As passed by the House of Representatives (Table numbers in parentheses are increases or decreases from the FY22 Request) Total National Defense Discretionary Spending (050) Allocation FY21 Enacted FY22 Request HASC Authorization DoD Discretionary Base $635.5 billion $715 billion $739.5 billion DoE Discretionary Base $26.6 billion $27.9 billion $28.2 billion Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)* $69 billion […]
NATO 2030: What the new Strategic Concept should say about nuclear weapons
By Shane Ward Eleven years after its last Strategic Concept, NATO faces its most critical self-assessment since the Cold War. “Our security environment is more complex and contested than ever before,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated earlier this year. “We are adapting to a more competitive world.” The new Strategic Concept, which establishes NATO’s “enduring […]
Breaking down the jargon: nuclear programs, uranium and plutonium
By Samuel M. Hickey According to the Critical Issues poll done by the University of Maryland, a large majority of Americans across the political spectrum believe that Iran possesses nuclear weapons. It does NOT. Iran conducts nuclear research, contrary to its international commitments, into technologies with weapons applications, but it has not yet taken steps […]
Fact Sheet: The Civilian and Military Characteristics of Plutonium
Nuclear weapons require fissile materials, that is certain isotopes of uranium and plutonium, to sustain explosive fission chain reactions. Plutonium for weapons is normally obtained by reprocessing. Reprocessing is the separation of plutonium from irradiated uranium, often in the spent fuel from a nuclear reactor. The process was originally developed in the United States as […]
Fact Sheet: Uranium Enrichment: For Peace or for Weapons
Centrifuge technology is at the heart of the enrichment process, and the line between its uses for civilian and military purposes is hard to distinguish. Once a country has mastered this technology, the centrifuges can be reconfigured into cascades to either produce fuel for an electricity-generating nuclear reactor or the 25 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium […]
