Order Code RL31623
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
U.S. Nuclear Weapons: Changes in
Policy and Force Structure
Updated February 23, 2004
Amy F. Woolf
Specialist in National Defense
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

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U.S. Nuclear Weapons: Changes in
Policy and Force Structure
Summary
The Bush Administration conducted a review of U.S. nuclear weapons force
posture during its first year in office. Although the review sought to adjust U.S.
nuclear posture to address changes in the international security environment at the
start of the new century, it continued many of the policies and programs that had been
a part of the U.S. nuclear posture during the previous decade and during the Cold
War. This report, which will be updated as needed, provides an overview of the U.S.
nuclear posture to highlight areas of change and areas of continuity.
During the Cold War, the United States sought to deter the Soviet Union and its
allies from attacking the United States and its allies by convincing the Soviet Union
that any level of conflict could escalate into a nuclear exchange and, in that exchange,
the United States would plan to destroy the full range of valued targets in the Soviet
Union. Other nations were included in U.S. nuclear war plans due to their alliances
with the Soviet Union. After the Cold War, the United States maintained a
substantial nuclear arsenal to deter potential threats from Russia. It would not
forswear the first use of nuclear weapons in conflicts with other nations, such as
those armed with chemical or biological weapons, and formed contingency plans for
such conflicts. The Bush Administration has emphasized that the United States and
Russia are no longer enemies and that the United States will no longer plan or size
its nuclear force to deter a “Russian threat.” Instead, the United States will maintain
a nuclear arsenal with the capabilities needed to counter capabilities of any potential
adversary, focusing on “how we will fight” rather than “who we will fight.”
Furthermore, U.S. nuclear weapons will combine with missile defenses, conventional
weapons, and a responsive infrastructure in seeking to assure U.S. allies, dissuade
U.S. adversaries, deter conflict, and defeat adversaries if conflict should occur.
During the Cold War the United States maintained a “triad” of ICBMs, SLBMs,
and heavy bombers in a strategic nuclear arsenal of more than 10,000 warheads.
During the 1990s, the United States reduced the size of this arsenal to around 7,000
warheads , but maintained all three legs of the triad. The Bush Administration has
announced that the United States will further reduce its arsenal to between 1,700 and
2,200 “operationally deployed” warheads, but that it will not eliminate many delivery
vehicles while reducing its force and it will retain many nondeployed warheads in
storage as a “responsive force” that could be added to the deployed forces if
conditions warranted. The Bush Administration has also announced that it will
expand and enhance the infrastructure that supports U.S. nuclear weapons, so that the
United States could respond to unexpected changes in the status of its arsenal or the
international security environment.
Analysts and observers have identified several issues raised by the
Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review. These include the role of nuclear
weapons in U.S. national security policy, how to make the U.S. nuclear deterrent
“credible,” the relationship between the U.S. nuclear posture and the goal of
discouraging nuclear proliferation, plans for strategic nuclear weapons, and the future
of non-strategic nuclear weapons.

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Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The International Security Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Threats During the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Evolving Threats During the 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Threat Assessment under the Bush Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Strategy and Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Deterrence During the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Deterrence after the Demise of the Soviet Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Deterrence in the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The role of nuclear weapons in deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Policy on the possible first use of nuclear weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Targeting and Employment Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Targeting During the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Targeting after the Demise of the Soviet Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Prompt Response and Alert Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Bush Administration Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Prompt Response and Alert Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Force Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Nuclear Forces During the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Non-strategic Nuclear Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Strategic Nuclear Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Ballistic Missile Defenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Force Structure After the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Non-strategic Nuclear Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Strategic Nuclear Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Ballistic Missile Defenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Changes Adopted by the Bush Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Non-strategic nuclear weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Strategic Nuclear Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Ballistic Missile Defenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The Nuclear Weapons Complex During the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The Nuclear Complex in the 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Infrastructure in the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Issues Raised by the NPR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
The Role of Nuclear Weapons in U.S. Defense Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Credible Deterrence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
U.S. Nuclear Posture and Nonproliferation Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Strategic Nuclear Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

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List of Tables
Table 1: U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces Under START I and START II . . . . . . 22
Table 2: Illustrative U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces
Under Bush Administration Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

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U.S. Nuclear Weapons:
Policy and Force Structure
Introduction
During the Cold War, the United States maintained nuclear forces that were
sized and structured to deter any attack by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact
allies, and if deterrence failed, to defeat the Soviet Union. In the years since the 1989
collapse of the Berlin wall and 1991 demise of the Soviet Union, officials in the U.S.
government and analysts outside government have conducted numerous reviews and
studies of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and force structure. Although these studies
have varied in scope, intent, and outcome, most have sought to describe a new role
for U.S. nuclear weapons and to identify the appropriate size and structure of the U.S.
nuclear arsenal in the post-Cold War era. In offering their recommendations, these
analyses addressed not only the end of the hostile U.S.-Soviet global rivalry, but also
the emergence of new threats and regional challenges to U.S. security.
The U.S. Department of Defense conducted several far-reaching reviews,
including the 1993 Bottom-up Review, the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review, and the
1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, that contributed to the Clinton Administration’s
response to changes in the international security environment. These formal reviews,
when combined with less prominent internal studies, resulted in numerous changes
to the structure of U.S. nuclear forces and policy guiding their potential use.
However, many critics of the Clinton Administration argued that, at the end of the
1990s, the U.S. nuclear posture looked much as it had at the beginning of the decade.
The number of deployed nuclear weapons had declined as the United States
implemented the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) and completed the
withdrawal of most of its non-strategic nuclear weapons. But, even though the
Soviet Union no longer existed and the threat of global nuclear war had sharply
diminished, the United States continued to focus its nuclear planning and size and
structure its nuclear forces to deter the potential threat of a Russian attack.
In a speech at the National Press Club in May 2000, then-Governor George W.
Bush both echoed the criticism of the Clinton Administration’s nuclear policy and
outlined an alternative approach that he pledged to adopt if elected.1 He stated that
the “Clinton-Gore Administration” remained “locked in a Cold War mentality” and
that the United States needed to “fend against the new threats of the 21st century.”
He argued that “America should rethink the requirements for nuclear deterrence...”
and stated that “the premises of Cold War nuclear targeting should no longer dictate
the size of our arsenal.” He stated that, if elected, he would ask the Secretary of
1 Federal Document Clearing House. Transcript. Governor George Bush Holds News
Conference at National Press Club. May 23, 2000.

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CRS-2
Defense “to conduct an assessment of our nuclear force posture.” After DOD
completed that assessment, he would reduce U.S. nuclear forces to the “lowest
possible number consistent with our national security.” In several speeches and
statements during his first year in office, President Bush and his advisers stated that
“Russia is no longer our enemy” and they pledged to alter U.S. nuclear weapons
policy to reflect this view.
In its debate over the FY2001 Defense Authorization Bill, the Senate passed a
provision that called on the next President to conduct a new nuclear posture review
during his first year in office. During the last few years of the Clinton
Administration, Congress had prevented the President from reducing U.S. strategic
nuclear forces below the levels specified in START I until the 1993 START II Treaty
entered into force. The Clinton Administration had sought relief from this language
because the costs to the services of retaining weapons slated for elimination were
growing. But some Members questioned whether the Clinton Administration might
reduce U.S. forces too far if Congress lifted the prohibition. Hence, the Senate
retained the prohibition in the FY2001 Bill and stated that the next President could
only reduce U.S. forces after conducting a new nuclear posture review. Although the
House had not included similar language in its bill, the Conference Committee
supported the call for a new nuclear posture review.2
These two factors — the Congressional mandate and the Presidential
commitment — established the framework for the Bush Administration’s review of
U.S. nuclear posture. The Administration completed its review and sent a classified
report to Congress at the end of December 2001; it provided the public with a
summary of its results in early January 2002. The results of the Administration’s
review generated a significant amount of debate in January, and then again in March,
when a copy of the classified report leaked to the press. Most analysts focused on
areas where the Bush Administration had proposed to change U.S. nuclear posture;
some focused on areas where U.S. nuclear policy would remain the same as it had
been for years, or even decades.
This report provides a general overview of the past, present, and possible future
of U.S. nuclear policy. It begins with a review of the international security
environment, highlighting the threats that the United States has sought to deter or
respond to with its nuclear forces. It then reviews the strategy and doctrine guiding
the U.S. nuclear force posture, targeting and employment policy, the numbers and
types of weapons in the nuclear force structure, and the infrastructure that has
supported design, development, and testing of U.S. nuclear weapons. In each of
these areas, the report summarizes U.S. nuclear policy during the Cold War,
identifies changes implemented in the decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
and details how the Bush Administration proposes to bring continuity and change to
U.S. nuclear weapons, policy, and infrastructure. The report concludes with a
2 Section 1041 of that legislation (P.L. ) called on the Secretary of Defense to conduct a
comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear posture to “clarify U.S. nuclear deterrence policy and
strategy for the near term.” The final bill did not, however link the completion of this
review to an elimination on the restrictions on nuclear reductions. Congress removed this
restriction in the Defense Authorization Bill for FY2002.

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discussion of several issues and questions that analysts have raised after reviewing
the Bush Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review. These include the role of
nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy, how to make the U.S. nuclear
deterrent “credible,” the relationship between U.S. nuclear posture and the goal of
discouraging nuclear proliferation, plans for strategic nuclear weapons, and the future
of non-strategic nuclear weapons.
The International Security Environment
Threats During the Cold War
During the Cold War, the United States sought to maintain “nuclear and
conventional capabilities sufficient to convince any potential aggressor that the costs
of aggression would exceed any potential gains that he might achieve.”3 In spite of
these general statements, however, one nation stood at the top of the list of potential
aggressors. The Soviet Union was the only nation with a nuclear arsenal that could
threaten the political existence of the United States and the only nation that could
pose a global challenge to U.S. allies and interests. Therefore, when detailing threats
to U.S. national security, officials concluded that “the most significant threat to U.S.
security interests [remained] the global challenge posed by the Soviet Union.”4
Other nations, such as those in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, were included
in the U.S. nuclear war plans, but their presence reflected their relationship with the
Soviet Union more than any independent threat they might pose to the United States
or allies. China could also threaten U.S. interests, and the United States maintained
the capability to respond to possible contingencies in Asia. But, because the Soviet
threat dominated U.S. defense planning, officials believed that nuclear forces sized
and structured to deter the Soviet threat would be sufficient to deter or respond to
these “lesser included cases.”
Evolving Threats During the 1990s
Most experts agree that the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991
essentially eliminated the threat of global nuclear war between the superpowers. The
Clinton Administration argued that “the dissolution of the Soviet empire had
radically transformed the security environment facing the United States and our
allies. The primary security imperative of the past half century — containing
communist expansion while preventing nuclear war — is gone.”5 But the Clinton
Administration argued that Russia could potentially pose a threat to the United States
again in the future. This potential existed “not because its intentions are hostile, but
3 U.S. Department of Defense. Annual Report to Congress. Fiscal Year 1985, by Caspar
Weinberger, Secretary of Defense. February 1, 1984. Washington, 1984. p. 27.
4 The White House. National Security Strategy of the United States. January 1988.
Washington, 1988. p. 5.
5 A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement. The White House,
February 1995. Washington, D.C. p. 1.

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CRS-4
because it controls the only nuclear arsenal that can physically threaten the
survivability of U.S. nuclear forces.”6 Furthermore, officials in the Administration
argued that “a stable transition in Russia is by no means assured” so the United States
“must hedge against the possibility that Russia, which continues to maintain a
formidable nuclear arsenal consisting of thousands of deliverable strategic and
tactical warheads, could reemerge at some time in the future as a threat to the West.”7
At the same time, the Clinton Administration recognized growing threats to the
United States from a number of emerging adversaries, particularly if they were armed
with weapons of mass destruction. In its National Security Strategy Report for 1998,
the Administration noted that “a number of states still have the capabilities and the
desire to threaten our vital interests...” and that, “in many cases, these states are also
actively improving their offensive capabilities, including efforts to obtain or retain
nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, and, in some cases, long-range delivery
systems.” The Clinton Administration also declared that “weapons of mass
destruction pose the greatest potential threat to global stability and security.
Proliferation of advanced weapons and technologies threatens to provide rogue states,
terrorists, and international crime organizations the means to inflict terrible damage
on the United States, its allies, and U.S. citizens and troops abroad.”8
The Clinton Administration did not consider China to pose a direct threat to the
United States. Nevertheless, Administration officials did note that China maintained
a formidable nuclear force, even though it was much smaller than Russia’s nuclear
force. The Administration also stated that “China continues to make steady efforts
to modernize those forces, and that the United States cannot be sure that it will not
need nuclear weapons to deter China in the future.”9
Threat Assessment under the Bush Administration
The Bush Administration has stated that “nuclear forces continue to play a
critical role in the defense of the United States, its allies, and friends. They provide
credible capabilities to deter a wide range of threats, including weapons of mass
destruction and large-scale conventional military force.”10 However, in contrast with
the Clinton Administration’s view about a potential Russian threat, the Bush
Administration has stated, on several occasions, that Russia and the United States are
6 U.S. Department of Defense. Annual Report to the President and Congress. William S.
Cohen, Secretary of Defense. April 1997. Washington, D.C. p. 11.
7 Statement of the Honorable Edward L. Warner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy
and Threat Reduction, Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on
Strategic Forces. April 14, 1999.
8 A National Security Strategy for a New Century. The White House. October, 1998.
Washington, D.C. p. 6.
9 Statement of the Honorable Edward L. Warner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy
and Threat Reduction, Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on
Strategic Forces. April 14, 1999.
10 U.S. Department of Defense. Annual Report to the President and the Congress. Donald
H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense. Washington, D.C. 2002. p. 83.

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no longer enemies. Even though Russia retains thousands of nuclear warheads,
which could reach targets in the United States, the growing cooperation between the
two nations has allowed a “new strategic framework” to replace the Cold War’s
adversarial relationship and its reliance on “mutual assured destruction.”
Consequently, according to the Administration’s public comments on the Nuclear
Posture Review, the United States “will no longer plan, size or sustain its nuclear
forces as though Russia presented merely a smaller version of the threat posed by the
former Soviet Union.”11 The Administration does acknowledge, however, that a
“hostile peer competitor” could re-emerge in the future, and this potential
contingency did play a role in decisions on the future size and structure of U.S.
nuclear forces.12
At the same time, the Bush Administration has argued that, in the future, “the
United States is likely to be challenged by adversaries who possess a wide range of
capabilities, including asymmetric approaches to warfare, particularly weapons of
mass destruction.”13 According to some in the Administration, these adversaries
might threaten U.S. allies and interests, U.S. forces protecting U.S. interests, and U.S.
territory in an effort to blackmail the United States to retreat from its commitments
around the world. These adversaries could include non-state actors and terrorists, as
well as nations such as China14 and the three nations — Iran, Iraq, and North Korea
— named by the President as the “axis of evil” in his State of the Union Address in
January 2002. Therefore, when planning its nuclear policy and force structure, the
United States now faces threats from “multiple potential opponents, sources of
conflict, and unprecedented challenges.”15
11 U.S. Department of Defense. Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review. News
Transcript. January 9, 2002. See [http://defenselink.mil/cgi-bin/dlprint.cgi]
12 U.S. Department of Defense. Annual Report to the President and the Congress. Donald
H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense. Washington, D.C. 2002. p. 89.
13 U.S. Department of Defense. Quadrennial Defense Review Report. September 30, 2001.,
p. 3.
14 Rice, Condoleeza. Promoting the National Interest. Foreign Affairs. January/February
2000. v. 79. p. 56.
15 U.S. Department of Defense. Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review. Press
reports published after the leak of the classified NPR report indicate that the Review listed
these nations, along with Syria and Libya, as potential recipients of a U.S. nuclear attack.
However, Secretary of State Powell indicated that the Review did not offer guidance on
planning for nuclear attacks against any nation. Instead, he described the review as “prudent
military planning” where the planners had to consider “a range of options the President
should have available to him to deal with these kinds of threats.” See Savage, David G.
Nuclear Plan Meant to Deter. Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2002. P. 1.

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Strategy and Doctrine
The United States has maintained its nuclear arsenal to deter attacks or threats
of attack from its adversaries. As was noted above, the Soviet Union and Russia
have been the primary, but not only, targets of this strategy. The United States has
sought to deter attack by maintaining a nuclear force structure and operational plans
for those forces that would convince any attacking nation that the costs of its
aggression would far outweigh the benefits. The challenge for U.S. nuclear policy
has been to make this threat credible. Many analysts have argued that the
overwhelming destructive power of nuclear weapons could have undermined the
threat to use them — because the Soviet Union and Russia could have responded to
a U.S. retaliatory attack with equally destructive attacks against the United States, the
United States might not have launched its nuclear forces. Other nations might not
be able to threaten the United States with massive destruction, but they also might
not believe that the United States would cross the nuclear threshold unless its own
survival were at risk. Hence, the United States has sought, on many occasions in the
past 50 years, to modify and adjust its forces and targeting strategy so that potential
adversaries would believe and heed the U.S. threat to retaliate with nuclear weapons,
adding more limited attack options and seeking greater flexibility in the timing and
size of potential nuclear attacks.
Deterrence During the Cold War
During the 1950s and 1960s, the United States sought to deter Soviet aggression
by threatening “massive retaliation” and “assured destruction.” These strategies
envisioned a large-scale U.S. nuclear strike against a wide variety of targets in the
Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China if the Soviet Union or its allies initiated a
nuclear or large-scale conventional attack against the United States or its allies.16 In
threatening such an overwhelming response, the United States sought to convince
Soviet leaders that the Soviet Union would cease to exist as a functioning society if
it initiated a conflict against the United States and its allies. In the 1970s, the United
States adopted a strategy of “flexible response” and, subsequently, a “countervailing
strategy.” These policies emphasized retaliatory strikes on Soviet military forces and
war-making capabilities, as opposed to attacks on civilian and industrial targets.
They also allowed for the possibility of limited, focused attacks on a smaller number
of targets. These strategies sought to provide the President with more flexibility,
with respect to the timing, scale, and the targets of the attack, than he would have had
in earlier years.
The United States sought to deter not only a nuclear attack on U.S. territory, but
also nuclear, chemical or conventional attacks and coercion aimed at U.S. allies in
16 For a more detailed discussion of U.S. nuclear strategy and doctrine see Ball, Desmond.
The Development of the SIOP, 1960-1983, in Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson,
Strategic Nuclear Targeting, Cornell University Press, 1986. pp. 57-83; and Ball, Desmond
and Robert C. Toth. Revising the SIOP: Taking War-Fighting to Dangerous Extremes.
International Security, v. 14. Spring 1990.

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Europe and Asia.17 This “extended deterrent” sought to convince the Soviet Union
that any level of aggression against U.S. allies could escalate into a nuclear conflict
that might involve attacks on the Soviet Union. The United States and its allies did
not insist that they would respond to any level of aggression with nuclear weapons,
but they sought to maintain the capability to do so. This posture reflected, in part, the
fact that the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact maintained a clear numerical superiority
in conventional forces, and, without the possibility of resort to nuclear weapons, the
United States and NATO might face defeat. Consequently, the United States would
not rule out the possible first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict. However, in the
late 1970s, the United States issued a “negative security assurance,”in conjunction
with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), in which it stated that it would not
threaten or attack with nuclear weapons any non-nuclear weapons states that were
parties to the NPT, unless these states were allied with a nuclear nation in a conflict
with the United States. This last exclusion meant that the statement did not alter
U.S. nuclear planning for potential conflicts with the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact.
However, some analysts believed that this commitment would encourage other
nations to forswear their own nuclear weapons because they knew they would not
need such weapons to deter or respond to nuclear attack from the United States.
Deterrence after the Demise of the Soviet Union
Throughout the 1990s, the Clinton Administration and others argued that
nuclear weapons remained important to deter the range of threats faced by the United
States. Secretary of Defense Perry outlined this view in his Annual Report for 1995,
noting that “recent international upheavals have not changed the calculation that
nuclear weapons remain an essential part of American military power. Concepts of
deterrence ... continue to be central to the U.S. nuclear posture. Thus, the United
States will continue to threaten retaliation, including nuclear retaliation, to deter
aggression against the United States, U.S. forces, and allies.”18 In theory, this
deterrent strategy extended beyond Russia — “the United States must continue to
maintain a robust triad of strategic forces sufficient to deter any hostile foreign
leadership with access to nuclear forces and to convince it that seeking a nuclear
advantage would be futile.” Furthermore, according to the Clinton Administration,
“nuclear weapons serve as a hedge against an uncertain future, a guarantee of our
security commitments to allies and a disincentive to those who would contemplate
developing or otherwise acquiring their own nuclear weapons.”19
The Clinton Administration retained the existing U.S. policy on “first use” —
specifically, it did not forswear the first use of nuclear weapons. The Clinton
Administration indicated that nations other than Russia might face nuclear retaliation
if they attacked the United States with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
17 The White House. National Security Strategy of the United States. January 1988.
Washington, 1988. p. 13.
18 U.S. Department of Defense. Annual Report to the President and Congress, by Secretary
of Defense William Perry. Washington D.C., February 1995. p. 84.
19 A National Security Strategy for a New Century. The White House, October 1998.
Washington, D.C. p. 12.

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Although it re-affirmed the U.S. negative security assurance in 1995, Administration
officials indicated that the United States would reserve the right to use nuclear
weapons first “if a state is not a state in good standing under the Nuclear-
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) or an equivalent international convention.”20
Furthermore, a nation might forfeit its protections under the negative security
assurance if it attacked the United States or U.S. forces with weapons of mass
destruction (WMD).21
The United States did not, however, directly threaten to use nuclear weapons in
retaliation for non-nuclear attacks. Its policy was one of “studied ambiguity.” For
example, when discussing how the United States might react if Libya were to develop
and use chemical weapons, former Secretary of Defense William Perry stated “if
some nation were to attack the United States with chemical weapons, then they
would have to fear the consequences of a response from any weapon in our
inventory... We could make a devastating response without the use of nuclear
weapons, but we would not forswear the possibility.”22 Secretary Perry also noted
that, although the United States would not specify how it would respond to WMD
use, an aggressor could be certain that the U.S. response would be “both
overwhelming and devastating.” Assistant Secretary of Defense Edward Warner
testified that “the very existence of U.S. strategic and theater nuclear forces, backed
by highly capable conventional forces, should certainly give pause to any rogue
leader contemplating the use of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) against the
United States, its overseas deployed forces, or its allies.”23
These statements generally referred to the potential U.S. response to an attack
from another nation. Most experts agreed that nuclear weapons could do little to
deter an attack from a non-state actor — it might be difficult to identify such an
attacker and it could be difficult to identify appropriate targets for a U.S. response.
Nonetheless, many experts agreed that U.S. nuclear weapons might play a role in
deterring the state sponsors of non-state actors.
During the 1990s, the NATO alliance altered its nuclear strategy to reflect the
demise of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, but also did not adopt a “no-first use”
policy. Although nuclear weapons play a far smaller role in Alliance strategy than
they did during the Cold War, the NATO allies reaffirmed the importance of nuclear
weapons for deterrence. The “New Strategic Concept” signed in April 1999 stated
that “to protect peace and to prevent war or any kind of coercion, the Alliance will
20 Cerniello, Craig. Clinton Issues New Guidelines on U.S. Nuclear Weapons Doctrine.
Arms Control Today. November/December 1997.
21 Smith, R. Jeffrey. Clinton Directive Changes Strategy on Nuclear Arms; Centering on
Deterrence, Officials Drop Terms for Long Atomic War. Washington Post, December 7,
1997. p. A1.
22 This statement is quoted in Pincus, Walter. “Rogue” Nations Policy Builds on Clinton’s
Lead. Washington Post, March 2, 2002. P. 4.
23 Statement of the Honorable Edward L. Warner, III. Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Strategy and Threat Reduction, Before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on
Strategic Forces. April 14, 1999.

