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U.S. Nuclear Weapons

  • Don't Hold New START Hostage to Budget Battles
    Issue Briefs
    May 16, 2012

    Volume 3, Issue 8, May 16, 2012

    This week, the House of Representatives will debate and vote on the annual defense authorization bill, which in its current form would hold up implementation of the 2010 New START Treaty unless Congress increases spending on nuclear weapons activities that the Pentagon did not request and does not want.
  • Groups Call On White House To Update Outdated Nuclear Policy
    Press Room
    May 14, 2012

    (WASHINGTON, D.C.)—Representatives of various groups advocating nuclear arms reductions, presented a petition with over 50,000 signatures to the White House. The appeal--circulated between February and April--urges President Obama to reduce the role and number of nuclear weapons as he makes a once-in-a-decade decision on Presidential nuclear weapons policy “guidance.”
  • More Money for Yesterday's Weapons?
    Issue Briefs
    May 8, 2012

    Volume 3, Issue 7, May 8, 2012

    Tomorrow, the House Armed Services Committee is scheduled to approve its version of the fiscal year (FY) 2013 defense authorization bill. Committee chair Buck McKeon (R-Cal.) and strategic forces chair Michael Turner (R-Ohio) are expected to add $3.7 billion more than the Defense Department requested. This includes hundreds of millions of dollars for nuclear weapons and missile defense programs that the military does not want and the nation cannot afford.
  • Controlling Proliferation: An Interview With Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman
    Interviews
    May 2, 2012

    Thomas Countryman took office as assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation on September 27, 2011. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1982. While serving in the U.S. mission to the United Nations in the mid-1990s, he was the mission’s liaison with the UN Special Commission investigating Iraq's unconventional weapons programs.
  • The NATO Summit: Recasting the Debate Over U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe
    Arms Control Today
    May 2, 2012

    Oliver Meier is a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg and international representative of the Arms Control Association. Paul Ingram is executive director of the British American Security Information Council. The authors would like to thank the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for its support, which made research for this article possible.
  • Holding New START Hostage
    Issue Briefs
    April 20, 2012

    Volume 3, Issue 6, April 20, 2012

    In the next few weeks, the Republican leadership on the House Armed Services Committee is expected to try to block implementation of the New START Treaty unless the Obama administration agrees to further increase spending on the U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure. This type of partisan "hostage taking" threatens to undermine U.S. national security, ignores budget reality, and defies common sense.
  • Op-Ed: Opponents of Nuclear Cuts Misread Trends
    Press Room
    April 18, 2012

    The press recently reported that the Pentagon is preparing options for President Barack Obama as part of the Nuclear Posture Review implementation study. The mere notion of restructuring U.S. nuclear forces unleashed panicked reactions from Capitol Hill’s most ardent nuclear weapons enthusiasts.
  • Band of Brothers Against the Bomb
    Arms Control Today
    April 3, 2012

    On the evening of October 12, 1986, as the Reykjavik summit between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev broke up, a huge crowd of journalists, including myself, waited expectantly, not knowing of the drama that had unfolded over the previous two days. When Secretary of State George Shultz took the podium at the press conference, I noticed the U.S. arms control negotiator, Max Kampelman, standing off in the wings. His face sagged with disappointment. Shultz then went on to describe how the two leaders had come close to the deal of the century—to eliminate all nuclear weapons—before breaking up in disagreement over limits on Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.
  • Technical Study on Test Ban Cites Progress
    Arms Control Today
    April 3, 2012

    A U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee report reviewing technical issues related to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has concluded that the U.S. nuclear weapons Stockpile Stewardship Program “has been more successful than was anticipated in 1999,” when the Senate last considered and voted on the CTBT.
  • GOP Raps Obama on Nuclear Budget
    Arms Control Today
    April 3, 2012

    Leading congressional Republicans are threatening to block implementation of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in response to what they say is a failure by the Obama administration to request adequate funding for the modernization of U.S. nuclear forces.