![]() And the Russian government has rejected additional reductions while New START is being implemented (although we estimate Russia during the Obama administration has reduced its own stockpile by more than 1,000 warheads). An entrenched and almost ideologically opposed Congress has fought his arms reduction vision every step of the way. His vision of significant reductions and putting an end to Cold War thinking has been undercut by opposition ranging from Congress to the Kremlin. To be fair, it is not all President Obama’s fault. Not least because the administration’s nuclear weapons modernization program has been anything but modest. nuclear weapons stockpile less than any other post-Cold War president and nuclear warhead dismantlement has declined on his watch.įor the arms control community (and that includes several important US allies, including Japan) the Obama administration’s modest performance on reducing the number of nuclear weapons – despite the New START Treaty – is a disappointment. President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima takes place in the shadow of his nuclear weapons legacy: he has reduced the U.S. Yet in the same time period NNSA has committed to several other big warhead jobs that will compete with dismantlement work over the capacity at Pantex, including: complete production of the W76-1 by 2019, start up production of the B61-12 and W88 Alt 370 in 2020, preparation for the start up of the W80-4 in 2025, as well as the ongoing disassembly and reassembly for inspection of the existing warhead types in the stockpile. ![]() The several hundred additional warheads that will be retired before then will take several additional years to dismantle. With the Obama administration’s average of about 280 warheads dismantled per year, it will take at least until 2024 before the total current backlog is dismantled. NNSA says it plans to “increase weapons dismantlement by 20 percent starting in FY 2018” to be able to complete dismantlement of warheads retired prior to 2009 before the end of September 2021. There are currently roughly 2,300 retired warheads awaiting dismantlement, most of which were retired prior to 2009. Nuclear warhead dismantlement has decreased during the Obama administration. Click to view full size But even so, the Obama administration’s performance comes in significantly below that of all other post-Cold War administrations (see table). To overcome that bias we also compare the reductions in terms of the percentage the stockpile size changed during the various administrations. After all, there are significantly fewer warheads left in the stockpile today compared with 1991 (in fact, 14,437 warheads fewer!) so why wouldn’t the Obama administration be retiring fewer warheads than previous post-Cold War administrations? It can be deceiving to assess stockpile reduction performance by only comparing numbers of warheads. The increase probably reflects a quicker than anticipated retirement of excess warheads for the navy’s Trident missiles. The reason for the difference is that the number of warheads retired in 2014-2015 turned out to be higher than the average retirement in the previous three-year period. The declassified 2015 number is about 100 warheads lower than the number we estimated in our latest Nuclear Notebook. That means the Obama administration so far has reduced the stockpile by 702 warheads (or 13 percent) compared with the last count of the Bush administration.Īlthough 702 warheads is no small number (other than Russia, no other nuclear-armed state has more than 300 warheads), the reduction constitutes the smallest reduction of the stockpile achieved by any previous post-Cold War administration (see table). ![]() The declassified data shows that the stockpile as of September 2015 included 4,571 warheads. The declassification puts a shadow over the Hiroshima visit by reminding everyone about the considerable challenges that remain in reducing excessive nuclear arsenals – not to mention the daunting goal of eliminating nuclear weapons altogether. ![]() stockpile less than any other post-Cold War administration, and that the number of warheads dismantled in 2015 was lowest since President Obama took office. Those numbers show that the Obama administration has reduced the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and warhead dismantlements. nuclear bombs in 1945, the Pentagon has declassified and published updated numbers for the U.S. Shortly before President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive for his historic visit to Hiroshima, the first of two Japanese cities destroyed by U.S. ![]() The mushroom cloud rises over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, as the city is destroyed by the first nuclear weapon ever used in war. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |