 |
| Vast inventories of nuclear weapons remain after the Cold War arms race ended. |
.
By Hans M. Kristensen
Russia’s nuclear forces are expected to drop well below 500 offensive strategic delivery vehicles within the next five years, less than one-third of what’s permitted by the 1991 START treaty. Unless the next U.S. Nuclear Posture Review significantly reduces the number of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, that single leg of the U.S. Triad of nuclear forces alone could soon include more delivery vehicles than the entire Russian strategic arsenal of land- and sea-based ballistic missiles and long-range bombers. With this in mind, Russia is MIRVing its ballistic missile to keep some level of parity with the United States.
This and more from a briefing I gave this morning at the Arms Control Association meeting Next Steps in U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Reductions. I was in good company with Ambassador Linton Brooks, the former U.S. chief negotiator on the START treaty, who spoke about the key issues and challenges the START follow-on negotiators will face, and Greg Thielmann, formerly senior professional staffer of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who discussed how the a new agreement might be verified through START-style verification tools.
Download: Briefing on US-Russian Nuclear Forces
.
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.
Empowering U.S. allies to do more so Washington can do and spend less sounds attractive. But enabling, or looking the other way at the spread of nuclear weapons is not in America’s interests anymore today than it was in the 20th century.
As long as nuclear weapons exist, nuclear war remains possible. The Nuclear Information Project provides transparency of global nuclear arsenals through open source analysis. It is through this data that policy makers can call for informed policy change.