web site. For background on non-strategic nuclear weapons, see this FAS report.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

By Hans M. Kristensen

With the ink barely dry on the New START Treaty, Jeff Smith at the Center for Public Integrity reports that the Obama administration has determined that the United States can meet its national and international security requirements with 1,000-1,100 deployed strategic nuclear warheads – 450-550 warheads less than planned under the New START Treaty.

The administration is exploring how to get Russian agreement to the reductions without a new treaty, according to the New York Times. That would avoid a new agreement being held hostage to conservative Cold Warriors in Congress who fought ratification of the New START Treaty. Their efforts will be complicated by the fact that the U.S. military (and others) backs the reduced force level.

This is great news that reaffirms the administration’s commitment to continuing reducing excessive nuclear force levels. The fact that the new force level ended up closer to 1,000 than 1,200 warheads continues the 30 percent step-by-step reduction trend of the New START Treaty. The new initiative apparently also seeks reductions of non-deployed and non-strategic nuclear weapons, although it is unclear whether this is part of the first phase of the effort.

The lower force level has the potential to save billions of dollars, but how much depends on how the administration decides to implement it.

Reduction Options

The United States could meet the lower force level simply by reducing the warhead loading on ballistic missile submarines but without changing the force structure planned under the New START Treaty (see Table 1, Option 1). This would be a mistake because it would make it hard to convince Russia to join and it would save little money.

A more likely option would be to combine an ICBM reduction with a smaller SLBM download (Table 1, Option 2). That would reduce the ICBM force to 300 missiles and the overall force structure to 600 deployed launchers, or 100 less than under New START. Reducing the ICBM force to 300 from 400 planned under new START – a reduction of 150 from today’s 450 Minuteman III missiles – could be achieved by closing one of the three ICBM bases. A more likely option would be to spread job losses across the force by reducing the number of missile squadrons at each wing from three to two.

Another option would be to cut the ICBM force to 300 and reduce the missile loading on each SSBN from 20 planned under New START to 16, the same number planned for the next-generation SSBN (Table 1, Option 3). This option would reduce the force structure by nearly 150 deployed launchers below New START limit, thereby limiting the large advantage compared with Russia’s smaller force structure.

Yet another option could be to retire two SSBNs and reduce the ICBM force to 300. This option (Table 1, Option 4) would cancel the expensive refueling overhauls of the USS Wyoming (SSBN-742) and USS Louisiana (SSBN-743), retire the two submarines, and reduce the SSBN force to 12. Only 10 of those would be available for deployment.

How would a reduction to 1,000-1,100 deployed strategic warheads affect Russia’s posture? There are many uncertainties about how Russia’s missile forces will evolve over the next decade, but by the early 2020s the number of deployed missiles might decline to some 350 (down from around 450 today), or significantly less than the 700 permitted by the New START Treaty. So a new treaty would likely have little effect on reducing Russian deployed launchers.

The most important effect of a new limit of 1,000-1,100 deployed strategic warheads would be to reduce the warhead loading on Russia’s ICBMs. This is particularly important because Russia compensates for its smaller missile inventory by deployed more warheads on each missile. Again, the numbers are uncertain, but the lower warhead limit could potentially reduce Russian ICBM warheads by as much as 50 percent from roughly 800 estimated under the New START Treaty to approximately 400 warheads under the new reduced limit (see Table 2).

The only reason Russia would agree to this, it seems, is if the United States significantly reduced its deployed missiles and also reduced the number of warheads kept in reserve as a potential upload capability. The combination of a larger U.S. missile force with a large upload capacity is a significant breakout capability that undermines the changes of reaching a new agreement.

It is double important that a new agreement limits the upload capability because it could otherwise result in Russia also creating a “hedge” of non-deployed strategic warheads. Closing this “reconstitution” loophole in the arms reduction process is important for making nuclear reductions irreversible.

Effect on Role of Nuclear Weapons

How the reduced force level will reduce the role of nuclear weapons is yet unclear. President Obama stated in his Prague speech that he wanted to “put an end to Cold War thinking” by reducing “the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”

We have yet to hear how the new guidance puts and end to Cold War thinking in the way the military is required to plan for the potential use of nuclear weapons. Smith’s article states that the lower deployed warhead level would be achieved by U.S. Strategic Command “targeting fewer, but more important, military or political sites in Russia, China, and several other countries.”

If so, that would appear to refer to what is known as “nodal targeting,” in which planners focus targeting with nuclear forces on the most important facilities rather than holding at risk all facilities within a target category. Nodal targeting has been used for the past two decades to reduce warhead requirements and focus the strategic nuclear war plan on effects rather than on creating rubble.

