Threat Reduction Legislation Sails through House and Senate Committees
Last week, lawmakers demonstrated their commitment to reining in the black market trade in deadly conventional weapons by forwarding two important bills to the full House and Senate. On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the Lugar-Obama Act (S. 2566) by voice vote and without amendment. The bill calls on the State Department to “carry out an accelerated global program” to secure or dispose of surplus and poorly secured man-portable air defense systems and other conventional weapons, and authorizes an additional $25 million in funding for the State Department to accomplish this mission. Two days later, the House International Relations Committee followed suit by passing, also by voice vote and without amendment, the “Shoulder-fired Missile Reduction Act of 2006” (HR 5333), which authorizes an additional $35 million for securing and destroying poorly secured weapons and imposes sanctions on governments that knowingly transfer MANPADS to terrorists and their state sponsors. Both bills enjoy broad bipartisan support.
A summary of HR 5333 was posted on the SSP blog on May 11th. The full text of the bill and the Lugar-Obama Act is available on the ASMP’s “Bills and Laws” page.
China is NOT a nuclear “peer” of the United States, as some contend.
China’s total number of approximately 600 warheads constitutes only a small portion of the United States’ estimated stockpile of 3,700 warheads.
Dr. Lim will help develop, organize, and implement FAS’s growing contribution in the area of catastrophic risk including on core areas of nuclear weapons, AI and national security, space, and other emerging technologies.
Moreover, the recent decrease in UK government transparency regarding the status of its nuclear arsenal and modernization program reflects a worrisome global trend.
Even without weapons present, the addition of a large nuclear air base in northern Europe is a significant new development that would have been inconceivable just a decade-and-a-half ago.