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CRS-9
maintain for the foreseeable future an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional
forces. Nuclear weapons make a unique contribution in rendering the risks of
aggression against the Alliance incalculable and unacceptable.” Furthermore, nuclear
weapons ensure “uncertainty in the mind of any aggressor about the nature of the
Allies’ response to military aggression.”24
Deterrence in the 21st Century
The role of nuclear weapons in deterrence. The Bush Administration
has emphasized that nuclear weapons “continue to be essential to our security, and
that of our friends and allies.”25 Nuclear weapons remain the only weapons in the
U.S. arsenal that can hold at risk the full range of targets valued by an adversary. As
a result, they continue to play a key role in U.S. deterrent strategy. During the Cold
War, and in the past decade, U.S. policy often viewed nuclear weapons apart from
the rest of the U.S. military establishment, with nuclear weapons serving to deter a
global nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union or Russia.
In contrast with this traditional perspective, the Bush Administration has
described a more comprehensive and integrated role for nuclear weapons. In its
presentation outlining the results of the Nuclear Posture Review, the Administration
argued that nuclear weapons, along with missile defenses and other elements of the
U.S. military establishment, not only deter adversaries by promising an unacceptable
amount of damage in response to an adversary’s attack, they can also assure allies
and friends of the U.S. commitment to their security by providing an extended
deterrent, dissuade potential adversaries from challenging the United States with
nuclear weapons or other “asymmetrical threats” by convincing them that they can
never negate the U.S. nuclear deterrent; and defeat enemies by holding at risk those
targets that could not be destroyed with other types of weapons.26 According to
Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, “linking nuclear forces to multiple defense
policy goals, and not simply to deterrence, recognizes that these forces ... perform key
missions in peacetime as well as in crisis or conflict.”27
In addition to expanding the role of nuclear weapons beyond deterrence, the
Bush Administration has altered the role of deterrence in U.S. national security
strategy. It has stated, in several speeches and documents, that the United States may
24 The Alliance’s Strategic Concept, Approved by the Heads of State and Government
participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. on 23rd and
24th April 1999.
25 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy. February 14, 2002.
26 U.S. Department of Defense. Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review. News
Transcript. January 9, 2002. See [http://defenselink.mil/cgi-bin/dlprint.cgi]. These are the
same four defense policy goals outlined in the Quadrennial Defense Review for the whole
of the U.S. military. See U.S. Department of Defense. Quadrennial Defense Review
Report. September 30, 2001., p. 11
27 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy. February 14, 2002.

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CRS-10
not be able to contain or deter the types of threats that are emerging today, such as
those created by rogue nations or terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction.
Consequently, the United States must also be prepared to preempt these threats by
launching strikes against adversaries before the adversary attacks the United States,
its allies or its interests. Some analysts have concluded that, with this change in
perspective, the Administration foresees the possible preemptive use of nuclear
weapons against nations or groups that are not necessarily armed with their own
nuclear weapons. This would be a striking change in U.S. national security policy,
but does not necessarily derive from the Administration’s expanded role for nuclear
weapons. With its overwhelming conventional superiority, it would be difficult to
imagine a scenario where the United States would have a military need to launch a
preemptive strike with nuclear weapons in the opening phases of a conflict.
The idea that nuclear weapons can play a role that goes beyond threatening
nuclear retaliation is not new to the Bush Administration. The Clinton
Administration also stated that nuclear weapons can serve as “a guarantee of our
security commitments to allies and a disincentive to those who would contemplate
developing or otherwise acquiring their own nuclear weapons.”28 The key difference
between the past and the future may be rhetorical — during the Cold War, the United
States emphasized the role that nuclear weapons could play in deterring the Soviet
Union before mentioning other possible objectives for U.S. nuclear policy; in the
future, with the greatly reduced risk of global nuclear war, the other objectives may
become more prominent in discussions of U.S. national security strategy.
Furthermore, in its presentation on the Nuclear Posture Review, the Bush
Administration asserted that, in spite of contributing to four distinct policy
objectives, nuclear weapons would play a smaller role in U.S. national security
strategy in the future than they had during the Cold War. According to the
Administration, U.S. deterrent policy has been highly dependent on the threat of
offensive nuclear retaliation, with the President having few other options for response
if the United States or its allies were attacked. In the coming years, the United States
will also seek to deter and defeat adversaries with precision conventional weapons,
which may soon be able to destroy some targets that were assigned to nuclear
weapons in the past, and ballistic missile defenses, which can deter attack by denying
an adversary the ability to threaten U.S. targets with ballistic missiles.29 According
to Administration officials, this new combination of weapons will provide the
President with a greater number of options and greater flexibility when responding
to threats or aggression from U.S. adversaries.
Some have argued that a national security concept that combines nuclear and
conventional capabilities will blur the distinction between the two types of weapons
and, therefore, increase the likelihood of a nuclear response. The Administration,
however, has argued that the presence of nuclear and conventional options would
“reduce pressures to resort to nuclear weapons by giving the President non-nuclear
28 A National Security Strategy for a New Century. The White House, October 1998.
Washington, D.C. p. 12.
29 U.S. Department of Defense. Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review. News
Transcript. January 9, 2002.

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CRS-11
options to ensure U.S. security.”30 Furthermore, according to those who support the
Administration’s approach, where adversaries might doubt the U.S. willingness to
resort to nuclear weapons, these expanded options could enhance the credibility of
the U.S. deterrent. Others note, however, that, over the years, the threat of
conventional response has not succeeded in deterring potential adversaries, requiring
the United States to respond with conventional attack and war. And, in spite of the
Administration’s presentation of a “new triad,” U.S. military planning has always
presented the President with a range of options. Nuclear options may have
dominated possible U.S. responses to Soviet aggression, but the President could
always choose conventional options when faced with a crisis or conflict. In fact,
throughout the Cold War and the decade since, the United States has always chosen
conventional, rather than nuclear, options when responding to aggression.
Policy on the possible first use of nuclear weapons. The United
States has never ruled out the possible first use of nuclear weapons. Although it has
pledged that it would not attack non-nuclear weapons states with nuclear weapons
under most circumstances, it has maintained a policy of “studied ambiguity” about
the circumstances under which it would consider nuclear retaliation and the type of
response it might use if a nation attacked the United States with WMD.
In its nuclear posture review (NPR), the Bush Administration did not alter the
U.S. policy on the first use of nuclear weapons. However, with its emphasis on the
emerging threats posed by nations armed with weapons of mass destruction, the
Administration did appear to shift towards a somewhat more explicit approach when
acknowledging that the United States might use nuclear weapons in response to
attacks by nations armed with chemical, biological, and conventional weapons. The
Bush Administration has stated that the United States would develop and deploy
those nuclear capabilities that it would need to defeat the capabilities of any potential
adversary whether or not it possessed nuclear weapons. Specifically, in its briefing
on the Nuclear Posture Review, the Administration stated that the capabilities needed
in the U.S. nuclear force structure “are not country-specific” and that the United
States “must maintain capabilities for unexpected and potential risks.” The focus
will be “on how we will fight, not who we will fight.”31 This does not, by itself,
indicate that the United States would plan to use nuclear weapons first in conflicts
with non-nuclear nations. However, General Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff stated in an interview that the scope of the destruction, not the
weapon used in an attack, would affect a U.S. decision on whether to respond with
nuclear weapons. He included high explosives, i.e. conventional weapons, in the list
of “weapons of mass destruction” that might bring a nuclear response from the
United States.32 Furthermore, press articles that reported on the nuclear posture
review stated that the Administration had considered using nuclear weapons in
30 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy. February 14, 2002.
31 U.S. Department of Defense. Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review. News
Transcript. January 9, 2002.
32 General Myers made these comments in an interview on the Late Edition with Wolf
Blitzer on CNN. They are quoted in Savage, David G. Nuclear Plan Meant to Deter. Los
Angeles Times, March 11, 2002. P. 1.

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contingencies with nations such as Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.33 These nations do
not, at this time, possess nuclear weapons.
When responding to these press reports, the Bush Administration stated that the
NPR had not produced war plans for attacks on non-nuclear nations. Instead, the
U.S. nuclear force posture was designed to deter these nations from acquiring or
using weapons of mass destruction. According to the President’s national security
adviser, Condeleeza Rice, it was supposed “to send a very strong signal to anyone
who might try to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States.”34
President Bush also appeared to endorse a policy of more explicit nuclear threats
during a news conference on March 14, 2002. He stated that “we want to make it
very clear to nations that you will not threaten the United States or use weapons of
mass destruction against us or our allies... I view our nuclear arsenal as a deterrent,
as a way to say to people that would harm America that ... there is a consequence.
And the President must have all the options available to make that deterrent have
meaning.”35
Some analysts have argued that these statements and possible plans for using
nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states are inconsistent with the U.S.
negative security assurance offered to the non-nuclear nations under the NPT.
Neither the President nor Secretary of State Powell have addressed this issue or
announced a withdrawal of the negative security assurance. However, in February,
2002, John Bolton, the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International
Security stated that he did not think the rhetorical approach used in the negative
security assurance “is necessarily the most productive” and “doesn’t seem to me to
be terribly helpful in analyzing what our security needs may be in the real world.”36
He argued that the assurances had been offered in “a very different geostrategic
context” and stated that the Bush Administration would be reviewing U.S. security
assurances to non-nuclear nations “in the context of our preparation for the 2005
review conference” of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.37
33 Gordon, Michael. U.S. Nuclear Plan Sees New Targets and New Weapons. New York
Times. March 10, 2002. p. 1.
34 Savage, David G. Nuclear Plan Meant to Deter. Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2002. P.
1.
35 Miller, Greg. Bush Puts Nuclear Use in “Options Available.” Los Angeles Times, March
14, 2002.
36 A New Strategic Framework? Detailing the Bush Approach to Nuclear Security.
Interview with Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton. Arms Control Today. March 2002.
Secretary Bolton also said that the negative security assurances reflected “an unrealistic
view of the international situation” and that, in case of an attack, “we would have to do what
is appropriate under the circumstances, and the classic formulation of that is, we are not
ruling anything in and we are not ruling anything out.” See Nicholas Kralev. U.S. Drops
Pledge on Nukes. Washington Times. February 22, 2002. P. 1.
37 When asked about the U.S. policy on negative security assurances, Richard Boucher, the
spokesman for the State Department, reaffirmed the existing U.S. policy. He did however,
note that the United States did not rule out a possible nuclear response to the use of WMD,
even if the attacking nation did not possess nuclear weapons. See U.S. Department of State.
(continued...)

