U S Nuclear Weapons Stockpile

In 1960 there were some 3,500 strategic nuclear weapons in the United States and by the mid-1970s there were more than 10,000. This book, written by a member of the U.S. nuclear weapons force, gives an account of that buildup and the efforts taken to keep the stockpile under control. Jerry Miller highlights the strategies, targeting and attack plans, and arms control measures associated with the bomb. He addresses the role of the military in establishing requirements and the role of the scientists in meeting those requirements and identifies the weapons' strengths and weaknesses and their significance for the future. A final chapter reviews threat scenarios and suggests actions to bring the nuclear force into line.

Covers every nuclear delivery system the United States ever deployed, from submarines and their missiles to artillery rounds and mines.

The U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile has changed dramatically throughout the course of its existence. From a handful of nuclear weapons of relatively simple design throughout the second half of the 1940s to a peak number of 31,255 warheads in the 1970s, the variety and capabilities of warheads in the U.S. nuclear stockpile have differed throughout the past half century. Today, the U.S. nuclear warhead stockpile is the least diverse it has been for decades, and the technical skills supporting it are in a dire need of reinvigoration. The current U.S. nuclear arsenal has been adjusted based on assumptions that are now demonstrably wrong, for example that Russia will be friendly to the United States and its allies. The future remains dangerous and uncertain, which places a premium on the flexibility and resilience of the U.S. nuclear enterprise as a whole. The U.S. approach to its stockpile must evolve so it can continue to fulfill its deterrence and assurance roles. U.S. and allied security depend on the strength of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and the skills and infrastructure necessary to support it.

Sweeping changes are occurring in the international system, presenting the United States with both opportunities and challenges. The East-West strategic rivalry that dominated the global security environment for over forty years has been fundamentally and, in a number of critical ways, irreversibly altered. Yet the world continues to be unpredictable and dangerous. Relations with Russia and China have improved dramatically in the last ten years but remain uncertain. Both states continue to emphasize and modernize their nuclear arsenals. In other regions of vital interest to the United States, potential adversaries increasingly have at their disposal advanced conventional and unconventional capabilities, as well as weapons of mass destruction and the means for their delivery. Together, these and other factors, such as the ongoing revolution in military technology, have engendered major adjustments in U.S. national security policy and in the strategy and forces that support U.S. security interests. A series of U.S. government analyses, including the Nuclear Posture Review and the Quadrennial Defense Review, has guided the restructuring of U.S. conventional forces and provided the basis for the late 1997 Presidential Decision Directive on nuclear weapons policy. Further analyses and adjustments will certainly follow. As a contribution to this dynamic process, this report assesses the rationale and requirements for U.S. nuclear weapons, and the infrastructure and people that are critical to their sustainment, in the current and future security environment. By so doing, the report is intended to promote greater understanding of the issues and the measures that will be necessary to sustain deterrence in an uncertain future. The American public and its leadership in both the Executive and Legislative branches must remain informed, involved, and supportive. Absent concerted and continuing high-level attention to the policies and programs supporting its nuclear forces, 7.

This book is an overview of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and the issues relating to maintenance and replacement of warheads. Nuclear weapons will continue to play a key role in U.S. security policy for many decades. At issue for Congress is how best to maintain the nuclear stockpile so that it will retain, for many decades, capabilities that political and military leaders deem necessary. Three main options are discussed in this book: (1) extending the service lives of current warheads without nuclear testing; (2) developing, building, and deploying a new generation of warheads without testing to replace the current stockpile; or (3) resuming nuclear testing, which the United States suspended in 1992, as a tool to help maintain existing warheads or develop new ones. This book focuses on the first two options and compares how they respond to congressional goals, presenting pros, cons, uncertainties, costs and potential risks and benefits, then discusses issues for Congress. This is an edited, excerpted and augmented edition of a CRS Report, U.S. Department of Energy and GAO publications.

In this study, CISAC tackles the technical dimensions of a longstanding controversy: To what extent could existing and plausibly attainable measures for transparency and monitoring make possible the verification of all nuclear weaponsâ€"strategic and nonstrategic, deployed and nondeployedâ€"plus the nuclear-explosive components and materials that are their essential ingredients? The committee's assessment of the technical and organizational possibilities suggests a more optimistic conclusion than most of those concerned with these issues might have expected.

The debate about appropriate purposes and policies for U.S. nuclear weapons has been under way since the beginning of the nuclear age. With the end of the Cold War, the debate has entered a new phase, propelled by the post-Cold War transformations of the international political landscape. This volume--based on an exhaustive reexamination of issues addressed in The Future of the U.S.-Soviet Nuclear Relationship (NRC, 1991)--describes the state to which U.S. and Russian nuclear forces and policies have evolved since the Cold War ended. The book evaluates a regime of progressive constraints for future U.S. nuclear weapons policy that includes further reductions in nuclear forces, changes in nuclear operations to preserve deterrence but enhance operational safety, and measures to help prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. In addition, it examines the conditions and means by which comprehensive nuclear disarmament could become feasible and desirable.