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New START Treaty Aggregate Numbers of Strategic Offensive Arms
John Isaacs | Oct 25, 2011 |
2 Note: For our analysis of the first New START data exchange, see here.
Category of Data
Deployed ICBMs, Deployed SLBMs, and Deployed Heavy Bombers
822 United States of America
516 Russian Federation
Warheads on Deployed ICBMs, on Deployed SLBMs, and Nuclear Warheads Counted for Deployed Heavy Bombers
1,790 United States of America
1,566 Russian Federation
Deployed and Non-deployed Launchers of ICBMs, Deployed and Non-deployed Launchers of SLBMs, and Deployed and Non-deployed Heavy Bombers
1,043 United States of America
871 Russian Federation
______________
(As of September 1, 2011, as drawn from the exchange of data by the Parties. Data in this Fact Sheet comes from the biannual exchange of data required by the Treaty. It contains data declared current as of September 1, 2011. Data will be updated each six month period after entry into force of the Treaty.)
Fact Sheet
Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance
October 25, 2011
Get A Leg Up/Give Up A Leg
John Isaacs | Sep 23, 2011 | 0 Many years ago, during a debate on whether to build new bombers to carry nuclear weapons, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, former Representative Charlie Bennett of Florida, made a pointed declaration:
THE TRIAD IS NOT THE TRINITY!
By that wise pronouncement, Bennett was saying that the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons policy adopted early in the Cold War to spread the United States’ nuclear force among three legs or components was not the gospel, but rather a policy that no longer served its purpose.
The United States nuclear force is composed of three components that are described as synergistic:
- On land, with intercontinental ballistic missiles
- At sea, with nuclear-powered submarines
- In the air, with long-range nuclear bombers
A Tribute to Senator Mark Hatfield
John Isaacs | Aug 10, 2011 | 0 
Sen. Mark Hatfield
A young Mark Hatfield, a naval officer who commanded landing craft in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II, entered Hiroshima shortly after the city had been incinerated by an atomic bomb. As he recalled it:
“When I entered Hiroshima, the charred bodies were still being pulled out of the rubble. The horror that I experience burned a lasting impression in my conscience. To this day, it serves as a philosophical anchor – my beacon of clarity in a political arena that turns a deaf ear to those who do not speak the exotic language of megatons, kill probability ratios and other terms that desensitize us to the true nature of nuclear war.”
This experience led to Senator Mark Hatfield’s long opposition to war and to the nuclear arms race. He was a man of conscience, and possessed a sense of right and wrong which overrode party loyalty.
Nukes on a Blog, Hatfield, Merkley, nuclear freeze, MX, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (all tags)
Essay: The End of Interventionism
John Isaacs | Aug 08, 2011 | 0 Written by John Isaacs, appears in ADA Today:
United States involvement in the Libyan war may turn out to be the straw that broke the political and philosophical back of the military interventionists.
Most of the country having long turned against George W. Bush’s war of choice in Iraq, President Obama has been continuing the process of withdrawal from that (at least tenuously) pacified country. Disaffection with the Iraq war hurt the Republicans at the polls in 2006 and 2008.
As for the Afghan war, many on the left and right were willing to reserve judgment on President Obama’s actions early in his administration because he had inherited a weak position from his predecessor. Besides, Afghanistan—in contrast to Iraq—was the “good” war, one directly related to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
But the effort to oust long-time Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi means the United States is engaged in three military conflicts at the same time, to say nothing of predator drone strikes in other countries. While liberals are split on the Libyan conflict, the expanding wars are widely perceived to be military interventionism run amuck.
Security Matters, Libya, Afghanistan, Merkley, McGovern, Iraq (all tags)
In Remembrance of Jonathan Tucker
John Isaacs | Aug 05, 2011 | 0 On behalf of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and the nuclear community as a whole, we mourn the passing of Jonathan Tucker at the much-too-young age of 56..
Jonathan was a world-class expert on biological and chemical weapons, as well as nuclear policy issues. During his esteemed career, he worked at the Scientific American, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. Department of State, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, as a specialist in chemical and biological arms control at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and most recently at the Federation of American Scientists.
He served as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq in the hunt for Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons programs.
Nukes on a Blog, Tucker, chemical weapons, biological weapons (all tags)
Withdrawal of U.S. Troops from Iraq
John Isaacs | Jul 22, 2011 | 0 By Lt. General Robert Gard (USA, Ret.)
Maintaining U.S. troops in a hostile environment when an overwhelming majority of the population is adamantly opposed to their presence is not only foolhardy but also counter-productive, especially when there is an agreement with the host nation government to withdraw them by a date certain.
On 17 November 2008, the governments of the United States and Iraq signed two landmark documents: a “Strategic Framework for a Relationship of Friendship and Cooperation ….” and an “Agreement … on the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq [Status of Forces].” Both entered into force on 1 January 2009, very close to the conclusion of the presidency of George W. Bush.
The Framework agreement stipulates that the United States shall not “seek or request permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq,” and the Status of Forces agreement specifies that “All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.” While the Bush administration clearly preferred an agreement that did not specify a specific date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, the Iraqi government insisted on it as a key provision of the formal Status of Forces agreement.
War Powers Resolution consistently ignored
John Isaacs | Jul 21, 2011 | 0 THE HILL BLOG
In 1973, in my first job in Washington, D.C., I helped to pass the War Powers Resolution. At the time, it seemed like a good idea.
The country was reeling from the Vietnam War that had proved so divisive and caused so many casualties. Many blamed Presidents John F. Kennedy for surreptitiously getting the country into a war, Lyndon Johnson for using falsehoods to win approval of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and Richard Nixon for his secret plan to end the war that led to many more years of fighting and dying.
War powers advocates argued that the measure was essential for Congress to reassert its power to make war that had atrophied since the declaration of war against Germany and Japan in 1941 – the last time Congress so declared.
Pogo, Libya & War Powers
John Isaacs | Apr 20, 2011 | 2 
When the Obama Administration launched military operations against Libya, a number of Members of Congress griped about a usurpation of the congressional power to declare war.
Rather than denounce Obama – or Bush in Iraq or Reagan in Panama or Truman in Korea – they should in reality protest their own inaction.
For the fault, Dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in the lap of Congress.
Or as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
President Obama announced March 18 that the United States was prepared to use military force to establish a “no fly” zone and strike against Muarmmar Qaddafi’s forces.
While the President’s action was backed by a U.N. Security Council resolution, he declined to ask for a congressional authorization...
EINSTEIN AND SZILARD IN PRINCETON
John Isaacs | Feb 13, 2011 | 0 The Pioneers of Nuclear Science as Colleagues, Friends, and Neighbors
By William Lanouette, Ph.D.
The Lewis B. Cuyler Lecture
Historical Society of Princeton
Nassau Club, Princeton, February 9, 2011
Albert Einstein is probably the most famous Princeton resident of the 20th Century (except, perhaps, for Woodrow Wilson or Bill Bradley or Brooke Shields). But he’s clearly the most famous scientist in modern history. By contrast, his friend and colleague Leo Szilard was a shadowy figure in the history of nuclear science – essential to its progress, yet now mostly forgotten. Szilard preferred to work behind the scenes, advising others on how to save the world: he advised not only Einstein and fellow scientists, but also U.S presidents and Senators, and two Soviet premiers.
In this talk I will describe how the lives and careers of Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard converged, first in Berlin, then here in Princeton.
European Missile Defenses: Following in the Inept Shoes of National Missile Defense?
John Isaacs | Feb 03, 2011 | 1 The knock on United States National Missile Defense based in Alaska and California is that it never has been proved to work in real-world situations. Billions of dollars have been spent on that system, now called “ground-based mid-course,” but there is no sure evidence that the defense would work should North Korea launch nuclear-tipped missiles against us.
Because of the powerful political backing for the program, missile defense has avoided the commonsense “Fly Before You Buy” mantra that prevents billions from being wasted on weapons that may eventually prove ineffective.
According to a recent report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the government auditing agency, the Obama Administration is risking repeating history with its proposed missile defense systems in Europe.
missile defense, Obama administration, Iran, North Korea (all tags)
