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“Right after I graduated, I interned with the Arms Control Association. It was terrific.”

– George Stephanopolous
ABC News
January 1, 2005
Press Releases

U.S. May Request Chemical Weapons Convention Inspections

Seth Brugger

The United States is considering calling for challenge inspections under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) but is concerned about the management of the treaty’s implementing body, according to a U.S. official.

During a February 11 interview with Arms Control Today, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton said that Washington is “thinking about the possibility of asking for challenge inspections.” (See interview.) In a separate interview, another administration official said that the United States is “actively considering” the issue and has identified “some candidates” for inspection.

To resolve concerns about another member state’s compliance with the CWC, which bans chemical arms, a state-party can request the convention’s implementing body, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), to investigate a suspect facility or activity. However, to date, no state has ever requested a challenge inspection.

Asked why the United States has not yet called for a challenge inspection, Bolton said that the OPCW “is a very troubled organization for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is its management. There are a whole host of issues raised by challenge inspections that require our attention and require also an effectively operating OPCW.”

The undersecretary added that the United States is currently focusing on the OPCW’s management “because, if those questions are not resolved, the organization itself will not be able to function effectively, and the whole CWC will not be able to function effectively…. [U]ntil we resolve these management issues, I think it would be risky to put a big burden on the OPCW.”

Bolton’s remarks follow a January 24 speech he gave to the UN Conference on Disarmament, in which he said that challenge inspections are a “flexible and indispensable tool that, if viewed realistically and used judiciously, can be instrumental in achieving the goals of the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
The undersecretary also cautioned countries the United States believes are violating the convention, saying, “You should not be smug in the assumption that your chemical warfare program will never be uncovered and exposed to the international community.”

Bolton also said that the United States has made “effective use” of provisions in the CWC that allow states to consult privately with one another to address compliance concerns, noting that the United States has conducted “several visits” at the invitation of other states to resolve compliance questions. However, he said that such consultations “are not a prerequisite for launching a challenge inspection.”

The United States has recently publicly named states it believes are violating their international commitments on biological and nuclear weapons, and Washington may next publicly name countries it thinks are violating the CWC, according to a U.S. official. U.S. agencies and officials have traditionally restricted such comments to reports or congressional testimony.

Iran is likely one country on which the United States is focusing. In past reports, Washington has said that Iran, a CWC member state, possesses weaponized stockpiles of chemical agents and is seeking to improve its chemical arms capabilities. Furthermore, in his January 29 State of the Union speech President George W. Bush identified Iran, along with North Korea and Iraq—neither of which have joined the CWC regime—as a country that is pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

   

Next U.S. Missile Defense Test To Have Three Decoys

Wade Boese

The Pentagon is planning to make its next attempt to destroy a mock strategic warhead in space more challenging than previous ground-based midcourse missile defense tests by increasing the number of balloon decoys accompanying the target from one to three.

In past intercept tests, the Pentagon has deployed only a single large balloon decoy with the target warhead, but in a test scheduled for mid-March, two smaller Mylar balloons will also be deployed, according to a spokesperson from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), the body overseeing U.S. missile defense efforts.

The next test will mark the sixth intercept attempt for the Pentagon’s ground-based midcourse system, which has scored three hits in five attempts since October 1999. The last test, a hit, occurred December 3.

Days before that test, Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, the MDA’s director, told reporters that, if the test succeeded, the Pentagon would have greater “confidence to move on to more aggressive and complicated [testing] efforts.” He said that the “obvious” way of making tests tougher would be to add “more countermeasure type of activity.”

A decoy is one kind of countermeasure that a potential adversary could use to try to circumvent a future U.S. missile defense system. Another would be hiding a warhead in a cloud of radar-reflecting chaff.

Previously known as the national missile defense system, the ground-based midcourse system is comprised of a powerful booster that carries an exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) into space to collide with an incoming target. The Pentagon plans for the system ultimately to use a combination of satellite systems and an advanced radar, none of which currently exist, to track and discriminate warheads and decoys. The EKV is also equipped with infrared sensors to help it select the right target in the final seconds before a collision. During tests, the Pentagon has preprogrammed the EKV with information about test objects, such as their relative brightness, to help it strike the proper target.