The current nuclear war plan (OPLAN 8010, Strategic Deterrence and Global Strike [/blog/ssp/2010/02/warplan.php]) is designed to hold at risk nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) forces, command and control, military and political leadership, and war supporting industries of six potential adversaries: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria (a country that might be dropped from the plan soon, if it hasn’t happened already), and a non-state WMD attack.

The Obama administration’s nuclear targeting review appears to have considered a nuclear targeting option similar to what we proposed in this study in 2009.

Focusing nodal targeting more would not necessarily change how nuclear targeting is performed. Nor does a force level itself of 1,000-1,100 deployed strategic warheads suggest that the day-to-day alert level of the forces has been reduced significantly. Indeed, Smith’s story describes that the review considered, but rejected, a proposal by the State Department, National Security Council staff, and Vice President Biden’s staff to consider changing targeting policy more fundamentally:

“A much steeper reduction, to around 500 total warheads, was debated within the administration last year, but rejected, sources said. Known as the “deterrence only” plan, it would have aimed U.S. warheads at a narrower range of targets related to an enemy’s economic capacity and no longer emphasized striking the enemy’s leadership and weaponry in the first wave of an attack. […]

Some officials at the State Department, the NSC staff, and Vice president Biden’s staff urged consideration of the smaller arsenal and new targeting policy, officials said. But ‘a small brake’ was applied by the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who worried that making such a major policy change was too risky at a moment of upheaval in conventional military strategy, and would create too much uncertainty among allies, said one of the sources with knowledge of the discussion.”

This appears to refer to a targeting policy similar to the one FAS and NRDC proposed in our 2009 study From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence as a way of putting an end to Cold War thinking in nuclear planning. President Obama apparently “decided we did not need to do deterrence-only targeting now,” but did not rule it out for later.

Obviously, we have more work to do to put an end to Cold War thinking.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

Despite enormous reductions of their nuclear arsenals since the Cold War, the United States and Russia retain more than 9,100 warheads in their military stockpiles. Another 7,000 retired – but still intact – warheads are awaiting dismantlement, for a total inventory of more than 16,000 nuclear warheads.

This is more than 15 times the size of the total nuclear arsenals of all the seven other nuclear weapon states in the world – combined.

The U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals are far beyond what is needed for deterrence, with each side’s bloated force level justified only by the other’s excessive force level.

The FAS report – Trimming Nuclear Excess: Options for Further Reductions of U.S. and Russian Nuclear Forces – describes the status and 10-year projection for U.S. and Russian nuclear forces.

The report concludes that the pace of reducing nuclear forces appears to be slowing compared with the past two decades. Both the United States and Russia appear to be more cautious about reducing further, placing more emphasis on “hedging” and reconstitution of reduced nuclear forces, and both are investing enormous sums of money in modernizing their nuclear forces over the next decade.

Even with the reductions expected over the next decade, the report concludes that the United States and Russia will continue to possess nuclear stockpiles that are many times greater than the rest of the world’s nuclear forces combined.

New initiatives are needed to regain the momentum of the nuclear arms reduction process. The New START Treaty from 2011 was an important but modest step but the two nuclear superpowers must begin negotiations on new treaties to significantly curtail their nuclear forces. Both have expressed an interest in reducing further, but little has happened.

New treaties may be preferable, but reaching agreement on the complex inter-connected issues ranging from nuclear weapons to missile defense and conventional forces may be unlikely to produce results in the short term (not least given the current political climate in the U.S. Congress). While the world waits, the excess nuclear forces levels and outdated planning principles continue to fuel justifications for retaining large force levels and new modernizations in both the United States and Russia.

To break the stalemate and reenergize the arms reductions process, in addition to pursuing treaty-based agreements, the report argues, unilateral steps can and should be taken in the short term to trim the most obvious fat from the nuclear arsenals. The report includes 32 specific recommendations for reducing unnecessary and counterproductive U.S. and Russian nuclear force levels unilaterally and bilaterally.

Download Full Report

By Hans M. Kristensen

Despite enormous reductions of their nuclear arsenals since the Cold War, the United States and Russia retain more than 9,100 warheads in their military stockpiles. Another 7,000 retired – but still intact – warheads are awaiting dismantlement, for a total inventory of more than 16,000 nuclear warheads.

This is more than 15 times the size of the total nuclear arsenals of all the seven other nuclear weapon states in the world – combined.

The U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals are far beyond what is needed for deterrence, with each side’s bloated force level justified only by the other’s excessive force level.

A new FAS report – Trimming Nuclear Excess: Options for Further Reductions of U.S. and Russian Nuclear Forces – describes the status and 10-year projection for U.S. and Russian nuclear forces.

The report concludes that the pace of reducing nuclear forces appears to be slowing compared with the past two decades. Both the United States and Russia appear to be more cautious about reducing further, placing more emphasis on “hedging” and reconstitution of reduced nuclear forces, and both are investing enormous sums of money in modernizing their nuclear forces over the next decade.

Even with the reductions expected over the next decade, the report concludes that the United States and Russia will continue to possess nuclear stockpiles that are many times greater than the rest of the world’s nuclear forces combined.

New initiatives are needed to regain the momentum of the nuclear arms reduction process. The New START Treaty from 2011 was an important but modest step but the two nuclear superpowers must begin negotiations on new treaties to significantly curtail their nuclear forces. Both have expressed an interest in reducing further, but little has happened.

New treaties may be preferable, but reaching agreement on the complex inter-connected issues ranging from nuclear weapons to missile defense and conventional forces may be unlikely to produce results in the short term (not least given the current political climate in the U.S. Congress). While the world waits, the excess nuclear forces levels and outdated planning principles continue to fuel justifications for retaining large force levels and new modernizations in both the United States and Russia.

To break the stalemate and reenergize the arms reductions process, in addition to pursuing treaty-based agreements, the report argues, unilateral steps can and should be taken in the short term to trim the most obvious fat from the nuclear arsenals. The report includes 32 specific recommendations for reducing unnecessary and counterproductive U.S. and Russian nuclear force levels unilaterally and bilaterally.

Full report: Trimming Nuclear Excess

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

Air Force personnel perform New START Treaty inspection training on a Minuteman III ICBM payload section at Minot AFB in 2011. Nearly two years into the treaty, there have been few reductions of U.S. deployed strategic nuclear forces.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

The U.S. State Department today released the full (unclassified) and detailed aggregate data categories for U.S. strategic nuclear forces as counted under the New START treaty. This is the forth batch of data published since the treaty entered into force in February 2011.

Although the new data shows a reduction compared with previous releases, a closer reading of the documents indicates that changes are due to adjustments of delivery vehicles in overhaul at any given time and elimination on so-called phantom platforms, that is aircraft that carry equipment that make them accountable under the treaty even though they are no longer assigned a nuclear mission. Actual reduction of deployed nuclear delivery vehicles has yet to occur.

The joint U.S.-Russian aggregate data and the full U.S. categories of data are released at different times and not all information is made readily available on the Internet. Therefore, a full compilation of the September data is made available here.

Overall U.S. Posture

The data attributes 1,722 warheads to 806 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers as of September 1, 2012. This is a reduction of 15 deployed warheads and 6 deployed delivery vehicles compared with the previous data set from March 2012.

A large number of non-deployed missiles and launchers that could be deployed are not attributed warheads.

The data shows that the United States will have to eliminate 234 launchers over the next six years to be in compliance with the treaty limit of 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers by 2018. Fifty-six of these will come from reducing the number of launch tubes per SSBN from 24 to 20, roughly 80 from stripping B-52Gs and nearly half of the B-52Hs of their nuclear capability, and destroying about 100 old ICBM silos.

The released data does not contain a breakdown of how the 1,722 deployed warheads are distributed across the three legs of the Triad. But because the bomber number is disclosed and each bomber counts as one warhead, and because 450-500 warheads remain on the ICBMs (downloading to one warhead per ICBM was scheduled to resume in 2012), it appears that the deployed SLBMs carry 1,104 to 1,154 warheads, or more than two-thirds of the total number of warheads counted by New START.

Just to remind readers: the New START numbers do not represent the total number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal – only about a third. The total military stockpile is just under 5,000 warheads, with several thousand additional retired (but still intact) warheads awaiting dismantlement. For an overview, see this article.

Ballistic Missile Submarines

The New START data shows that the United States as of September 1, 2012, had 239 Trident II SLBMs onboard its SSBN fleet, a reduction of three compared with March 2012. That is only enough to fill nine SSBNs to capacity, but it doesn’t reflect an actual reduction of SLBMs or SSBNs but a fluctuation in the number of SLBMs onboard SSBNs during overhaul. Each SSBN has 24 missile tubes for a maximum loadout of 288 missiles (48 tubes on two SSBNs in overhaul are not counted), but at the time of the New START count it appears that two or three of the 14 SSBNs were empty (including the two in refueling overhaul) and two or three were only partially loaded (in missile loadout).

