Nuclear Weapons and The United States - Current Status

Current Status

The United States is one of the five recognized nuclear powers under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ("NPT"). As of September 2009 it possessed 5,113 warheads operationally deployed, in active reserve, or held in inactive storage. This figure compares to a peak of 31,225 total warheads in 1967 and 22,217 in 1989, and does not include "several thousand" warheads that have been retired and scheduled for dismantlement.

In 2009 and 2010, the administration of Barack Obama declared policies that would invalidate the Bush-era policy for use of nuclear weapons and its motions to develop new ones. First, in a prominent 2009 speech, U.S. president Barack Obama outlined a goal of "a world without nuclear weapons". To that goal, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new START treaty on April 8, 2010 to reduce the number of active nuclear weapons from 2,200 to 1,550. That same week Obama also revised U.S. policy on the use of nuclear weapons in a Nuclear Posture Review required of all presidents, declaring for the first time that the U.S. would not use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear, NPT-compliant states. The policy also renounces development of any new nuclear weapons.

Momentum of the new era slowed and hard realities resurfaced in 2011, and no new breakthroughs occurred. The multilateral nuclear arms control agenda is stymied. The CTBT is no closer to ratification than when President Obama came into office. The FMCT negotiations remain stuck, and there is no indication that success is in the offing. 2011 has been more difficult and less hopeful than the recent past.

The Obama Administration, in its release of the 2012 defense budget, included plans to modernize, as well as maintain, the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal.