by Kingston Reif “We know there is nearly 2,000 metric tons of this [nuclear] material spread across hundreds of sites in 25 countries, and we know much of it is not effectively secured. We know that terrorists would only need enough highly enriched uranium to fit into a 5-pound bag of sugar or an amount […]
Obama’s nuclear legacy on the line
by Kingston Reif Published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Online on February 27, 2013. Article summary below; read the full text here. For all the well-justified praise US President Barack Obama has received for his efforts to roll back the Iranian nuclear threat, the rest of his nuclear security agenda has stalled. Obama famously […]
Fact Sheet: FY 2014 Budget Request and Appropriations for Replacement Nuclear Delivery Systems and Warhead Life Extension Programs
by Kingston Reif On January 17 the President signed the Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 Omnibus appropriations bill (H.R. 3457 or the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014). The charts below outline the FY 2014 budget request and Congressional appropriations for the Obama administration’s current plans to rebuild the nuclear triad and its associated warheads and their supporting […]
The Defense That Does not Defend: More problems for national missile defense
by Kingston Reif America’s troubled national ballistic missile defense system just found more trouble. For the first time, the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Dr. Michael Gilmore, has determined that this system, known as Ground Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), may be too flawed to save. In his Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 report to […]
Analysis of the FY 2014 National Defense Authorization Bill, H.R. 3304
by Kingston Reif, Laicie Heeley, and John Isaacs Senate and House negotiators have agreed on a Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Bill, H.R. 3304, that was negotiated between the two Armed Services Committees. This tactic was chosen after the Senate failed to agree to limit the number of amendments on the Senate floor before the […]
