by Ivanka Barzashka and Thomas M. Rickers Coaxed by Turkey and Brazil, Iran seems to be actively pursuing fuel talks. France, Russia and the U.S. (also known as the Vienna Group) claim that they, too, are interested in a deal, even as the U.S. and EU passed their own tougher sanctions against the Islamic Republic […]
The men behind a decade and a half of U.S. strategic nuclear planning say the New START treaty will enhance American national security. . By Hans M. Kristensen Seven former commanders of U.S. nuclear strategic planning have endorsed the New START treaty and recommended early ratification by the U.S. Senate. In a letter sent to […]
I have not written here on the New START treaty, in part because everything that can be said has been said, well, almost everything…see below. The treaty is in no way revolutionary. I don’t think Reagan would bat an eyelash at it. Yet, while there is widespread bipartisan support for the treaty, including almost all […]
by Ivanka Barzashka In response to sanctions, Iran’s parliament adopted the Nuclear Achievement Protection Bill on July 18. Among other things, the law requires the government to continue 20 percent enrichment and provide fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR). Although this aspect of the legislation has largely fallen below the news radar, it raises […]
Since February 2010, Iran has been enriching uranium to concentrations of 20 percent U-235. A stockpile of 130 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium would reduce, by more than half, Iran’s time to develop a bomb. A key unknown is whether Tehran will stop the higher enrichment and, if so, under what circumstances.
By Hans M. Kristensen The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has sent Congress the FY 2011 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (SSMP) with new information about what the administration plans to spend on maintaining and modernizing nuclear weapons and facilities over the next 15-20 years. FAS and UCS got hold of the unclassified sections of […]
Missile Watch A publication of the FAS Arms Sales Monitoring Project Vol. 3, Issue 2 June 2010 Editor: Matt Schroeder Contributing Author: Scoville Fellow Matt Buongiorno Contents: Global News: Survey of black market prices for shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles reveals large differences in missile prices Afghanistan: No shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles in seized Afghan arms caches, confirms […]
The global trade in ammunition for small arms and light weapons is worth an estimated $4.3 billion, according to a comprehensive new study released today. Findings from the study, which is co-authored by Matt Schroeder of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), appears as a chapter in Small Arms Survey 2010: Gangs, Groups, and Guns. […]
By Hans M. Kristensen The world’s nuclear weapon states possess an estimated 22,600 nuclear weapons, of which more than 7,500 are deployed. This and much more according to a chapter I co-authored in the latest yearbook from the Swedish International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Copyright prevents us from making a copy of the chapter available here, […]
by Alicia Godsberg The NPT Review Conference ended last Friday with the adoption by consensus of a Final Document that includes both a review of commitments and a forward looking action plan for nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and the promotion of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. In the early part of last week it was […]
Britain says it has 225 nuclear warheads for its Trident submarine fleet. . By Hans M. Kristensen The new British government today followed the French and U.S. examples by disclosing its total military stockpile of nuclear weapons. Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons that “the total number of warheads” in the “overall […]
Ivan Oelrich and Ivanka Barzashka Back in October, when Iran put in a request to the IAEA for a new load of fuel for its medical isotope reactor in Tehran, the United States proposed that Iran ship out an equivalent amount of its low enriched uranium (LEU) in exchange. It turns out, purely coincidentally, that […]