By Lesley McNiesh *When the Soviet Union dissolved, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine inherited the nuclear weapons that had been stored on their territory. However, all three states agreed to return these weapons to Russia, with Ukraine being the last to do so in 1994. **South Africa had an extremely secretive nuclear program in the 1980’s. […]
Fact Sheet: New START and Nuclear Modernization Funding
by Kingston Reif Background As part of his effort to win Republican support for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in 2010, President Obama submitted to lawmakers a 10-year plan to maintain and modernize US nuclear warheads, strategic delivery systems, and their supporting infrastructure. Contained in what was originally known as the “Section […]
Fact Sheet: President Obama’s Berlin Speech and New Nuclear Weapons Policy Guidance
by Kingston Reif Background -The President in 2009 and the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) articulated the goal of reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons in US security strategy to comport with the 21st century security environment. In 2011 the President asked the Pentagon to lead an interagency review to develop several alternative […]
Blown Opportunity: The Folly of Exempting Nuclear Weapons from Sequestration
by Kingston Reif While there is widespread agreement that sequestration is not a wise way to manage reductions in military spending, it is the law of the land. Unless Congress changes the legislation, the Pentagon will be forced to find $500 billion in spending reductions over the next decade beyond what is has already planned. […]
Don’t blame Moscow
Published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Online on August 5, 2013. Article summary below; read the full text here. On July 12, the US State Department released a major annual report on arms control compliance that has riled up nuclear weapons hawks. In its annual “Report on Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control, […]