Missile defense testing plans in 1997 called for 9-10 objects, including balloons of various sizes, to accompany a mock warhead in early intercept testing. But the Pentagon reduced that number to three balloons in 1998 and then to one in July 1999. Critics of missile defense charged that the Pentagon deliberately “dumbed down” the tests to avoid failure because it knew the system would be unable to pick out the mock warhead among so many objects.

Pentagon officials defended the reduction in decoys, contending that it is wise to start with tests with as few variables as possible so that, if something went wrong, it would be easier to identify the problem and fix it. The Pentagon said that testing would be made incrementally tougher once the system proved capable of hitting a target in space.

The MDA spokesperson said that including two smaller balloons in the next test would “further stress” the defense system’s EKV and prototype X-band radar, which relays updated target-tracking information to the EKV.

In interviews, two former top Pentagon officials from the Clinton administration concurred. Jacques Gansler, a former undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, stated that the additional balloons would “add discrimination complexity for both the [X-band] radar and the interceptor.”

Philip Coyle, former director of the Defense Department’s office of operational test and evaluation, said that adding the two small balloons would give the missile defense system a “more complicated” view. However, Coyle also said that, although introducing the two small balloon decoys into testing moves the program in a more aggressive direction, the Pentagon still has “a long way to go.”

Describing the two small balloon decoys as “unsophisticated” countermeasures, Coyle said that, if the new balloons’ diameters are about the same as the target, they might appear to the missile defense system as similar to the mock warhead in “some viewing angles, but not the correct overall shape or reflectivity.”

No Deal Reached on Chinese Missile Proliferation

Alex Wagner

During a February 21-22 state visit to China, President George W. Bush failed to resolve concerns about Beijing’s implementation of a deal to curb Chinese missile proliferation, despite a recent report that agreement could be within reach.

The Bush administration contends that China has repeatedly violated a November 2000 agreement in which Beijing committed not to help states develop “in any way…ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons” and to enact a comprehensive missile and missile-technology export control system. (See ACT, December 2000.)

As recently as January, the CIA accused China of breaching its commitments under the deal, noting that during the first half of 2001, China provided Pakistan with “missile-related technical assistance” and that Chinese firms transferred “dual-use missile-related items, raw materials, and/or assistance” to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said that the United States wants China to design and implement a national export control law that was required by the November 2000 agreement. Beijing has yet to do so and, according to a February 27 New York Times report, insists that the United States first meet a promise it made under the deal to resume processing applications for U.S. companies to launch their satellites on Chinese rockets, a process that has been suspended since February 2000. This would require Washington to waive sanctions that bar the United States from exporting satellites to China for launch. Beijing also wants Washington to lift sanctions levied on a Chinese firm in September 2001 for missile proliferation. (See ACT, September 2001.)

Rice also said that Washington wants China to cease implementing missile-related contracts signed prior to the November 2000 deal, but China appears unwilling to meet that demand. “The agreement is for the future, not the past,” according to an unnamed Chinese Foreign Ministry official quoted in a February 26 Associated Press report.

A New York Times report appearing the day of Bush’s first meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin cited a senior White House official as “hopeful” that Beijing would meet Washington’s demands in exchange for waiving the satellite-export sanctions. However, after a meeting between Bush and Jiang on February 21, Rice said, “There is no agreement, but…work is underway.” Three rounds of working-level talks have been held to date, most recently in late November. (See ACT, January/February 2002.)

Clark Randt, the U.S. ambassador to China, highlighted the importance Washington places on Chinese missile proliferation in a January 21 speech in Hong Kong to the Asia Society. “I should be crystal clear on this point, that nonproliferation is a make-or-break issue for us,” Randt said. He added that, given the events of September 11, the “stakes are much higher than ever before [and]…the type of activities that possibly had been going on can no longer be tolerated.”

Both sides are prepared to resume discussions when China’s chief arms control negotiator, Liu Jieyi, is in Washington March 4-5 to attend a conference of high-level U.S. and Chinese arms control officials and scholars.