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CRS-13
Targeting and Employment Planning
Targeting During the Cold War
During the Cold War, the United States sought to deter the Soviet Union, and
defeat it if deterrence failed, by threatening to destroy a wide range of military and
industrial targets. The U.S. plan for how to achieve this objective was contained in
a document known as the SIOP — the Single Integrated Operational Plan — which
is highly classified. According to scholarly reports and articles, the SIOP evolved
over the years, in response to changes in the number and capabilities of U.S. nuclear
forces and changes in theories of how to deter the Soviet Union. Throughout this
time, though, the SIOP reportedly contained a number of attack options for the
President to choose from. These options varied in terms of the numbers and types
of targets to be attacked and varied according to the number and types of U.S.
warheads available when the conflict began.38
In 1990, General John Chain, Commander in Chief of the Strategic Command,
outlined U.S. targeting strategy in testimony before Congress. He stated that “the
task is to be able to deter any possessor of nuclear weapons from attacking the United
States by having a postured retaliatory force significant enough to destroy what the
attacker holds most dear... Against this macro mission, target categories are
designated. Within these target categories, a finite list of targets are designated; and
against those targets, weapons are allocated.” These target categories reportedly
included Soviet strategic nuclear forces, other military forces, military and political
leadership, and industrial facilities.39 These represented mostly “counterforce” and
industrial targets. The United States did not seek to destroy Soviet cities, although
many likely would have faced attack due to their proximity to military or industrial
targets. The United States sought the capability to destroy thousands of sites in these
target categories, even if the Soviet Union destroyed many U.S. weapons in a first
strike. The need for weapons that could survive a Soviet strike and retaliate against
a wide range of Soviet targets created the requirement for large numbers of U.S.
strategic nuclear weapons.
Targeting after the Demise of the Soviet Union
After the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and collapse of the Soviet Union,
the Department of Defense conducted several studies to review U.S. nuclear targeting
strategy and weapons employment policy. According to published reports, these
reviews revised and greatly reduced the length of the target list, but left the basic
37 (...continued)
Daily Press Briefing. February 22, 2002.
38 See, for example, Ball, Desmond and Jeffrey Richelson, eds. Strategic Nuclear Targeting.
Cornell University Press. 1986. See also McKinzie, Matthew G. et al. The U.S. Nuclear
War Plan: A Time for Change. Natural Resources Defense Council. 2001. pp. 5-14.
39 Statement by John T. Chain, Jr. Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command and
Director, Strategic Target Planning, before the House Armed Services Committee. March
6, 1990. Prepared Text, p. 5.

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CRS-14
tenets of the strategy untouched. According to a 1995 article in the Washington Post,
“the United States primary nuclear war plan still targets Russia and provides the
President an option for counterattack within 30 minutes of confirmed enemy
launch.”40
In 1997, the Clinton Administration altered the U.S. strategy from seeking to
win a protracted nuclear war, a strategy identified during the Reagan Administration,
to seeking to deter nuclear war. In practice, this probably meant the United States
would not seek to cause as much damage against as wide a range of targets as it had
planned on attacking in previous war plans. Consequently, the United States would
not need to maintain as large an arsenal of nuclear weapons as it had needed during
the Cold War.41 But, these changes did not alter the core objectives of U.S. nuclear
policy. The United States would continue “to emphasize the survivability of the
nuclear systems and infrastructure necessary to endure a preemptive attack and still
respond at overwhelming levels.”42 Furthermore, the United States reportedly
continued to prepare a range of attack options, from limited attacks involving small
numbers of weapons to major attacks involving thousands of warheads, and to plan
attacks against military targets, nuclear forces, and civilian leadership sites in
Russia.43 The Clinton Administration argued that the flexibility offered by this range
of options would enhance deterrence by providing the United States with more
credible responses to a range of crises and attack scenarios.
Prompt Response and Alert Rates. The Clinton Administration retained
the U.S. policy of maintaining the capability to launch nuclear weapons after
receiving indications that an attack on the United States was underway, but before
40 “Secretary Cheney and General Powell and their aides threw thousands of targets out of
the SIOP (single integrated operational plan), helping to reduce it from its Cold War peak
of more than 40,000 to about 10,000 by 1991.” In addition “General Butler reviewed each
target one-by-one tossing many out ... one day he eliminated 1,000 targets in newly liberated
Eastern Europe...” By 1994, General Butler had helped to pare the SIOP to 2,500 targets.
See Ottaway, David B. and Steve Coll. Trying to Unplug the War Machine. Washington
Post, April 12, 1995. p. A28.
41 The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which the United States and Russia signed in
1991, reduced U.S. and Russian forces to 6,000 accountable warheads on strategic offensive
delivery vehicles. Prior to START I, each side had deployed more than 10,000 strategic
nuclear weapons. START II, signed by Russia and the United States in 1993, lowered the
limit to 3,500 strategic offensive weapons on each side. The targeting reviews completed
in the early 1990s had confirmed that the United States could reduce its forces to START
I and, after the demise of the Soviet Union, START II levels without undermining its ability
to pursue the existing employment policies. The new U.S. employment strategy, and plans
to further reduce nuclear weapons to around 2,500 strategic warheads, emerged from
additional targeting and force structure reviews in the mid-1990s.
42 Ibid. p. 12.
43 Smith, R. Jeffrey. Clinton Directive Changes Strategy on Nuclear Arms; Centering on
Deterrence, Officials Drop Terms for Long Atomic War. Washington Post, December 7,
1997. p. A1.

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CRS-15
incoming warheads could detonate.44 Analysts have criticized this policy, arguing
that it leads Russia to maintain its forces at a high state of alert, which could lead to
an inadvertent launch of Russia’s nuclear weapons if Russia received false or
ambiguous warnings of nuclear attack. Nevertheless, Clinton Administration
officials stated that the United States would not rely solely on the ability to launch
promptly; it could wait until detonations had occurred, then launch its retaliatory
strike at a later time.45 Consequently, some of the options available in U.S. war plans
included weapons that would be available if the United States launched its forces
before any were destroyed, and some included only those weapons that would survive
if the United States absorbed a first strike before initiating its response. The decision
on whether to launch U.S. weapons promptly or to wait for detonations on U.S. soil
would be left to the national command authority at the time of the crisis.
Bush Administration Approach
During testimony before Congress, Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense
for Policy, stated that the “mutual assured destruction” relationship between the
United States and Soviet Union was no longer an appropriate basis for calculating
our nuclear requirements. Therefore, when determining the size and structure of the
U.S. nuclear arsenal, DOD “excluded from our calculation ... the previous, long-
standing requirements centered on the Soviet Union, and, more recently, Russia.”46
The Bush Administration has referred to this new targeting strategy as a
“capabilities-based” strategy, rather than a “threat-based” strategy. During the Cold
War, U.S. targeting strategy focused on deterring and, if necessary, defeating the
Soviet threat. According to the Administration, this gave rise to war plans that
allowed for few contingencies and required only a minimum of flexibility and
adaptability.47 In the future, when planning for the possible use of nuclear weapons,
the United States would “look more at a broad range of capabilities and contingencies
that the United States may confront” and tailor U.S. military capabilities to address
this wide spectrum of possible contingencies.48 Specifically, the United States would
identify potential future conflicts, review the capabilities of its possible adversaries,
44 Smith, R. Jeffrey. Clinton Directive Changes Strategy on Nuclear Arms; Centering on
Deterrence, Officials Drop Terms for Long Atomic War. Washington Post, December 7,
1997. p. A1.
45 According to Robert Bell, “we direct our military forces to continue to posture themselves
in such a way as to not rely on launch on warning — to be able to absorb a nuclear strike
and still have enough force surviving to constitute credible deterrence. Our policy is to
confirm that we are under nuclear attack with actual detonations before retaliating.”
Cerniello, Craig. Clinton Issues New Guidelines on U.S. Nuclear Weapons Doctrine. Arms
Control Today. November/December 1997.
46 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy. February 14, 2002.
47 U.S. Department of Defense. Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review. News
Transcript. January 9, 2002.
48 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy. February 14, 2002.

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CRS-16
identify those capabilities that the United States might need to attack or threaten with
nuclear weapons, and develop a force posture and nuclear weapons employment
strategy that would allow it to attack those capabilities.
The Bush Administration has not discussed, publicly, how it will identify
specific targets or allocate weapons in its “capabilities-based” targeting strategy. It
has, however, identified three types of contingencies that it believes the United States
must prepare to address with its nuclear employment plans.49

! Immediate contingencies include “well-recognized, current
dangers.” The Soviet threat was an immediate contingency in the
past, current examples include a WMD attack on U.S. forces or
allies in the Middle East or Asia.
! Potential contingencies are “plausible, but not immediate dangers.”
This might include the emergence of new, adversarial, military
coalitions, or the re-emergence of a “hostile peer competitor.”
According to the Administration, the United States would probably
have sufficient warning of the emergence of these threats to modify
or adjust its nuclear posture.
! Unexpected contingencies are “sudden and unpredicted security
challenges.” This might include a “sudden regime change” when an
existing nuclear arsenal transferred to the control of a hostile
leadership or an adversary’s sudden acquisition of WMD.
These three types of contingencies would place different demands on U.S.
nuclear war planners. Because the United States can understand and anticipate
immediate contingencies, it can size, structure, and plan in advance for the use of its
nuclear arsenal to address these contingencies, just as it did when addressing the
Soviet threat during the Cold War.50 The United States can also plan in advance for
the possible use of nuclear weapons in potential contingencies, even if it does not
maintain the needed force structure on a day-to-day basis. Hence, the war-planning
and targeting process for these contingencies are likely to be similar to the process
used during the Cold War, albeit with a wider range of possible plans to address
targets among a greater number of countries. And, although the Administration has
not addressed this issue, the United States will likely prepare a number of alternative
employment plans so that the President will have options to choose from if a conflict
occurs. These are likely to include many of the same types of targets as the United
States planned to attack during the Cold War because the ability to destroy these
types of facilities is likely to remain important to the U.S. ability to defeat an enemy
49 The following summarizes the discussion in the Secretary of Defense’s Annual Report.
See U.S. Department of Defense. Annual Report to the President and Congress. Donald H.
Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense. Washington, 2002. p. 88.
50 The Administration has indicated, however, that it will not size the force of “operationally
deployed nuclear warheads” to address the potential Russian threat U.S. Department of
Defense. Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review. News Transcript. January 9,
2002.

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and limit damage to itself during a conflict. These targets could include deployed
and non-deployed stocks of weapons of mass destruction (during the Cold War,
Soviet nuclear weapons made up the majority of the targets in this category), other
military facilities, leadership facilities, and, possibly other economic targets.
The United States cannot, however, prepare pre-planned options for attacks for
unexpected contingencies because it does not know when or where these threats may
emerge. The focus on the “unexpected” has underlined the Administration’s
insistence that the United States develop and expand its capabilities for “adaptive
planning.”51 The United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which develops
the operational plans for U.S. strategic nuclear weapons, already has the ability to do
some adaptive planning. It began this effort in 1992, when it sought to develop “a
flexible, globally focused, war planning process” along with living SIOP, a nuclear
war plan “able to respond almost instantaneously to new requirements.”52 At the
present time, “STRATCOM is in the process of developing a more flexible and
adaptive planning system ... that employs modern computing techniques and
streamlined processes to significantly improve our planning capability for rapid,
flexible crisis response.”53 A responsive adaptive planning process must also rely on
timely and accurate intelligence, so that the planners will be able to identify targets
and attack them at their vulnerable points. Therefore, the Administration has called
for improvements in U.S. “sensors and technologies so that they can provide more
detailed information about an adversary’s plans, force developments, and
vulnerabilities.” It has requested additional funding “for the development of
advanced sensors and imagery, for improved intelligence and assessment, and for
modernization of communications and targeting capabilities in support of evolving
strike concepts.”54
The Bush Administration has emphasized the increasing importance of adaptive
planning, and waning relevance of pre-planned attack options, to highlight the fact
that its nuclear doctrine and targeting strategy focus on emerging threats, rather than
on a smaller version of the Cold War threat from the Soviet Union. Yet the
Administration’s plans probably do not represent a complete break from past
practices. First, because the Administration has identified the “re-emergence of a
peer competitor” as one of the potential contingencies the United States might need
to address, the United States is likely to retain some form of predetermined war plan
with options for possible attacks against Russian targets. Second, although the
Administration has indicated that it will reduce the number of operationally deployed
51 According to Undersecretary Feith, the United States must have “the flexibility to tailor
military capabilities to a wide spectrum of contingencies, to address the unexpected, and to
prepare for the uncertainties of deterrence.” See U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed
Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith, Undersecretary of Defense For
Policy. February 14, 2002.
52 Schwartz. Stephen I. Nukes You Can Use. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. May/June
2002. p. 19.
53 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of Admiral James O. Ellis,
Commander in Chief of Strategic Command. February 14, 2002.
54 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy. February 14, 2002.

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strategic nuclear warheads (this is discussed in the next section), it will retain enough
warheads to threaten many, if not most, of the targets included in options in the
current SIOP. It may eliminate some of the existing options, and possibly add
options for attacks against other possible adversaries, but it probably will not
completely replace pre-planned options with adaptive planning. Instead, U.S. nuclear
weapons employment policy is likely to include options for attacks against Russia,
contingency plans for attacks against other countries, and adaptive planning
capabilities to address unexpected, emerging threats. This would be similar to the
employment policy that had emerged by the end of the Clinton Administration.
Although the Clinton Administration continued to prepare a SIOP that focused on
Russia, press reports indicate it also maintained current intelligence on WMD
facilities in countries, such as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, and that it passed this
information to target planners at STRATCOM so that they could prepare contingency
plans for attacks with U.S. nuclear weapons. According to one report, STRATCOM
could produce target packages for these plans “within hours.”55
Prompt Response and Alert Rates. During the most recent presidential
campaign, Governor George W. Bush indicated that, as a part of his nuclear posture
review, he would considering reducing the alert rates of U.S. nuclear weapons.
However, when the Administration completed its review, it did not propose any
changes to U.S. alert rates. To the contrary, DOD concluded that, even as the Air
Force prepared to retire the Peacekeeper ICBMs, it would keep the force on alert to
maintain the morale and operational readiness of the units. The Bush Administration
also did not announce any changes to the U.S. ability to launch its nuclear weapons
promptly, before absorbing an attack, at the start of a conflict, or to use nuclear
weapons first in a conflict. To the contrary, with the growing emphasis on the
potential use of nuclear weapons in conflicts with nations armed with WMD, the
Administration probably would not support a “no first use” policy.
Force Structure
Nuclear Forces During the Cold War
During the Cold War, the U.S. nuclear arsenal contained many types of delivery
vehicles for nuclear weapons, including short-range missiles and artillery for use on
the battlefield, medium-range missiles and aircraft that could strike targets beyond
the theater of battle, short- and medium-range systems based on surface ships, long-
range missiles based on U.S. territory and submarines, and heavy bombers that could
threaten Soviet targets from their bases in the United States. The long-range missiles
and heavy bombers are known as strategic nuclear weapons; the short- and medium-
range systems are considered non-strategic nuclear weapons and have been referred
to as battlefield, tactical, and theater nuclear weapons.
Non-strategic Nuclear Weapons. Throughout the Cold War, the United
States deployed thousands of shorter-range nuclear weapons on land in Europe,
55 Pincus, Walter. “Rogue” Nations Policy Builds on Clinton’s Lead. Washington Post,
March 2, 2002. P. 4.

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Japan, and South Korea and on ships around the world. These weapons were deemed
essential to the U.S. strategy of extending nuclear deterrence to its allies. The United
States began to reduce these forces in the late 1970s, in part because NATO officials
believed they could maintain deterrence with fewer, but more modern, weapons.56
These modernization programs continued through the 1980s, particularly through the
deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles and intermediate-range ballistic
missiles in Europe. However, by the end of that decade, as the Warsaw Pact
dissolved, the United States had canceled or scaled back all planned modernization
programs. In 1987, it also signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF)
Treaty, which eliminated all U.S. and Soviet ground-launched shorter and
intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles.
Strategic Nuclear Forces. Since the early 1960s the United States has
maintained a “triad” of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. These include land-based
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles
(SLBMs) and long-range heavy bombers. The United States developed these three
different types of nuclear delivery vehicles, in large part, because each of the military
services wanted to play a role in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. However, during the 1960s
and 1970s, analysts developed a more reasoned rationale for the nuclear “triad.” They
argued that these different basing modes would enhance deterrence and discourage
a Soviet first strike because they complicated Soviet attack planning and ensured the
survivability of a significant portion of the U.S. force in the event of a Soviet first
strike.57 The different characteristics of each weapon system might also strengthen
the credibility of U.S. targeting strategy. For example, ICBMs eventually had the
accuracy and prompt responsiveness needed to attack hardened targets such as Soviet
command posts and ICBM silos, SLBMs had the survivability needed to complicate
Soviet efforts to launch a disarming first strike and to retaliate if such an attack were
attempted,58 and heavy bombers could be dispersed quickly and launched to enhance
their survivability, and they could be recalled to their bases if a crisis did not escalate
into conflict.
Modernization programs continued to enhance the capabilities of U.S. strategic
nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War era. These programs culminated with the
deployment of Peacekeeper (MX) ICBMs and Trident submarines and Trident II (D-
5) SLBMs in the mid-1980s and 1990s and with the deployment of the B-2 (Stealth)
bomber in the 1990s. The United States also continued to add to the numbers of its
deployed strategic nuclear weapons through the end of the 1980s. However, by the
early 1990s, the numbers of warheads deployed on U.S. strategic nuclear forces
56 The numbers of operational U.S. non-strategic nuclear warheads declined from more than
7,000 in the mid-1970s to below 6,000 in the 1980s, to fewer than 1,000 by the middle of
the 1990s. See Toward a Nuclear Peace: The Future of Nuclear Weapons in U.S. Foreign
and Defense Policy. Report of the CSIS Nuclear Strategy Study Group, Washington, D.C.
Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1993. p. 27.
57 U.S. Department of Defense. Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 1989, by Frank
Carlucci, Secretary of Defense. February 18, 1988. Washington, 1988. p. 54.
58 In the early 1990s, SLBMs also acquired the accuracy needed to attack many hardened
sites in the former Soviet Union.

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began to decline as the United States and Russia implemented the first Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty (START I).
Ballistic Missile Defenses. The United States has pursued research and
development on anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems since the early 1950s. In the
mid-1960s it developed the Sentinel system, which would have used ground-based,
nuclear-armed interceptor missiles to protect a number of major U.S. urban centers
against Soviet attack. In 1969, the Nixon Administration renamed the system
“Safeguard,” and changed its focus to deployment around ICBM fields to ensure that
these missiles could survive a first strike and retaliate against the Soviet Union.
Congress almost stopped the program in 1969, when the Senate voted 50-50 to
approve an amendment halting construction. Safeguard continued, however, when
Vice President Spiro Agnew broke the tie with a vote for the program.
In 1972, the United States and Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile
(ABM) Treaty, which limited each nation to the deployment of two ABM sites, one
around its capital and one around an ICBM field.59 The United States completed its
ABM site around ICBM fields near Grand Forks, North Dakota. It operated for a
short time in 1974 and 1975, then was shut down by Congress, largely because the
costs of operating the system, even in peacetime, were thought to be high relative to
the limited protection it offered. U.S. research and development into ABM systems,
especially for ICBM protection, continued, albeit at lower budget levels through the
late 1970s, before rising again during the Carter Administration. The Reagan
Administration further increased this funding after President Reagan announced an
expansive effort, known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), to develop non-
nuclear ballistic missile defenses, based on land, at sea, and in space, that would
protect the United States against a full-scale attack from the Soviet Union. As cost
estimates and technical challenges increased, the Reagan Administration stated that
it would begin with a more limited deployment of land-based and space-based
sensors and interceptors that would seek to disrupt and deter an incoming attack,
instead of providing complete protection. The first Bush Administration further
scaled back the goals for SDI, stating that the United States would seek to deploy a
defensive system that could protect against small-scale missile attacks from the
Soviet Union or other U.S. adversaries.
Force Structure After the Cold War
During the 1990s, the United States reduced both the numbers and types of
weapons in its nuclear arsenal. Some of these changes reflect the imposition of
negotiated arms control limits; others, such as the changes in U.S. non-strategic
forces, reflect adjustments in U.S. objectives and nuclear force posture.
Non-strategic Nuclear Forces. In September 1991, President George Bush
announced that the United States would withdraw all land-based tactical nuclear
weapons (those that could travel no more than 300 miles) from overseas bases and
all sea-based tactical nuclear weapons from U.S. surface ships, submarines, and naval
59 A Protocol signed in 1974 reduced this to one permitted site per side, around either the
nation’s capital or an ICBM silo field.

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aircraft.60 These initiatives affected more than 2,500 nuclear warheads that had been
deployed on shorter range delivery systems.61 Furthermore, in late 1991, NATO
decided to reduce by about half the number of weapons for nuclear-capable aircraft
based in Europe, which led to the withdrawal of an additional 700 U.S. air-delivered
nuclear weapons. At the end of the 1990s, the United States maintained an estimated
1,000 warheads for its active stockpile of nonstrategic nuclear weapons.62 This
number included around 500 air-delivered weapons that may still be stored at bases
in Europe. The remainder are air-delivered weapons and around 350 nuclear-armed
sea-launched cruise missiles that are stored at facilities in the United States.
Strategic Nuclear Weapons. Throughout the 1990s, the United States
continued to maintain a triad of strategic nuclear forces, with warheads deployed on
land-based ICBMs, submarine-launched SLBMs, and heavy bombers. According to
the Department of Defense, this mix of forces offered the United States a range of
capabilities and flexibility in nuclear planning, complicated an adversary’s attack
planning, and hedged against unexpected problems in any single delivery system.
During the past 10 years, while implementing the START I Treaty, the number of
warheads deployed on these strategic nuclear forces declined from a Cold War high
of around 12,000 warheads to fewer than 7,500 warheads. The remaining warheads
are deployed on 18 Trident submarines with 24 missiles on each submarine and either
6 or 8 warheads on each missile; 500 Minuteman III ICBMs, some with one and
others with 3 warheads on each missile; 50 Peacekeeper (MX) missiles, with 10
warheads on each missile; 76 B-52H bombers, with up to 20 cruise missiles on each
bomber; and 21 B-2 bombers with up to 16 bombs on each aircraft. This force
structure is displayed on Table 1, below.
In early 1993, the United States and Russia signed a second Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty. Under this Treaty, the United States and Russia would have each
reduced their strategic offensive nuclear weapons to between 3,000 and 3,500
accountable warheads. In 1994, the Department of Defense decided that, to meet this
limit, it would deploy a force of 500 Minuteman III ICBMs with one warhead on
each missile, 14 Trident submarines with 24 missiles on each submarine and 5
warheads on each missile, 76 B-52 bombers, and 21 B-2 bombers. The Air Force
would eliminate 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs and reorient the B-1 bombers to non-nuclear
missions. However, this Treaty never entered into force and, as is noted above,
Congress prevented the Clinton Administration from reducing U.S. forces
unilaterally. Table 1 outlines the forces that the United States had deployed after
completing the reductions mandated by START I, and compares them with the forces
the Clinton Administration planned to deploy under START II.
60 These steps were not contingent on reciprocal actions by the Soviet Union, but, on
October 5, 1991, Soviet President Gorbachev announced a similar set of initiatives.
61 The United States maintained the capability to return sea-based nuclear weapons to
aircraft carriers and submarines. In 1994, the Department of Defense Nuclear Posture
Review recommended that the United States no longer maintain that capability on aircraft
carriers, although it still could return nuclear-armed cruise missiles to attack submarines.
62 NRDC Nuclear Notebook. U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, July 1998. Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, v. 54, July/August 1998. p. 70.

