The United States is continuing its slow descent toward the 1,550-warhead cap on its strategic deployed stockpile set by the New START Treaty and had 1,722 warheads under the treaty’s counting rules as of Sept. 1, the State Department said yesterday. The stockpile number, released twice a year under the New START Treaty with Russia, represents a 15-warhead decrease from the U.S. declaration in February, and is down from 1,800 when the treaty went into force in February of 2011. Russia’s strategic deployed stockpile increased slightly as of Sept. 1, rising to 1,499, up from 1,492 Feb. 1. The treaty only counts strategic deployed warheads, and not warheads held in reserve or tactical warheads.
The U.S. also had 806 delivery vehicles (nuclear-capable bombers, ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles), six less than it had Sept. 1, while Russia has reduced its delivery vehicles over the last six months by three to 491. The treaty allows 700 deployed delivery vehicles, and a total of 800 counting reserve systems. In total, the U.S. has 1,034 delivery vehicles, while Russia has 884. The U.S. and Russia must be beneath the treaty’s limits by 2018.
Jobs