By Hans M. Kristensen Today I spoke at the Nuclear Deterrence Summit about the role and challenges of US-Russian nuclear arms control efforts. My panel partner was Mark Schneider from NIPP and we were under the competent chairmanship of Vice Admiral Van Mauney (US Navu, Ret.), the former deputy commander of US Strategic Command. My […]
President Donald Trump in an interview with Reuters today demonstrated an astounding lack of knowledge about basic nuclear weapons issues. According to Reuters Trump said he wanted to build up the US nuclear arsenal to ensure it is at the “top of the pack.” He said the United States has “fallen behind on nuclear weapons capacity.” […]
President Donald Trump in an interview with Reuters today demonstrated an astounding lack of knowledge about basic nuclear weapons issues. According to Reuters Trump said he wanted to build up the US nuclear arsenal to ensure it is at the “top of the pack.” He said the United States has “fallen behind on nuclear weapons capacity.” […]
By Hans M. Kristensen The Obama administration has unilaterally cut the number of nuclear weapons in the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons stockpile to 4,018 warheads, a reduction of 553 warheads since September 2015. The reduction was disclosed by Vice President Joe Biden during a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace earlier today. This means that […]
In our latest Nuclear Notebook on Pakistani nuclear forces, Robert Norris and I estimate that Pakistan has produced an estimated stockpile of 130-140 nuclear warheads for delivery by short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and fighter-bombers. Pakistan now identifies with what is described as a full-spectrum nuclear deterrent posture, which is though to include […]
By Hans M. Kristensen Republicans love nuclear weapons reductions, as long as they’re not proposed by a Democratic president. That is the lesson from decades of US nuclear weapons and arms control management. If that trend continues, then we can expect the new Donald Trump administration to reduce the US nuclear weapons arsenal more than […]
Arms control agreements that envision the verified dismantlement of nuclear weapons require the availability of suitable technology to perform the verification. But they also depend on the good faith of the participants and a shared sense of confidence in the integrity of the verification process. An exercise in demonstrated warhead dismantlement showed that such confidence […]
By Hans M. Kristensen The latest set of so-called New START treaty aggregate data published by the U.S. State Department shows that Russia is continuing to increase the number of nuclear warheads it deploys on its declining inventory of strategic launchers. Russia now has 259 warheads more deployed than when the treaty entered into force in […]
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 […]
CBS’s 60 Minutes program Risk of Nuclear Attack Rises described that Russia may be lowering the threshold for when it would use nuclear weapons, and showed how U.S. nuclear bombers have started flying missions they haven’t flown since the Cold War.
By Hans M. Kristensen The U.S. Air Force today sent two non-nuclear B-1 bombers to overfly South Korea in response to North Korea’s recent nuclear test. The operation coincides with the deployment of two non-nuclear B-1 bombers and a recently denuclearized B-52 bomber to Europe for exercise Ample Strike. To be sure, nuclear bombers continue […]
A longstanding conundrum surrounding efforts to negotiate reductions in nuclear arsenals is how to verify the physical destruction of nuclear warheads to the satisfaction of an opposing party without disclosing classified weapons design information. Now some potential new solutions to this challenge are emerging. Based on tests that were conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission […]