Yet most would predict that Russia will continue to possess a large nuclear stockpile for the foreseeable future.
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This stance should not be surprising since it is this category of weaponry that makes up the bulk of Moscow's nuclear stockpile.
Their 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) for the first time gave equal importance to the nuclear stockpile and the infrastructure necessary to sustain it.
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Defense officials and nuclear policy experts said the Pentagon supported the White House's desire to cut as much as a third to the size of the nuclear stockpile.
As the Center for Security Policy has noted previously, (1) the current U.S. nuclear stockpile was created on the assumption that actual weapons testing would continue to be available.
He declared an indefinite nuclear test moratorium, signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, and suppressed research and development that would do anything more than keep the U.S. nuclear stockpile on life support.
By contrast, the Bush Administration has formulated a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that envisions maintaining the effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear stockpile by retiring older weapons and modernization, restoring the critically important nuclear industrial base and introducing anti-missile and other defenses against nuclear attack.
His decision to ban all nuclear tests would preclude the U.S. from conducting even extremely low-yield tests (for example, those that produce as little of a blast as the equivalent of four pounds of high explosive) as part of the nuclear stockpile stewardship program.
Each has recognized the need for modernization of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, enhanced "stewardship" of the obsolescent weapons that will likely continue to comprise the bulk of the arsenal for years to come and sustained investment in the infrastructure - both human and industrial - needed to perform such tasks.
Moniz was Department of Energy undersecretary from 1997 to January 2001, focusing on nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship.
Its ratification depends on there being confidence that the US nuclear warhead stockpile can be safely and effectively maintained without test detonations.
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The size and composition of the current U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile have been determined by a number of relevant factors over time.
About 10 percent of significant findings have resulted in "retrofits or major design changes to the nuclear weapons stockpile, " the IG reported.
"If these delays continue, the department may not be in a position to unconditionally certify the aging nuclear weapons stockpile, " Friedman wrote.
Cartwright has described that system, now entering its second study phase, as a key component in transforming the aging Cold War nuclear weapons stockpile.
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He led a comprehensive review of our nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship program, enhanced the science and technology of environmental cleanup, and was the DOE special negotiator for Russia initiatives, focusing on disposal of Soviet-era nuclear materials.
One such challenge was whether the United States, with a military strategy based on credible nuclear deterrence, could maintain a highly reliable stockpile of nuclear weapons indefinitely without testing.
It has reduced its nuclear-weapons stockpile by 75% since the end of the Cold War and 90% since the height of the Cold War.
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Presently, America and Russia meet a fifth of world uranium demand in the form of decommissioned nuclear weapons, taken from the stockpile amassed during the nuclear arms race of the cold war.
Yet on May 23rd, Mr Bush put forward the case for substantially reducing America's stockpile of nuclear weapons.
On the contrary, the world will need to manage a massive stockpile of nuclear waste for generations to come.
This is the direct and predictable result of the practice of essentially "freezing" our nuclear weapons strategy and stockpile over the past seventeen years since the end of the Cold War.
This is particularly true among the small cadre of physicists who have actually had first-hand experience with the extremely esoteric business of designing, testing and maintaining the nuclear weapons in our stockpile today -- arguably, the most complex pieces of equipment ever produced by man.
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The U.S. continues to spend several billion dollars each year to maintain the nuclear weapon complex and the aging stockpile.
Under the moratorium, our laboratories have maintained our arsenal through the Stockpile Stewardship Program without underground nuclear testing, using techniques that are as successful as they are cutting edge.
But while moving forward to carry out mandates of the Moscow Treaty, "we need to increase our other capabilities as alternatives and replacements for the drawdown of the nuclear weapons that we have in our stockpile, " Cartwright told the committee.
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The state of America's aging nuclear arsenal also troubled Mr. Gaffney, who warned "Our stockpile is not as safe and reliable as we could make it" and that a resumption of nuclear testing is needed to permit such improvements to be made and to diagnose and correct the Nation's yawning vulnerabilities to electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attacks.
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Friedman said one review his office conducted last year turned up backlogs in flight and laboratory test schedules for five of nine nuclear missile warheads and bombs in the operational stockpile.
Unlike nuclear weapons, chemical weapons are inexpensive to develop and stockpile.
Ironically, this fact was explicitly recognized in the Hatfield-Exxon legislation of 1992 that led to the present moratorium -- legislation that expressly contemplated additional underground tests would be necessary to prepare the U.S. stockpile, diagnostic tools and scientific cadre for a permanent ban on nuclear testing.
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