U.S. Nuclear Weapons

We will spend what is necessary to maintain the safety, security and effectiveness of our weapons.

Weighing in on a long-simmering debate within the U.S. government, an influential panel of scientists has found “no evidence” that extending the lives of existing U.S. nuclear weapons leads to reduced confidence that the weapons will work. The panel, known as JASON, found that the “[l]ifetimes of today’s nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence,” according to an unclassified summary of the report.

The study could affect the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which is expected to address whether the United States can maintain its existing warhead designs or might need new ones. By reaffirming that the arsenal can be sustained without nuclear tests, the report could also bolster efforts by the Obama administration to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Congress largely approved President Barack Obama’s nuclear nonproliferation budget, with some small adjustments, when both chambers approved the fiscal year 2010 energy and water development appropriations bill last month.

On September 22, a day before President Barack Obama met with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in New York, 13 nongovernmental U.S. security experts released an open letter calling on the two leaders “to support a U.S. policy declaring that the only purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter, and if necessary respond to, the use of nuclear weapons by other countries.”