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CRS-22
Table 1: U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces Under START I and
START II
Deployed under START I
Planned for START II
Accountable
Accountable
System
Launchers
Warheads(a)
Launchers
Warheads
Minuteman III ICBMs
500
1,200
500
500
Peackeeper ICBMs
50
500
0
0
Trident I Missiles
168
1,008
0
0
Trident II Missiles
264
2,112
336
1,680
B-52 H Bombers (ALCM)
97
970
76
940
B-52 H Bombers (non-
47
47
0
0
ALCM)
B-1 Bombers (a)
90
90
0
0
B-2 Bombers
20
20
21
336
Total
1,237
5,948
933
3,456
Source: U.S. Department of State, Fact Sheet; CRS Estimates
(a) Under START I, bombers that are not equipped to carry ALCMs count as one warhead, even if
they can carry up 16 nuclear bombs; bombers that are equipped to carry ALCMs count as 10
warheads, even if they can carry up to 20 ALCMs. With these weapons included in the total, U.S.
strategic nuclear forces can carry around 7,100 warheads. Under START II, bombers would have
counted as the number of weapons they were equipped to carry.
(b) Although they still count under START I, B-1 bombers are no longer equipped for nuclear
missions. Furthermore, the Air Force plans to reduce the B-1 fleet to 60 aircraft.
Ballistic Missile Defenses. In the wake of the 1991 Persian Gulf War,
Congress and the Clinton Administration restructured the BMD programs to
emphasize theater missile defense development and deployment efforts, and to focus
national missile defense (NMD) efforts on technology development. In 1996, the
Administration adopted a new policy that called for the continued development of
NMD technologies during the first 3 years (1997-2000), followed by a deployment
decision (in 2000) if the system were technologically feasible and warranted by
prospective threats. Using this approach, the United States would seek to develop
an NMD system to defend the United States against attacks from small numbers of
long-range ballistic missiles launched by hostile nations, or, perhaps, from an
accidental or unauthorized launch of Russian or Chinese missiles. Development and
deployment would be conducted within the limits of the ABM Treaty.
In January 1999, the Clinton Administration added funding to the future-years
defense budget for NMD so that it would be able to pursue the deployment option in
the event a deployment decision was made. The Administration emphasized,
however, that an NMD deployment decision still would not be made until June 2000.
In addition, the Administration announced that it had restructured the NMD program
for a possible deployment date of 2005, rather than 2003. This change was made,
according to the Pentagon, to reduce the amount of risk in the program and to
maximize its success. The Administration also acknowledged that it would have to
approach the Russians with proposals for amendments to the ABM Treaty that would
permit the deployment of an effective, although limited, NMD system. However,
after a test failure in July 2000, President Clinton announced, on September 1, 2000,

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CRS-23
that he would not authorize the deployment of an NMD system and would, instead,
leave the decision to his successor.
Changes Adopted by the Bush Administration
The Bush Administration has described a “new triad” of weapons systems and
capabilities that will contribute to nuclear deterrence and U.S. national security in the
coming years.63 In this “new triad,” nuclear weapons and precision-guided
conventional weapons combine as “offensive strike” forces. According to the
Administration, this combined strike force will reduce the U.S. reliance on nuclear
weapons and provide the President with a greater number of options when
responding to an attack. Missile defenses make up the second leg of the triad. The
Bush Administration has stated that defenses will contribute to deterrence by
complicating attack planning and undermining confidence for an adversary planning
an attack with ballistic missiles and by giving the United States an option, besides
“shooting back” if attacked with ballistic missiles. The third leg of the new triad is
a “responsive infrastructure” that would allow the United States to maintain and, if
necessary, expand its nuclear arsenal in response to emerging threats. These three
legs are joined together by “command and control, intelligence, and planning
capabilities.” The Administration has stated that these will provide the United States
the ability to identify targets and plan nuclear or conventional attacks on short notice,
in response to unexpected threats. The Administration argues that “the new triad will
provide ... the flexibility in planning necessary to address the new range of
contingencies, including the unexpected and undeterrable.”64
The following sections summarize the Bush Administration’s plans for non-
strategic and strategic nuclear weapons, missile defenses, and infrastructure. The
report does not address the plans for precision-guided conventional weapons, as these
are beyond the scope of the paper. It also does not provide any details on the
Administration’s plans for intelligence and command and control systems, as this
information remains classified.
Non-strategic nuclear weapons. When announcing the results of the
nuclear posture review, the Bush Administration did not outline any changes to the
current deployments of non-strategic nuclear weapons. Administration officials have
indicated that further adjustments in NATO’s nuclear posture are an issue to be
addressed by the alliance, so it did not propose any additions for or withdrawals from
the remaining U.S. nuclear forces deployed in Europe. However, press reports
indicate that the Bush Administration does plan to retain the capability to launch non-
strategic air-delivered nuclear weapons on U.S. fighter aircraft.65 It also plans to
63 U.S. Department of Defense. Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review. News
Transcript. January 9, 2002.
64 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy. February 14, 2002.
65 According to press reports, the United States could extend the service life of F-15 and F-
16 fighters, which can carry nuclear or conventional weapons. And, although the new Joint
(continued...)

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CRS-24
retain the nuclear-armed Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missiles and the capability
to deploy those missiles on attack submarines. Reports indicate that the Navy had
sought to retire that capability, but was overruled by the Pentagon’s civilian
leadership.66
Although the reports on the NPR did not discuss many details for U.S. non-
strategic nuclear weapons, the Bush Administration could support the continued, and
possibly expanded, deployment of these systems. The Administration’s strategy
outlines the need to react quickly to new intelligence and promptly target and deliver
nuclear weapons to emerging targets. Non-strategic nuclear weapons deployed at
bases overseas may be closer to the battlefield than strategic weapons based in the
continental United States, and, therefore, may be able to respond more quickly. They
also may carry fewer and smaller warheads than U.S. strategic nuclear weapons,
which would make them better suited to discrete, precise attacks.
Strategic Nuclear Weapons. At the conclusion of the Nuclear Posture
Review, the Bush Administration announced that the United States would reduce its
strategic nuclear forces to 1,700-2,200 “operationally deployed warheads” over the
next decade.67 It codified these reductions in the Strategic Offensive Reductions
Treaty (known as the Moscow Treaty), which the United States and Russia signed in
May 2002.68 According to the Administration, operationally deployed warheads are
those deployed on missiles and stored near bombers on a day-to-day basis. They are
the warheads that would be available immediately, or in a matter of days, to meet
“immediate and unexpected contingencies.”69 The Administration claims that the
size of this force is not determined by a need to counter a “Russian threat.”
However, the Administration did consider Russia’s remaining nuclear capabilities
when developing the U.S. nuclear force posture; a conflict with Russia is considered
to be a “potential contingency” that could arise if the U.S. relationship with Russia
were to deteriorate significantly. The forces needed to address potential
65 (...continued)
Strike Fighter (JSF) is not planned to be and not likely to become nuclear-capable when it
enters the force in 2012, the Air Force could add nuclear capability in later upgrades. If it
adds this capability, the Air Force could then retire the F-16 aircraft. See Hebert, Adam.
Pentagon Already at Work on Nuclear Systems Needed after 2020. Inside the Pentagon.
March 21, 2002. pp. 6-9.
66 Navy to Retain Cold War-Era, Nuclear-Tipped Tomahawk Missiles. Inside the Navy.
December 8, 2003. p. 1.
67 President Bush announced the U.S. intention to reduce its forces on November 13, 2001,
during a summit with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. The United States and Russia
codified these reductions in a Treaty signed in late May 2002. See CRS Report RL31448,
Nuclear Arms Control: The Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, by Amy F. Woolf. June
10, 2002.
68 For details on the Moscow Treaty see CRS Report RL31448, Nuclear Arms Control: The
Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty,by Amy F. Woolf.
69 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy. February 14, 2002.

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CRS-25
contingencies are included in the “responsive force” not in the “operationally
deployed force” of 2,200 warheads.
The Bush Administration has indicated that the United States will retain a triad
of ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers for the foreseeable future. It has not offered
a rationale for the retention of this traditional “triad,” although the points raised in
the past about the differing and complementary capabilities of the systems probably
still pertain. Moreover, the Administration also plans to retain most of the delivery
vehicles in the current strategic force structure as it reduces from the current level of
around 7,000 warheads70 to a force of around 2,200 operationally deployed warheads.
It will eliminate 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs, which carry 500 warheads, and convert four
Trident submarines, which count as carrying 576 warheads, to non-nuclear missions.
Table II, below outlines a force structure that is consistent with the plans announced
by the Administration.

Table 2: Illustrative U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces
Under Bush Administration Plan
System
Launchers
Accountable Warheads
Minuteman III ICBMs
500
500
Trident II Missiles(a)
336
864
B-52H Bombers(b)
76
500
B-2 Bombers
21
336
Total (c)
933
2,200
Source: CRS Estimates
(a) The launcher total for Trident submarines counts all 14 vessels. The warhead total, however,
excludes warheads that would be carried on two submarines in overhaul and assumes that each
deployed missile would carry only 3 warheads. If all 14 submarines counted, as they would have
under START II, and each carried only 3 warheads per missile, the total would be 1,008 warheads.
If START II rules limited the number of warheads removed from each missile, so that each counted
as 4 warheads, this total would be 1,344 warheads.
(b) If B-52 bombers counted as the number of weapons they were equipped to carry, this force might
total almost 1,000 warheads. The Administration has said, however, that it will only count weapons
stored at bomber bases against its limit of 2,200 warheads. This table assumes that number will be
around 500 weapons.
(c) If START rules were applied to this force, it would total between 2,700 and 3,000 warheads.
The United States will also exclude from its accounting those warheads that
could be deployed on weapons systems in overhaul — this would generally apply to
two Trident submarines at any given time. These submarines would have counted as
384 warheads under the START Treaties, but will not count against the new total of
70 At the end of 2001, according to the data released after the United States and Russia
completed the implementation of the START I Treaty, the United States had more than
7,000 warheads on its ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers. START II, which never
entered into force, would have reduced this number to 3,500 warheads, and a prospective
START III Treaty, outlined by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin in 1997, would have limited
each side to 2,500 warheads.

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CRS-26
2,200 warheads. The changes will eliminate around 1,400 warheads, leaving a total
of 5,600. To reach the level of 2,200 the Administration will remove more warheads
from deployed missiles and count only those bomber weapons deployed at bomber
bases, not the total number of weapons that could be carried on all U.S. bombers.
The Administration has also indicated that approximately 3,800 warheads will
be deactivated in the near-term, and many of these warheads will be placed in an
active reserve. According to the Administration, these stored warheads constitute a
“responsive force” because the warheads could be restored to deployment in weeks
or months, in response to potential contingencies, which are “more severe dangers
that could emerge over a longer period of time.” Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has
also noted that the United States must retain many retired warheads because it
currently has no warhead production capacity; if problems came up that disabled a
type of warhead, the United States could only maintain its forces by deploying the
stored warheads.71
Critics argue that this reconstitution force makes a mockery of the U.S. plans
to reduce its offensive nuclear forces. The Administration, however, has claimed that
the ability to reconstitute forces, if necessary, allows for deep reductions in
operationally deployed forces. The Administration has also stated that the responsive
force represents the force that the United States will need to meet the “four goals of
dissuading potential adversaries, assuring allies, deterring aggression, and defeating
enemies.”72
The following provides a more detailed summary of the Bush Administration’s
plans for each leg of triad of strategic offensive forces.
ICBMs. At the start of the Bush Administration in 2001, the U.S. ICBM force
contained 500 Peacekeeper missiles, each deployed with 10 warheads, and 500
Minuteman III missiles. Each Minuteman III missile could carry 3 warheads, but,
when reducing to START I force levels, the United States “downloaded” 150
Minuteman III missiles so that each now carries only one warhead. The other 350
missiles still carry 3 warheads each. This ICBM force carried a total of 1,700
warheads before the Peacekeeper deactivation program began..
The Bush Administration plans to deactivate and retire all 50 Peacekeeper
ICBMs. DOD first announced this decision, and the Air Force began to budget for
the process, in 1994. The 1993 START II Treaty would have banned multiple
warhead ICBMs, so the United States would have had to eliminate these missiles
while implementing the Treaty. However, beginning in FY1998, Congress
prohibited the Clinton Administration from spending any money on the deactivation
or retirement of these missiles until START II entered into force, an event that never
occurred. The Bush Administration requested $14 million in FY2002 to begin the
missiles’ retirement; Congress lifted the restriction and authorized the funding.
71 Rumsfeld: Fate of Deactivated Nuclear Warheads Still Undetermined.
InsideDefense.com. May 21, 2002.
72 Ibid.