It is widely assumed that 12 out of 14 SSBNs normally are deployable, but the various sets of aggregate data all indicate that the force ready for deployment at any given time may be closer to 10. This ratio can fluctuate significantly and in average 64 percent (8-9) of the SSBNs are at sea with roughly 920 warheads. Up to five of those subs are on alert with 120 missiles carrying an estimated 540 warheads – enough to obliterate every major city on the face of the earth.

Of the eight SSBNs based at Bangor (Kitsap) Submarine Base in Washington, the data indicates that three were out of commission on September 1, 2012: one had empty missile tubes (possibly because it was in dry dock) and two others were only partially loaded. This means that five SSBNs from the base were fully loaded and probably deployed with 120 Trident II D5 missiles carrying some 540 warheads at the time of the New START count.

For the six SSBNs based at Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia, the New START data shows that 103 missiles were counted as deployed on September 1, 2012. That number is enough to load four SSBNs, with two other SSBNs only partially loaded. The four deployed SSBNs probably carried 96 Trident II SLBMs with some 430 warheads.

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles

The New START data shows that the United States deployed 449 Minuteman III ICBMs as of September 1, 2012, the same number that was deployed in March 2012. Most were at the three launch bases, but a significant number (321) were at maintenance and storage facilities in Utah. That included 58 MX Peacekeeper ICBMs retired in 2003-2005 but which have not been destroyed.

The New START data does not show how many warheads were loaded on the 449 deployed ICBMs. Downloading to single warhead loading was scheduled to begin in FY2012, but a completion has not been announced. The warhead number is 450-500. The 2010 NPR decided to “de-MIRV” the ICBM force, an unfortunately choice of words because the force will retain the capability to re-MIRV if necessary.

Heavy Bombers

The New START data shows that the U.S. Air Force possessed 141 B-2 and B-52 nuclear-capable heavy bombers as of September 1, 2012. Of these, 118 were counted as deployed, a reduction of four compared with March 2012. The data shows that only half of the B-2 stealth bombers are deployed.

Unfortunately the bomber data is misleading because it counts 30 retired B-52G bombers stored at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona as “deployed” at Minot AFB in North Dakota. The mischaracterization is the result of a counting rule in the treaty, which says that bombers can only be deployed at certain bases. As a result, the 30 retired B-52Gs are listed in the treaty as deployed at Minot AFB – even though there are no B-52Gs at that base. According to Air Force Global Strike Command, “There are no B-52Gs at Minot AFB, N.D…In accordance with accounting requirements, we have them assigned to Minot and as visiting Davis-Monthan.” The actual number of deployed heavy bombers should more accurately be listed as 88 B-2A and B-52H, with another 53 non-deployed (including the 30 at Davis Monthan AFB.

All of these bombers carry equipment that makes them accountable under New START, but only a portion of them are actually involved in the nuclear mission. Of the 20 B-2s and 91 B-52Hs in the Air Force inventory, 18 and 76, respectively, are nuclear-capable, but only 60 of those (16 B-2s and 44 B-52Hs) are thought to be nuclear tasked at any given time. None of the aircraft are loaded with nuclear weapons under normal circumstances but are attributed a fake count under New START of only one nuclear weapon per aircraft even though each B-2 and B-52H can carry up to 16 and 20 nuclear weapons, respectively. Roughly 1,000 nuclear bombs and cruise missiles are in storage for use by these bombers. Stripping excess B-52Hs and the remaining B-52Gs of their nuclear equipment will be necessary to get down to 60 counted nuclear bombers by 2018.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The New START data released by the State Department continues the decision made last year to release the full U.S. unclassified aggregate numbers, an important policy that benefits international nuclear transparency and counters misunderstandings and rumors.

The latest data set shows that the U.S. reduction of deployed strategic nuclear forces over the past six months has been very modest: 6 delivery vehicles and 15 warheads. The reduction is so modest that it probably reflects fluctuations in the number of deployed weapon systems in overhaul at any given time. Indeed, while there have been some reductions of non-deployed and retired weapon systems, there is no indication from the new data that the United States has yet begun to reduce its deployed strategic nuclear forces under the New START treaty.

Those reductions will come slowly over the next five-six years to meet the treaty limits of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and 800 deployed and non-deployed strategic delivery vehicles by February 2018. But almost two years after the New START treaty entered into force, it is clear that the Pentagon is not in a hurry to implement it.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.