Congressional Budget Office Projects Missile Defense Costs

Wade Boese

Fulfilling a research request made by senior Senate Democrats last year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report January 31 estimating that separate ground-, sea-, and space-based missile defenses would each cost tens of billions of dollars to complete.

The nonpartisan CBO reported that deploying a ground-based defense would total $23-64 billion between 2002 and 2015, depending on the number of missile interceptors involved. A stand-alone sea-based system would run $43-55 billion to reach operational capability by 2015, and an independent space-based laser system would cost approximately $56-68 billion between 2002 and 2025. The $7-9 billion already appropriated for the ground- and sea-based systems between 1996 and 2001 was not included in the CBO numbers.

Once the systems are deployed, CBO predicted that the annual cost for operating a ground-based defense of 100 missile interceptors after 2015 would be about $600 million, while upkeep of such a system numbering 375 missile interceptors would be around $1.4 billion. Maintaining a sea-based system after 2015 would cost about $1 billion per year, and keeping a space-based laser system functioning after it was deployed by 2025 would require an estimated $300 million each year.

The Bush administration is seeking to deploy layered missile defenses that might include all of these systems in order to maximize the chances of shooting down a ballistic missile during its entire flight. CBO warned against adding the separate figures together to arrive at an overall price tag for a layered system because, if deployed together, the systems could share some components, sensors, and research and development, thereby cutting costs.

CBO also expressed difficulty with calculating missile defense costs in general, claiming there was “substantial uncertainty” between existing programs and what the Bush administration might ultimately deploy. In addition, the report stated that “no detailed deployment plans or schedules exist” for most of the systems that CBO was asked to assess.

CBO offered no cost estimates for two systems, a sea-based boost-phase system and a revived “Brilliant Pebbles” system. CBO explained that it could not make a “credible” estimate on the sea-based boost-phase system because it was still in a “conceptual stage,” and it reported that the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization claimed in June 2001 that there were no plans to “reconstitute” the Brilliant Pebbles program, an initiative proposed by the first Bush administration that called for deploying 500-1,000 missile interceptors in space. But the CBO report also noted that the current administration is researching space-based interceptors and wants to conduct a space-based test around 2005 or 2006.

Responding to the report on January 31, Senators Tom Daschle (D-SD), Kent Conrad (D-ND), and Carl Levin (D-MI) called on the Bush administration to provide “detailed information on its missile defense plans” so Congress could compare missile defense costs with other defense programs. The senators worried that pursuit of such “costly” systems could divert funds away from programs aimed at countering threats they said are more likely and urgent than a ballistic missile attack.

Pentagon Requests $7.8 Billion in Missile Defense Funding

Wade Boese

The Pentagon announced February 1 that it is asking Congress for $7.8 billion in missile defense funding for fiscal year 2003, approximately the same amount it received in December 2001 for current missile defense spending.

If fully approved by Congress, the bulk of the funding request, roughly $6.7 billion, would be allocated to the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA), formerly known as the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. Another $817 million would be distributed to the Army for the Patriot theater missile defense system and the remaining $300 million would be used for theater and tactical missile defense operations planning by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The $7.8 billion total does not include a requested $814 million for research and development of the Air Force’s Space-Based Infrared System-High, which will employ four satellites to provide early warning of global ballistic missile launches.

All MDA funding is for research and development and testing activities. Once a particular system or technology is deemed ready for procurement, one of the military services will take responsibility for the funding and fielding of the proven hardware and software.

About half of the MDA funding request, $3.2 billion, is geared for developing systems to intercept missiles during the midcourse of their flight, when they are moving through space. Of that amount, $534 million is targeted for expanding the current missile defense testing area by building a new missile interceptor site in Alaska.

Almost $800 million was requested for exploring systems to intercept missiles during their boost phase, when the rockets are still firing, while the Pentagon wants only about $170 million to research interception during the terminal stage, after the missile’s warhead has re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

Navy Theater Missile Defense Test Successful

Wade Boese

On January 25, a U.S. Navy ship successfully launched a missile interceptor carrying a warhead that collided with a ballistic missile target about 160 kilometers above the Pacific Ocean. The intercept, which the Pentagon predicted as “probable” prior to the test because of the planned flight paths of the two objects, marked the first hit for the sea-based system.

