Updated: 2010-07-14 06:35
WASHINGTON - A US government document reveals that the Obama administration is planning to cut the US nuclear stockpile by up to 40 percent by 2021.
In May the administration said that it had 5,113 nuclear warheads in its stockpile. The estimated 1998 spending on all U.S. nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs: was $35,100,000,000 according the the Brookings Institute.
The new document says the administration would like to reduce that number to a range of 3,000 to 3,500.
The document was presented to Congress in May and posted Tuesday on the websites of the Federation of American Scientists and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The US is also negotiating a new START treaty with Russia that would reduce the US nuclear arsenal by 30 per cent.
The right wing will try to politicize this reduction and claim the US will be less safe. But no nuclear weapon has been detonated during a war since 1945.
Thousands of men sit in missiles silos in the US 'waiting for Godot' and B-52 pilots have been flying local missions around their air force bases in the US for the past 60 years waiting for the big one!
The old Strategic Air Command (SAC) was sort of an 'in joke' in the Air Force at the end of the 20th Century. The pilots that did the bulk of the heavy lifting were the airlifters and the fighter jocks. The SAC pilots were the Rodney Dangerfields. They just got no respect because their mission was obsolete.
When the Air Force reorganized, the airlift and fighter pilot generals took all of the tanker and bomber aircraft away form SAC and split them between the fighter and airlift commanders respectively.
Will bombers be useful in the next big war? World War 2 and the Vietnam War suggest the era of the strategic bomber many be over.
The Brookings Institute has an excellent analysis of US nuclear weapons program:
Total number of nuclear missiles built, 1951-present: 67,500
Estimated construction costs for more than 1,000 ICBM launch pads and silos, and support facilities, from 1957-1964: nearly $14,000,000,000 ($14 trillion).
Total number and types of nuclear warheads and bombs built, 1945-1990: more than 70,000/65
Number of nuclear warheads requested by the Army in 1956 and 1957: 151,000
Amount of plutonium still in weapons: 43 metric tons
States with the largest number of nuclear weapons (in 1999): New Mexico (2,450), Georgia (2,000), Washington (1,685), Nevada (1,350), and North Dakota (1,140)
The US should cut the nuclear arsenal and the ongoing subsidies to the nuclear military industrial complex. This change has been long overdue. People win wars, not nuclear weapons systems.
See the complete Brookings article at http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/50.aspx
Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu
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In May the administration said that it had 5,113 nuclear warheads in its stockpile. The estimated 1998 spending on all U.S. nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs: was $35,100,000,000 according the the Brookings Institute.
The new document says the administration would like to reduce that number to a range of 3,000 to 3,500.
The document was presented to Congress in May and posted Tuesday on the websites of the Federation of American Scientists and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The US is also negotiating a new START treaty with Russia that would reduce the US nuclear arsenal by 30 per cent.
The right wing will try to politicize this reduction and claim the US will be less safe. But no nuclear weapon has been detonated during a war since 1945.
Thousands of men sit in missiles silos in the US 'waiting for Godot' and B-52 pilots have been flying local missions around their air force bases in the US for the past 60 years waiting for the big one!
The old Strategic Air Command (SAC) was sort of an 'in joke' in the Air Force at the end of the 20th Century. The pilots that did the bulk of the heavy lifting were the airlifters and the fighter jocks. The SAC pilots were the Rodney Dangerfields. They just got no respect because their mission was obsolete.
When the Air Force reorganized, the airlift and fighter pilot generals took all of the tanker and bomber aircraft away form SAC and split them between the fighter and airlift commanders respectively.
Will bombers be useful in the next big war? World War 2 and the Vietnam War suggest the era of the strategic bomber many be over.
The Brookings Institute has an excellent analysis of US nuclear weapons program:
Total number of nuclear missiles built, 1951-present: 67,500
Estimated construction costs for more than 1,000 ICBM launch pads and silos, and support facilities, from 1957-1964: nearly $14,000,000,000 ($14 trillion).
Total number and types of nuclear warheads and bombs built, 1945-1990: more than 70,000/65
Number of nuclear warheads requested by the Army in 1956 and 1957: 151,000
Amount of plutonium still in weapons: 43 metric tons
States with the largest number of nuclear weapons (in 1999): New Mexico (2,450), Georgia (2,000), Washington (1,685), Nevada (1,350), and North Dakota (1,140)
The US should cut the nuclear arsenal and the ongoing subsidies to the nuclear military industrial complex. This change has been long overdue. People win wars, not nuclear weapons systems.
See the complete Brookings article at http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/50.aspx
Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu
Netcraft rank: 15549 http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://rightardia.blogspot.com
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