Navy Personnel Ordered Not To Discuss Public Nuclear Policy
The US Chief of Naval Operations has publicly issued an Instruction that orders US Navy personnel not to tell anyone that US warships do not carry nuclear weapons. Yet the same Instruction states that it is US policy not to deploy nuclear weapons on the ships.
The new Instruction, “Release of Information on Nuclear Weapons and on Nuclear Capabilities of U.S. Forces,” was published on February 6 and updates a previous version from 1993. Both versions state that nuclear weapons were offloaded from the ships in 1992.
The reason for updating the Instruction is to incorporate four guided missile submarines (SSGNs) that are being converted from ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). The SSBNs carry nuclear weapons, but the SSGNs will carry conventional weapons, the publicly available Instruction helpfully informs (!).
The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons, and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987.. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]
On 14 April 2023, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence released a short video of a Su-25 pilot explaining his new role in delivering “special [nuclear] munitions” following his training in Russia. The features seen in the video, as well as several other open-source clues, suggest that Lida Air Base––located only 40 kilometers from the Lithuanian border and the […]
A photo in a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) student briefing from 2022 shows four people inspecting what appears to be a damaged B61 nuclear bomb.
In early-February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had informed Congress that China now has more launchers for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) than the United States. The report is the latest in a serious of revelations over the past four years about China’s growing nuclear weapons arsenal and the deepening […]