The United States had 4,804 nuclear weapons in its active deployed stockpile as of September of last year, having trimmed 309 weapons from the last time it declassified the size of its nuclear arsenal in 2010. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller made the announcement during remarks at the Preparatory Committee meeting for the 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, aiming to promote transparency and spark other countries to also disclose the size of their nuclear weapons stockpiles. The U.S. last disclosed the size of its stockpile in 2010, when it said it had 5,113 active deployed nuclear weapons in September of 2009—down from a peak of 31,255 in 1967 during the Cold War. “It is indisputable that progress toward the NPT’s disarmament goals is being made,” Gottemoeller said at the PrepCom in New York yesterday.
Noting that “we are not finished,” Gottemoeller said the Administration is still pushing to further reduce the size of its active deployed stockpile by about one-third, down to approximately 1,000 warheads, but she noted that recent Russian actions have clouded the already murky prospects for another round of reductions. ”Recent actions have significantly undermined mutual trust and that trust will take time to rebuild. Still, no one should forget that even in the darkest days of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union found it in our mutual interest to work together on reducing the nuclear threat.” The U.S. also released information about the amount of weapons it has dismantled, announcing that it took 239 nuclear weapons apart in Fiscal Year 2013. That was the lowest number of dismantlements since FY 2004, and dismantlements have been steadily decreasing since reaching 648 nuclear weapons in FY 2008. There were 308 weapons dismantled in FY 2012, 305 dismantled in FY 2011, and 352 dismantled in FY 2010. In total, 9,952 weapons have been dismantled since FY 1994.