Weapons Complex Monitor
January 22, 2014
Size of Nuclear Arsenal Remains Stable
The size of the United States’ active nuclear arsenal has remained stable for the last year, according to a recent assessment published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that estimates about 4,650 nuclear warheads remain in the active stockpile of the U.S. Another 2,700 warheads are retired and awaiting dismantlement, meaning the U.S. has a total inventory of about 7,400 warheads, the assessment by Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris of the Federation of American Scientists says. The U.S. hasn’t publicly disclosed the size of its active nuclear stockpile since 2010, when it said it had 5,113 warheads.
About 2,130 warheads are operational, according to the authors, including 1,620 strategic warheads that are fielded on ballistic missiles: 1,150 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles and 470 on intercontinental ballistic missiles. Another 300 strategic warheads are housed at bomber bases around the country, and approximately 200 tactical nuclear warheads are stationed in Europe. About 2,530 warheads are in storage and serve as a “hedge” against technical issues or geopolitical changes.
Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
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