With the incoming U.S. administration of President-elect Barack Obama pledging to pursue a policy of "tough diplomacy" with Iran, including opening the possibility of direct talks with Tehran...
The 2008 National Defense Authorization Act requires the next secretary of defense, in consultation with the secretaries of energy and state, to conduct a comprehensive review of the nuclear weapons posture of the United States. (Continue)
In 2007 the United States again led the world in delivery of and sales agreements for conventional arms. In that year, the value of global transfer agreements rose to nearly $60 billion, up approximately $5 billion from 2006, with the majority of the increase coming in arrangements with developing countries. The value of global deliveries fell, however, according to the latest annual report by Congressional Research Service analyst Richard Grimmett. (Continue)
The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) as envisioned by the Bush administration is effectively dead. This past fall, for the second year in a row, the Democratic Congress zeroed out funding for the RRW program despite Bush administration claims that extending the life of the current warhead types in the U.S. nuclear stockpile would, at some distant point in the future, lead to a sharp uptick in aging-related defects. (Continue)
In an October 28 speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace entitled "Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence in the 21st Century," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted the continued importance of U.S. nuclear weapons for deterring possible opponents and for reassuring allies that they do not need to develop their own weapons. He argued that, to carry out these responsibilities, a Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) as well as a modernized complex for nuclear weapons that would allow the building of new weapons without nuclear explosion testing are needed. (Continue)
President-elect Obama's national security team will have to grapple with a number of issues, including U.S. policy on certain types of conventional munitions that harm civilians. An early decision will be how to respond to the new Convention on Cluster Munitions, which 100 or more world leaders are expected to sign beginning tomorrow in Oslo. (Continue)
For nearly 40 years, American presidents have expressed their intention to fulfill the U.S. obligation under the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue "effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." Still, few presidents have taken that goal seriously, and those who did missed historic opportunities to move closer toward a nuclear weapons-free world. (Continue)
With its time at the helm of U.S. nuclear policy dwindling, the Bush administration announced plans to discuss the expiring START agreement with Russia, which is pressing for a follow-on weapons-cutting treaty. But the outgoing Bush administration endorses a more modest approach and recently reiterated its case for revitalizing the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and developing a new generation of nuclear warheads. (Continue)
Congress adjourned in October without acting on proposed defense trade treaties inked in 2007 with
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in September that the Bush administration will leave the proliferation “situation…in far better shape than we found it.” If only this were true. Instead, Bush officials leave office like financiers fleeing busted Wall Street banks, with precious assets squandered on risky ventures, once-solid institutions crumbling, surpluses turned into gaping deficits, and a string of problems mismanaged into crises that threaten to bring down a decades-old global regime. (Continue)
Challenging conventional thinking is rarely popular, even or perhaps especially when it is most needed. So it has been with the Bush administration’s approach to arms control and nonproliferation issues. Determined to develop new approaches in arms control, nonproliferation, and strategic policy to deal with the new realities of a post-Cold War era, the administration found itself under fire from those determined to uphold traditional and often outmoded ways of thinking about these matters. Many of its critics doubtless now look forward to the Bush administration’s departure. (Continue)