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 […]
Do You Even Have to HASC: House Republicans Still Love the Bomb
by Kingston Reif Just when you thought the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee (HASC) couldn’t possibly go any crazier on nuclear weapons and missile defense, it doubled down on its fanaticism during last week’s mark up of the FY 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The result is a bill that if passed into law […]
Fact Sheet: The New START Treaty
By Sam Kane and Kingston Reif WHAT IS THE NEW START TREATY? • The New START treaty is a nuclear arms reduction agreement between the United States and Russia. It was signed in April 2010, approved by the US Senate in December 2010, and entered into force in February 2011. WHAT ARE THE TERMS OF […]