In the test, which the Pentagon described as a “controlled developmental test and not operationally representative,” an Aries target missile was launched from Kauai, Hawaii. Six minutes later, the U.S.S. Lake Erie fired the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3). Approximately two minutes and 250 kilometers later, the SM-3’s warhead struck the Aries target. The test objective was to test the warhead’s guidance, navigation, and control, but not to achieve an intercept.

The January test, the system’s fourth, took place just a little more than a month after the Pentagon cancelled a separate sea-based missile defense program because of spiraling costs and poor performance. Unlike the cancelled system, which employed a blast-fragmentation warhead, the system in the January test, formerly called Navy Theater Wide but now referred to as the sea-based midcourse ballistic missile defense system, uses a kinetic warhead, which destroys a target through force of impact rather than an explosion.

Pentagon plans call for the next test of the sea-based system this June, in what will be considered the program’s first intercept attempt. A Pentagon spokesperson interviewed February 6 said the target and missile trajectories in the upcoming test would repeat those in the January test.

Current sea-based system testing is geared toward defending against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, but the Bush administration wants to develop a sea-based capability to protect against long-range ballistic missiles as well. The Pentagon spokesperson said that, at this time, there is no date for when the sea-based system could potentially be tested against long-range targets. Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, who directs the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, told reporters last July that sea-based systems could potentially be tested against long-range targets in the “‘07 and ‘08 time frame.”

The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty prohibits the development, testing, and deployment of sea-, space-, air-, and mobile land-based defenses against long-range ballistic missiles. Because he wants the freedom to explore a layered defense possibly consisting of these barred systems, President George W. Bush announced on December 13 the U.S. intention to withdraw from the treaty in six months.

Bush Administration Reaffirms Negative Security Assurances

Philipp C. Bleek

On February 22, the State Department reiterated a longstanding U.S. policy that restricts the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-armed states, after a senior arms control official cast doubt on the Bush administration’s support for the pledge.

Responding to a question at a press briefing, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher repeated a 1995 version of a commitment first made in 1978: “The United States reaffirms that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon state parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons [NPT], except in the case of an invasion or any other attack on the United States, its territories, its armed forces or other troops, its allies or on a state toward which it has a security commitment, carried out or sustained by such a non-nuclear weapon state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.”

Boucher subsequently qualified the pledge, saying, “We will do whatever is necessary to deter the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its allies, and its interests. If a weapon of mass destruction is used against the United States or its allies, we will not rule out any specific type of military response.”

The United States first formally enunciated the nuclear pledge, known as a “negative security assurance,” in 1978 and reiterated it in slightly less restrictive form prior to the 1995 NPT review and extension conference to encourage the non-nuclear-weapon states to support the indefinite extension of the treaty. Similar pledges were made by the other four NPT nuclear-weapon states and subsequently noted in a UN Security Council resolution.

However, despite the language in the negative security assurance—and consistent with Boucher’s qualification of the pledge—U.S. officials have repeatedly refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons in response to biological or chemical weapon attacks. For example, in April 1996 Defense Secretary William Perry said that if “some nation were to attack the United States with chemical weapons, then they would have to fear the consequences of a response from any weapon in our inventory.”

U.S. diplomats have tended to emphasize the negative security assurances policy in international forums, such as arms control negotiations, while the Defense Department has enunciated its purposefully ambiguous qualification of the pledge in response to specific perceived threats, such as during the Persian Gulf War when it was feared Iraq might use chemical or biological weapons against U.S. troops.

Boucher’s comments came after John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, questioned the value of negative security assurances in a February 11 interview with Arms Control Today, saying that they are not “terribly helpful in analyzing what our security needs may be in the real world.” Bolton argued that such security commitments “were made in a very different geostrategic context” and indicated that they would be reviewed prior to the next NPT review conference in 2005. (See interview.)

Bolton subsequently told The Washington Times that “we are not ruling anything in and we are not ruling anything out.” He continued, “We are just not into theoretical assertions that other administrations have made.”

Questioned about Bolton’s comments to The Washington Times, which appeared in a February 21 article, Boucher said that the undersecretary had in fact been “reiterating” the longstanding U.S. policy on negative security assurances and that there has been “no change in U.S. policy.”

Threat Reduction Funding Increase Requested

Philipp C. Bleek

After requesting cuts for threat reduction and nonproliferation programs last year, the Bush administration has asked Congress to increase funding for the efforts to downsize and secure weapons of mass destruction materials and expertise in the former Soviet Union.

U.S. nonproliferation efforts have received increased attention in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the increase in requested funding was foreshadowed in late December by the release of a White House review that concluded that most threat reduction programs “work well, are focused on priority tasks, and are well managed.” (See ACT, January/February 2002.)

Submitted to Congress February 4, the administration’s fiscal year 2003 budget requests $417 million for the Defense Department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs, a slight increase from the fiscal year 2002 level of $403 million but still below the $443 million allocated for fiscal year 2001 by the Clinton administration. Recent fluctuations in funding for CTR efforts have been due at least in part to budgeting technicalities and changes in program requirements.

The administration’s request calls for a more substantial increase for threat reduction programs run by the Department of Energy. For fiscal year 2003, the Bush administration budgeted approximately $1.1 billion for the department’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account, about half of which is allocated for threat reduction efforts in Russia. The nonproliferation account received about $1 billion for 2002, but that sum includes $226 million of supplemental funding added by Congress in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, making the administration’s request a substantial increase above the regular 2002 appropriation.

The budget also asks for $103 million for three State Department nonproliferation programs, approximately the same amount the programs received for 2002.

The total 2003 threat reduction budget represents the most funding requested for the initiatives in a single year. However, during a February 5 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Chairman Joseph Biden (D-DE) called the planned increase “very, very small,” contrasting threat reduction funding with the approximately $8 billion requested for defense against ballistic missiles, which Biden noted the intelligence community considers the least likely threat against the United States.

Powell agreed that the requested increase is small but noted that the programs’ capacity to absorb additional funds is limited. Powell also said that “we’re looking at other ways of increasing the funding,” such as “debt relief.” Senators Biden and Richard Lugar (R-IN) have championed a bill that would allow Russia to write off some Soviet-era debt in exchange for nonproliferation commitments. Approved by the Senate in December, the bill must now be considered in the House.

States Meet to Discuss Ballistic Missile Code of Conduct

Alex Wagner

In an effort to stem further missile proliferation, 86 countries met in Paris February 7-8 to discuss a proposed draft “code of conduct” that would offer confidence-building measures to states willing to restrain their ballistic missiles programs.

Currently, there is no international prohibition against development or deployment of ballistic missiles. When finalized, the code would create a series of general, voluntary political commitments under which states would agree to exercise restraint in developing, testing, and deploying ballistic missiles and would also pledge “necessary vigilance” in curbing assistance to space-launch programs that could advance missile development.

In return, the code, which would be open to all countries, would offer adherents increased transparency in missile systems and programs and other confidence-building measures. If subscribing states also pledged to eliminate their ballistic missile programs and commit to forgo future missile development efforts, the code would “provide on a voluntary and case-by-case basis” unspecified incentives, “as appropriate.”

Many experts have questioned how the code will be able to attract key subscribers absent specific incentives to undertake such a commitment. However, a European diplomat expressed other ambitions, saying that it is hoped that the code, which he termed a “modest initiative,” would create “a norm against missile proliferation.”

Members of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)—a voluntary regime that seeks to restrict proliferation by limiting its members’ missile exports—conceived of the code in 1999 as a means to address the demand for missiles. MTCR adherents finished a draft code at a September 2001 plenary session, where France offered to chair a future conference to discuss and unveil the proposal.

The Paris meeting offered states a forum to review the code and to discuss the broader issue of missile proliferation in a multilateral forum. Those attending included almost all the world’s possessors of ballistic missile systems, including the United States, all EU member states, Russia, China, Iran, India, and Pakistan. Of those countries invited, only North Korea and Syria declined; Iraq was not invited.

Calling the meeting a success in a February 8 Foreign Ministry statement, France emphasized the conference’s widespread attendance and noted the “high level of debate” and that “all the participants adopted a constructive approach.” However, one source familiar with the conference said the proceedings were not without contention. Some participants reportedly wanted the code to ban all military ballistic missile systems, while others thought that the code did not offer enough incentives for states to join and questioned whether MTCR members should offer adhering states space-launch technology. The code was not made public at the conference’s end.

