Nuclear Weapons Secrecy Policy Relaxed, a Bit
The fact that a now-retired nuclear weapon was once located at a now-closed location in the United States shall no longer be considered classified information, the Department of Defense announced last week.
This may seem so trivial and insignificant as to be hardly worth deciding or announcing, but it could have positive practical consequences for current and future declassification efforts.
“The repeated discoveries of this kind of [information] in numerous records [have] impeded the prompt declassification of many documents,” the National Declassification Center said last week, praising the move.
So with the categorical declassification of such information, the declassification of some historical records should now be facilitated and accelerated.
“Secrecy itself is more dangerous than the possession of atomic weapons,” said Edward Teller in a 1989 presentation at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Department of Energy posted a transcript of his remarks last week.
Russia currently maintains nearly 5,460 nuclear warheads, with an estimated 1,718 deployed. This represents a slight decrease in total warheads from previous years but still positions Russia as the world’s largest nuclear power alongside the United States.
Nuclear weapons budgeting is like agreeing to buying a house without knowing the sales price, the mortgage rate, or the monthly payment.
The United States Air Force has forward deployed about one-third of its B-2 stealth bombers to Diego Garcia, or about half the B-2s considered fully operational at any given time.
Over the past year, the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons has experienced numerous wins that were celebrated at the Meeting of State Parties.