US Plans 'Dramatic Reductions' in Nuclear Weapons

[megimoo]

Barack Obama plans 'dramatic reductions' in US nuclear weapons stockpile.
snip
He spoke of putting an end to Cold War thinking, a process in which, he insisted, the US was morally obliged to play a leading role.He called for the forging of new partnerships to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and a global summit on nuclear security, which will take place next month.

Ahead of the summit, the Obama administration began a wide-ranging nuclear policy review, which was initially supposed to have been released in December.The BBC's Jonathan Marcus says all the signs are that the first draft of the document has been rejected as being too wedded to the status quo and not sufficiently "transformational" to use the language favoured by the Obama administration.

He says the review will be read closely to see what it might say about the potential circumstances in which nuclear weapons would be used, an issue Mr Obama is to discuss with Mr Gates.The review comes as the US and Russia appear close to a new deal to cut their nuclear arsenals, despite Moscow's concerns over Washington's missile defence plans.

The document will also set the tone for the next five-yearly review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT agreement, to be held in May.The Obama administration is hoping to bolster the NPT, amid growing concern over Iranian and North Korean nuclear programmes.

Jonathan Marcus says Mr Obama will want to prevent the weakening NPT regime from unravelling, and to do so he needs to have powerful evidence that the US is taking its disarmament responsibilities seriously.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8543897.stm

STRATEGIC NUCLEAR WARHEADS AROUND THE WORLD
Russia 2800
USA 2200
France 300
China 180
UK 160
Israel 80......Not members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
Pakistan 60................
India 60....................
N Korea <10.......................

All numbers are estimates because exact numbers are top secret.
Strategic nuclear warheads are designed to target cities, missile locations and military headquarters as part of a strategic plan.
Israel
Israeli authorities have never confirmed or denied the country has nuclear weapons.
..................
North Korea
The highly secretive state claims it has nuclear weapons, but there is no information in the public domain that proves this.
.................
Iran
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in 2003 there had been covert nuclear activity to make fissile material and continues to monitor Tehran's nuclear programme.
..............
Syria
US officials have claimed it is covertly seeking nuclear weapons.
................

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8543897.stm

[djones520]

As long as it's our older weapons, I'm fine with this. We can still deter Russia with 1,000 weapons instead of 2,000, and save a lot of money along the way.

[megimoo]

As long as it's our older weapons, I'm fine with this. We can still deter Russia with 1,000 weapons instead of 2,000, and save a lot of money along the way.
To stop and restart any government weapons program is much more expensive than continuously funding it.The prime contractors are in business to make money and if we shut down any weapons lines they will retool and make something else there.

In the past the Congress has done this but they never seem to learn the lesson.Unless we fund it it will change and be lost either through loss of expertise in the work force or the drying up of the major suppliers of the specialized components or both.

As I mentioned before these warheads need constant maintenance and upgrading as testing finds design faults in the sub assemblies.

When the Physics package for the D-5's were rebuilt to replace the tritium gas canisters' they discovered that the Tungsten pits in the primaries were corroded and needed to be replaced.

It's easier to replace the entire psychics package than rebuild it in the field.That calls for many spare assembly's on hand and more nuclear security problems.

We have cut back on our warheads per missile due to past SALT limits by treaty.Each time we go to Salt talks we lose more in the name of Nuclear Parity and the Russians gain.

When President Reagan called the Russians bluff and built our ABM system the Russians panicked and cried foul .They did everything they could to stop us from building the ABM system to no avail.

They,the Russians, lack the technical expertise to compete with us in this new technology so they pleaded and cajoled every faint heart in the Congress to stop the program.

They derided Reagan calling the concept 'Star"Wars' in an attempt to discredit it but he held firm and prevailed.

Now this new president is going to dismantle the whole thing and leave us defenseless.

When the Russians couldn't afford to upgrade their ICBM fleet or perform preventative maintenance on the silos we were forced to scrap a large portion of our MX ICBM capability's in the name of parity.

When the Russians scrapped the bulk of their Liquid fuel ICBM's we were forced to draw down our forces in the name of parity.In order to keep the warheads out of the Third Worlds mad men hands we purchased the warheads from the Soviets and added the Plutonium to our stockpile at Oak Ridge.

Reagan put a stop to that crap at Helsinki and walked out on Gorbachev when they tried to pull a quick shuffle on their hidden missile sites .

The most effective Ballistic missile we have now is the D-5 SLBM loaded on our bombers.It originally started out as a ten warhead MIRV of four hundred seventy five kilotons each but after several SALT compromises it was reduced to an eight warhead .

The 1993 START II negotiations allowed the United States to keep 18 TRIDENT SSBNs, with 4 nuclear warheads on each missile. The 1994 DoD Nuclear Posture Review called for the number to be lowered to 14, which remains the plan today.

The Russians are afraid of our SLBM's because of their survivability and range .Over five thousand miles slant range per D-5 times twenty four tubes,four warheads per ninety six total warheads at four hundred seventy five kilo tons per sub !

Current U.S. nuclear weapons

Bombs

B61:Nuclear bunker buster with variable yields warhead.
By Using The physics packages of the W-80 W-81 W-84
Mk 3, 0.3 / 1.5 / 60 / 170 Kt
Mk 4, 0.3 / 1.5 / 10 / 45 Kt
Mk 7, 10 / ? / 340 Kt
Mk 10, 0.3 / 5 / 10 / 80 Kt
Mk 11, 0.3? / ? / 340 Kt

B83: The megaton class B83 is the most modern nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal. It is the second highest yield weapon now possessed by the U.S.. It has options for variable yields.1200 Kt to low Kt range

Warheads:
W-62 170 Kilotons,Minuteman III ICBM. Each missile carries up to three W62s
W-76 100 kilotons,Minuteman III,three warheads in a Mk-4a reentry vehicle.
W-78 335-350 kilotons,Minuteman III three warheads in a MK12-A reentry vehicles .
W-80 variable yield warhead 5/150 kilotons used in AGM-129 ACM
W-84, BGM-109 Tomahawk
W-87 300Kt yield,up to 475 Kt, ten Warheads used in a MX ICBM
W-88 475 kiloton up to eight w-88 or eight w-76 100 kilotons Trident D-5 SLBM

Now this president will massively cut our capability's proactively until we are are weaker than the Russians and prone to the Chinese catching up sooner and achieving nuclear parity years earlier than expected..

[FlaGator]

Perhaps we can get rid of all the old ones by launching them at Iran and North Korea?