Several sources familiar with the conference said that the U.S. delegation did not participate in the discussions, a claim denied by a State Department official during an interview. In a February 11 press release, the State Department said that the United States helped initiate the draft code with France and the other MTCR countries and supports the code as a way “to create a widely subscribed international predisposition against ballistic missile proliferation.” The draft code is “intended to supplement, not supplant” the MTCR’s work, the State Department noted.

France recently completed a chairman’s summary of the meeting and distributed it to participating capitals. According to a French diplomat, France is currently working on a second draft of the code that “aims to reflect points of view put forward in Paris.” Revisions can only be made by consensus.

Spain, which currently holds the EU presidency, offered to host a follow-up meeting this summer. Official presentation of the code is expected before the end of 2002 at a conference hosted by the Netherlands.

In an effort to stem further missile proliferation, 86 countries met in Paris February 7-8 to discuss a proposed draft “code of conduct” that would offer confidence-building measures to states willing to restrain their ballistic missiles programs. (Continue)

Democrats Criticize Nuclear Posture Review

Philipp C. Bleek

Disagreeing with their Republican colleagues, leading Democratic lawmakers sharply criticized the Bush administration’s recently released nuclear posture review, charging that the administration’s plans perpetuate outdated nuclear policies.

In a contentious February 14 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) was joined by several Democratic colleagues in arguing that the administration was failing to substantially reduce nuclear forces and make a meaningful break with Cold War nuclear policies, as administration officials have argued they are doing. (See ACT, January/February 2002.)

Levin pointed out that the administration intends to maintain a force structure nearly identical to the one recommended by the previous nuclear posture review, conducted in 1994, and that U.S. bomber and submarine forces would remain “exactly the same.” Testifying at the hearing, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith agreed with that characterization but noted that “operationally deployed warheads” would be reduced by about 65 percent under the Bush administration’s plan, which calls for the United States to reduce its 6,000 deployed strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by 2012.

But Levin pointed out that the administration has said it would store most of the warheads removed from deployed forces and that maintaining the delivery vehicles—missiles, bombers, and submarines—would allow them to be “reinserted.” When Feith subsequently argued that the administration was moving beyond the Cold War “balance of terror” between the United States and the Soviet Union, Levin quipped that it was simply substituting “warehouse terror.”

Responding to repeated queries from Levin, Feith indicated that “some” warheads would be destroyed but later said that “the warheads, by and large, are not going to be destroyed.” Exactly how many warheads would be dismantled has yet to be decided, Feith indicated. Levin argued that this approach makes it “highly unlikely that Russia will destroy its nuclear warheads” slated for reduction and said this poses a proliferation threat.

Moscow has called for reductions in U.S. and Russian strategic forces to be both verifiable and irreversible. Feith treated the latter goal dismissively, saying, “There is no such thing as irreversibility” and that “a state that destroys warheads could manufacture new warheads.” The undersecretary also pointed out that Russia maintains a “large infrastructure” that is “capable of producing large numbers of new nuclear weapons annually.” The United States, on the other hand, “has not produced a new nuclear weapon in a decade” and will not be able to do so for “nearly a decade,” he said.

Others Democratic lawmakers echoed Levin’s concerns. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) expressed concern that by moving warheads into storage rather than destroying them, the administration might just be “rearranging the furniture.” And colleague Daniel Akaka (D-HI) argued that “no substantial reduction in nuclear weapons is being proposed in this review.”

Key Republican senators sought to counter their Democratic colleagues’ sentiments, expressing strong support for the administration. Saying the study represented a “breakthrough,” Senator John Warner (R-VA) indicated in a statement read by colleague Wayne Allard (R-CO) that he thought the review addressed in an “innovative way” the improved relationship with Russia and the increased threat of weapons of mass destruction proliferation. And Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) argued for maintaining “clear superiority,” suggesting that locking in “low numbers” and destroying warheads might encourage other nations to try to “reach parity with us in nuclear weaponry.”

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