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CRS-27
The Bush Administration began deactivating the Peacekeeper missile in October
2002 and it plans to complete the retirement process in 3 years.73 Some analysts have
called on the Administration to remove the missiles from alert, in anticipation of their
retirement, but the Administration has indicated that the missiles will remain on alert
and fully mission capable during this time. Some in the Administration have noted
that the missile operators’ morale and readiness could suffer if the missiles were not
on alert. Others, however, have argued that the early deactivation of these missiles
would not only demonstrate good faith to Russia about U.S. intentions, but also
reduce the instabilities they believe exist because of the high levels of alert in the
U.S. and Russian nuclear forces. Under START II, the United States would have had
to destroy the silos that house the Peacekeeper missiles to ensure that the missiles
could not be deployed again in the future. The Bush Administration plans to retain
the empty silos, and save the expense of excavating or exploding them. It also plans
to retain the missile stages for possible use as space launch vehicles or target vehicles
for missile defense tests. Finally, it plans to retain the warheads removed from the
missiles and deploy some of them on Minuteman III missiles.74
The Bush Administration plans to retain all 500 Minuteman III missiles, and to
download them so each missile carries only one warhead. It plans to modernize these
missiles, to improve their accuracy and reliability and to extend their service lives
beyond 2020. At the present time, this modernization program is expected to cost
around $5.5 billion.75 Of this amount, $55 million will be used to upgrade the
command consoles in missile alert facilities to allow for more rapid retargeting —
a capability identified in the NPR as essential to the future nuclear force. The Air
Force is also conducting an ongoing $1.9 billion program to replace the guidance
system on the Minuteman missile to increase its accuracy and extend its service life.
The Air Force had hoped that the new guidance system would make the Minuteman
missile as accurate as the Peacekeeper missiles, but press reports indicate that the
system has shown some problems during its testing program.76 The Air Force also
plans to repour the fuel in the first and second stages of the Minuteman missiles and
to completely remanufacture the third stage. This program is currently underway and
will continue through 2004, at least. The Air Force will also eventually extend the
life of the missiles’ fourth stage, the one that carries the reentry vehicle. Finally,
under the Safety Enhanced Reentry Vehicle program, the Air Force will replace the
existing warheads on around 200 Minuteman missiles with the W87 warheads
removed from Peacekeeper missiles.77
The Air Force has also taken initial steps to develop and produce a new ICBM,
to replace the Minuteman III. It has reportedly produced a “mission needs statement”
73 U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2002. NRDC Nuclear Notebook. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
May/June 2002. p. 70.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 Donnelly, John M. Air Force Defends Spending Half A Billion on Iffy ICBMs. Defense
Week. September 10, 2001. p. 1.
77 U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2002. NRDC Nuclear Notebook. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
May/June 2002. p. 70-71.

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CRS-28
and will conduct studies during FY2004 and FY2005, with a plan to bring the new
missile into service by 2018. Reports indicate that it will seek a new missile with an
extended range, the ability to fly along “shaped” trajectories, and the ability to attack
relocatable and deeply buried targets.78 Some in the Air Force and defense
community have also begun to consider the possibility of deploying ICBMs with
conventional, rather than nuclear warheads. They argue that this type weapon system
would “improve the U.S. ability to swiftly react to targets around the globe,”
contributing to the mission of “prompt global strike.”79 Critics, however, contend
that such a deployment and use of ICBMs could prove very destabilizing. They note
that, if the United States ever launched these missiles, both Russia and China could
mis-interpret the launch and react as if the United States had launched a nuclear
attack against them.
SLBMs. At the start of the Bush Administration, the U.S. SLBM force
consisted of 18 Trident submarines. Seven of these submarines, which are based at
Bangor, Washington, carry the older Trident I (C-4) missile. The eighth submarine
based at Bangor has just completed its conversion to carry the newer Trident II (D-5)
missile. The remaining 10 submarines, which are based at Kings Bay, Georgia, all
carry the Trident II missile. Each of these missiles can be equipped to carry up to 8
warheads. However, when reducing its forces to comply with the START I Treaty,
the Navy removed warheads from the missiles on the 8 Tridents in the Pacific fleet,
and each now carries no more than 6 warheads.
The Bush Administration plans to retain 14 Trident submarines in the U.S.
strategic nuclear force. All will be equipped to carry the Trident II missile. This is
the same plan that the Clinton Administration announced in 1994 for the U.S. force
under START II. However, the Clinton Administration had planned to retire the
four oldest Trident submarines so that the missiles that could be deployed on them
would not count under the limits in the START II Treaty. The Bush Administration
has, instead, announced that the Navy will convert these vessels to carry conventional
cruise missiles or other non-nuclear weapons. It has included $1 billion in the
FY2003 budget to begin this conversion process. Because these submarines will still
have launch tubes for ballistic missiles, they will still count under the START I
Treaty, but they will not count under the Administration’s calculation of
“operationally deployed warheads.”
The retirement of four Trident submarines will eliminate 576 operationally
deployed warheads (4 submarines, with 24 missiles and 6 warheads on each missile.)
To further reduce the number of “operationally deployed” warheads, the Navy may
remove additional warheads from Trident missiles. Each missile probably would
have carried 5 warheads under START II; they are likely to carry as few as 3
warheads in the future. In addition, the Navy will have two Trident submarines in
overhaul at any given time. The warheads that could be carried on missiles on these
78 Hebert, Adam. Pentagon Already at Work on Nuclear Systems Needed after 2020. Inside
the Pentagon. March 21, 2002. pp. 6-9.
79 Schmitt, Eric. U.S. Considers Conventional Warhead on Nuclear Missiles. New York
Times. February 24, 2003. See, also, Butler, Amy. DTRA Director Pushes Conventionally-
armed ICBMS. Defense Daily, January 26, 2004. p. 5.

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CRS-29
submarines will count under START I and would have counted under START II.
However, the Bush Administration will not count these warheads in its total of 2,200
“operationally deployed warheads.”
Furthermore, as the Navy retires four submarines based at Bangor, Washington,
it will move 3 submarines from Kings Bay, Georgia to Bangor, leaving seven
submarines at each of the two bases. This move will occur between FY2003 and
FY2006, and will also coincide with the retirement of the Peacekeeper missiles. This
change will not only “balance the force” to maintain an equivalent workload at each
base, it may also allow the United States to continue to “cover” targets in the Soviet
far east that may have been allocated to the older Trident missiles or Peacekeeper
ICBMs. The Navy also plans to continue producing D-5 missiles at a rate of 12 per
year, for a total of 425 missiles to equip the 14 remaining submarines.80
The Navy has indicated that the Trident submarines can remain in service for
44 years, which means that the first retirements will begin in 2029. The Navy has
initiated studies into options for a replacement for the Trident — one would be a
new, dedicated ballistic missile submarine and another would be a variant of the
Virginia class attack submarine. It would have to begin work on a new submarine
by 2016 so that it could begin to enter the fleet as the Tridents begin to retire.81 The
Trident II missiles will reach the end of their service lives sooner than the
submarines, and they will begin to retire in 2019. The Navy plans to conduct a
modification program to extend the missiles’ life; funding will begin in FY2005 and
missile production is scheduled to begin in FY2015. The Navy plans to purchase 300
missiles, enough to equip 10 Trident submarines. The Navy is also planning to
refurbish the W76 warheads on the Trident missiles, starting in 2007, so they can
remain in service until 2040.82
Press reports indicate that the Navy is studying whether it might use
conventionally-armed Trident missiles to attack mobile or deeply buried, hardened
targets. This responds to a recommendation in the NPR that DOD study the
feasibility of modifying a ballistic missile system to carry a non-nuclear payload.83
To perform this type of mission, the missile’s accuracy would have to be improved.
Consequently, DOD has requested $30 million to begin a “three year effective
enhancement” effort to “demonstrate the near-term capability to steer a sea-launched
ballistic missile warhead to GPS-like accuracy.”84
80 U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2002. NRDC Nuclear Notebook. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
May/June 2002. p. 71.
81 Hebert, Adam. Pentagon Already at Work on Nuclear Systems Needed after 2020. Inside
the Pentagon. March 21, 2002. pp. 6-9.
82 U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2002. NRDC Nuclear Notebook. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
May/June 2002. p. 72-73.
83 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy. February 14, 2002.
84 Grossman, Elaine M. Pentagon Eyes Bunker-Busting Conventional Ballistic Missile for
Submarines. Inside the Pentagon, June 27, 2002. P. 1.

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Bombers. At the present time, the U.S. Air Force has 94 B-52 bombers and
21 B-2 bombers that are equipped to carry nuclear weapons. The Air Force also has
92 B-1 bombers that were deployed as nuclear-armed aircraft in the 1980s and 1990s.
The United States reoriented the B-1 bombers to conventional missions, and removed
them from the nuclear war plans in the late 1990s. Under the START II Treaty, the
United States could have restored them to a nuclear role, even though it had no plans
to do so. The Bush Administration has indicated that it will no longer maintain the
capability to exercise this option.85 The Bush Administration has also indicated that
it would like to reduce the size of the B-1 force. It initially planned to retire 33
bombers assigned to the Air National Guard and provide upgrades to the
conventional weapons systems on the remaining 60 aircraft.86 However, in the
FY2004 Defense Authorization and Appropriations Bills, Congress had mandated
that the Air Force restore 23 of these aircraft to service. The Air Force has argued
that this mandate would be too costly and complex to implement. It indicated,
however, in early February 2004, that it might request that 7 or 8 of these aircraft
return to active service.87
The Bush Administration has not outlined any changes to the current size of the
B-52 or B-2 fleets.88 The B-52 bomber, which first entered service in 1961, is
equipped to carry nuclear or conventional air-launched cruise missiles and nuclear-
armed advanced cruise missiles. The B-52 bombers can also deliver a wide-range
of conventional arms. With upgrades, the Administration expects these cruise
missiles to remain in the fleet until 2030 and the aircraft to remain in service until
around 2044. The B-2 “Stealth” bomber first entered service in late 1993. It is
equipped to carry nuclear gravity bombs, such as the B-61 and the B-83, and
conventional bombs. The Bush Administration believes this aircraft will remain in
the force until 2040.
Under the START II Treaty, the United States would have had to count the total
number of nuclear weapons these aircraft were equipped to carry under its allocation
of permitted warheads. These warheads would have counted even if the bombers
were equipped to perform conventional missions, unless the bombers were altered
so that they could no longer carry nuclear weapons. The Bush Administration has
stated, however, that it will not count the weapons that could be carried on bombers
under its total of 2,200 “operationally deployed” warheads. It will only count as
“operationally deployed” those nuclear weapons stored at bomber bases, excluding
a small number of spare warheads. It does not intend to alter any bombers so that
they cannot carry nuclear weapons. It plans to maintain nuclear capability, without
85 U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2002. NRDC Nuclear Notebook. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
May/June 2002. p. 73.
86 For B-1 Bomber Fleet, Air Force Determines Less is More. InsideDefense.com, June 27,
2001. See also, CRS Report RL31544, Long-Range Bombers: Background and Issues for
Congress, by Pierre Bernasconi and Christopher Bolkcom. August 22, 2002.
87 USAF Wants Seven Or Eight More B-1s, Not 23; Will Deal With Congress. Inside The
Air Force. February 20, 2004. p. 1.
88 The Clinton Administration had planned to reduce the B-52 fleet to 76 aircraft, but
Congress has blocked any planned retirements.

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distinction, on all B-52 and B-2 bombers. Consequently, the number of bomber
weapons could decrease in the future, even without changes to the numbers of
deployed bombers, as the United States converts some of its nuclear-armed ALCMs
to carry conventional warheads (under the counting rules in START, these cruise
missiles would have continued to “count” as nuclear weapons, even if they were
modified to carry conventional warheads.)
Ballistic Missile Defenses. In several speeches given during the campaign
and his early months in office, President Bush indicated that he would pursue a more
robust missile defense program than the one he inherited from the Clinton
Administration. The President stated that the world had changed, that the United
States faced new threats, and that it could no longer rely on the Cold War-era
doctrine of nuclear deterrence to safeguard its national security. He stated that he
would pursue the development of missile defense technologies that could be
deployed on land, at sea, and in space, and that would protect the United States, its
allies, and its forces overseas from ballistic missile attacks from rogue nations. The
President recognized that his planned missile defense system would not be consistent
with the limits in the ABM Treaty. He sought to convince Russia to withdraw from
the Treaty together with the United States. When that approach failed he announced,
on December 13, 2001, that the United States had given its six months’ notice; the
United States withdrew from the Treaty on June 13, 2002.
The Administration began to outline its plans for missile defense in July 2001.89
Initially, the Administration planned to continue all the ongoing theater missile
defense (those that would attempt to shoot down shorter-range missiles) and national
missile defense (those that would attempt to shoot down longer-range missiles)
programs pursued by the Clinton Administration. However, it did propose sharp
increases in funding, adding $3.1 billion to the Clinton Administration’s planned
budget of $5.2 billion for missile defense in FY2002. The Bush Administration also
eliminated the distinction between theater and national missile defense, dividing the
programs, instead, into boost-phase, mid-course, and terminal phase.90 The Bush
Administration has not identified an eventual architecture for its ballistic missile
system. It has stated that it does not know what types of technologies or how many
sensors and interceptors it will eventually deploy, or when these systems will be
available. Instead, it has pursued a “robust research and development program” to
identify promising technologies and systems. It has indicated that it may begin
deploying technologies in the next few years, as they begin to show promise, then
upgrade them over time as the technologies mature. This process, often referred to
as spiral development, differs significantly from most other military acquisition
programs because military officials have not established performance criteria or
milestones that the systems must achieve before they can proceed to production and
deployment. In addition, because the Administration has not identified the eventual
size or structure of its completed program, it cannot identify either the annual or total
costs for the program.
89 For details see CRS Report RL31111, Missile Defense: The Current Debate, coordinated
by Steven A. Hildreth and Amy F. Woolf.
90 These refer to the portion of a ballistic missile’s flight trajectory, during which an
interceptor missile would attempt to shoot it down.

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The Administration and others who support this acquisition approach argue that
it will allow the United States to field missile defense technologies quickly, even if
they are not perfect and require later modifications. They argue that this is necessary
because the United States faces a growing threat from nations armed with ballistic
missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, as was noted above, missile
defenses form one of the legs in the Administration’s new “triad” of capabilities
identified in the nuclear posture review. The Administration argues that missile
defenses can enhance deterrence by complicating an adversary’s attack planning,
dissuade an adversary from acquiring ballistic missiles by undermining the value of
those weapons, assure allies of the U.S. ability to contribute to their defense, and
limit damage to the United States, its friends, and forces if deterrence fails.91
Infrastructure
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) nuclear weapons complex provides
warheads required by the Department of Defense for its strategic and non-strategic
nuclear weapons. The complex is an integrated network of facilities that conduct
research and development; produce nuclear and other materials; produce, maintain
and test nuclear weapons; and dismantle retired warheads. During the Cold War, the
facilities in the complex expanded their capacity and capability to meet the needs of
a large nuclear arsenal of increasing technical sophistication. In the last decade, as
is described in more detail below, the number of facilities in the complex declined
and the focus of its efforts shifted. The Bush Administration plans to adjust the
complex further, restoring some of the capabilities lost in the last decade and
enhancing the U.S. capability to produce and maintain nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Weapons Complex During the Cold War
By the middle of the 1980s, the U.S. nuclear weapons complex consisted of 14
major facilities, and a number of smaller facilities, located in 12 states.92 Three
laboratories — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA; Los
Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, NM; and the Sandia National
Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM — conducted research and development and
designed new nuclear weapons. The complex also included four facilities that could
produce nuclear or other materials used in nuclear weapons and naval nuclear
reactors. These facilities, which were operated by a number of industrial contractors,
included the Hanford site near Richland, WA; the Savannah River Site, near Aiken,
SC; the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, near Idaho Falls, ID; and the Feed
Material Production Center at Fernald, OH.
91 U.S. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Statement of the Honorable Douglas J. Feith,
Undersecretary of Defense For Policy. February 14, 2002.
92 For a detailed description of these facilities see the National Research Council. Committee
to Provide Interim Oversight of the DOE Nuclear Weapons Complex, Commission on
Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources. The Nuclear Weapons Complex:
Management for Health, Safety, and the Environment. Appendix B: The DOE Nuclear
Weapons Complex: A Descriptive Overview. National Academy Press. Washington, 1989.
pp. 102-112.

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The nuclear weapons complex also included six major nuclear weapons
production facilities. These included the Rocky Flats Plant, outside Denver, CO; the
Kansas City Plant, near Kansas City, MO; the Mound Plant, near Dayton OH; the
Pinellas Plant, in Clearwater, FL; and the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX. These
facilities were also operated by industrial contractors. Finally, the complex included
the Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles from Las Vegas, which conducted explosive
tests of U.S. and British nuclear warheads. These tests were used to confirm the
reliability of existing weapons, test the effects of nuclear weapons, and help in the
development of new nuclear warheads.
Many of the facilities in the nuclear weapons complex were constructed in the
1940s and 1950s, so they were deteriorating significantly during the 1980s. In 1988,
DOE closed the nuclear reactors at Hanford and Savannah River, in response to
safety concerns. The Rocky Flats Plant, which produced the nuclear triggers, or
“pits,” for nuclear weapons closed in 1989, in response to safety and environmental
concerns. At the time, DOE expected to reopen at least some of these facilities. In
the late 1980s, it also developed a plan to modernize and replace many of its
facilities, on the assumption that the United States would need to continue to design,
produce, test, maintain, and dismantle large numbers of nuclear weapons for the
foreseeable future.93 However, the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the
Cold War led many to question and reconsider assumptions about the future of the
U.S. nuclear weapons complex.
The Nuclear Complex in the 1990s
During the 1990s, the focus of efforts in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex
changed. Instead of concentrating on developing, testing, and producing new nuclear
weapons, the United States turned its efforts to maintaining the existing stockpile and
ensuring its safety and reliability in the absence of underground nuclear testing. DOE
also reduced the size of the existing infrastructure, from 14 to 8 facilities, and began
to modernize the remaining facilities.94 The facilities at Hanford, Pinellas, Mound,
and Rocky Flats all ceased work on nuclear weapons. The remaining facilities
included the 3 nuclear weapons laboratories — Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia;
four production facilities — the Kansas City Plant, the Y-12 Plant in Tennessee, the
Savannah River Site, and the Pantex Plant; and the Nevada Test Site. The number
of people employed by the nuclear weapons complex, which had reached a peak of
nearly 58,000 people in 1990, had fallen below 24,000 people by the end of the
decade.
Operations at all eight of the remaining facilities changed in response to
changing demands for nuclear weapons work and changes in the U.S. nuclear force
posture. For example, the Savannah River site, which had produced plutonium and
tritium in its now-closed reactors, focused, instead, on efforts to purify existing
93 See U.S. Department of Energy. Nuclear Weapons Complex Reconfiguration Study.
DOE/DP-0083. Washington, D.C. January 1991.
94 For details, see CRS Report 97-945, Nuclear Weapons Production Capabilities Issues:
Summary of Findings, and Choices, by Jonathan Medalia. Updated June 24, 1998. pp. 6-8.

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tritium.95 In addition, the Pantex Plant, which had focused mostly on the final
assembly of nuclear weapons, began to shift its workload towards the dismantlement
of retired weapons. DOE is also establishing a facility at Los Alamos Laboratory that
can make pits for nuclear weapons, which had been produced at the Rocky Flats
Plant during the Cold War. The Los Alamos facility will not have nearly the capacity
of Rocky Flats, but its supporters argue that it will help fill a gap in the U.S. ability
to maintain its nuclear weapons and certify the reliability of its pits.
Perhaps the most significant change in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex was
the cessation of nuclear testing. The United States adopted a moratorium on nuclear
testing in 1992 and signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996.96 Although
the Senate refused to consent to the ratification of the Treaty in October 1999, the
United States has continued to observe a moratorium. In the absence of nuclear
testing, DOE developed the Stockpile Stewardship Program to maintain U.S. nuclear
weapons. This program, which will use existing computing and analysis capabilities
along with several new, large experimental facilities at the nuclear weapons
laboratories, includes surveillance efforts that are designed to predict and detect
problems in nuclear warheads; assessment and certification efforts that analyze and
evaluate the effects of changes on warheads safety and performance; and design and
manufacturing efforts which are intended to refurbish stockpile warheads and certify
new parts, materials, and processes.97 Congress first authorized this program in 1993
and elements of it have been underway since that time.98
Infrastructure in the Future
The Bush Administration has called the nuclear weapons infrastructure one of
the three legs of its “new triad.” According to Administration officials, the U.S.
ability to maintain its existing nuclear weapons “lends credibility to the arsenal and
assurance to allies.” An infrastructure “focused on sustainment and sized to meet
the needs of a smaller nuclear deterrent” would provide the United States with the
capabilities to “respond to future strategic challenges.” In addition, the “ability to
innovate and produce small builds of special purpose weapons would convince an
adversary that it could not expect to negate U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities.”
Hence, according to the Administration, an infrastructure that allows the United
States to sustain its forces and adapt them to meet emerging needs would “provide
the United States with the means to respond to new, unexpected, or emerging threats
95 Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, is needed to boost the yield of nuclear
weapons. The United States has not produced any tritium since the reactors at Savannah
River shut down in 1988. Tritium decays at a rate of 5.5% per year. To maintain a
significant stock, DOE must purify existing tritium and, eventually, produce new tritium.
96 Congress passed the moratorium over the objections of the Bush Administration. See P.L.
102-377, sec 507, FY1993 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act. See also,
CRS Issue Brief IB92099, Nuclear Weapons: Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, by Jonathan
Medalia.
97 U.S. Department of Energy. Office of Defense Programs. Stockpile Stewardship
Program: Overview and Progress. October 1997. p. 4.
98 See P.L 103-160, FY1994 National Defense Authorization Act, Sec. 3138.

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in a timely manner.”99 This characterization of the nuclear weapons infrastructure,
and its integration into the new model of deterrence, does not alter its central
functions, but it does raise the profile of the facilities and underline the
Administration’s commitment to modernize and expand the complex.100
When announcing the results of the Nuclear Posture Review, the Bush
Administration indicated that the United States would continue to observe a
moratorium on nuclear testing, in spite of the President’s opposition to the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The Administration has stated that the United
States will continue to pursue the stockpile stewardship programs to assure the safety,
reliability and performance of the nuclear weapons stockpile. According to
Administration officials, DOE will strengthen the weapons assessment process and
seek improvements in understanding the of physics of nuclear explosions through
new and expanded simulation capabilities.101 The ongoing program will include
aggressive surveillance and the planned refurbishment of existing warheads, to
“anticipate stockpile problems and fix them before they arise.”

The Bush Administration confirmed that the Stockpile Stewardship Program has
permitted DOE to certify the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal up till
now, but it contends the United States may not be able to continue to do so in the
future, as the nuclear stockpile ages. Furthermore, DOE currently has no capacity for
“advanced warhead concept development and cannot build and certify pits or certain
secondary components, much less complete warheads.” As was noted above, many
existing facilities, and the workforce, are aging. Therefore, the Administration has
outlined a more comprehensive program to rebuild the nuclear weapons complex and
its workforce to ensure that the United States can respond to emerging problems in
the nuclear weapons arsenal or emerging threats in the international environment.
The Administration has argued that a “responsive” nuclear weapons
infrastructure must incorporate several capabilities that include and go beyond the
1990s focus on stockpile surveillance and management. For example, the
infrastructure must be able to respond to surprises in the status of the stockpile, such
as age-related defects that appear suddenly, or changes in international security
environments. The Administration has also argued that the United States should be
able to anticipate innovations in weapons design and countermeasures pursued by an
adversary and counter them before they arise. The infrastructure must also have a
sufficient reserve or surge capacity for research, development, and production; a
sufficient stock of assets, such as tritium, to support the deployed and responsive
99 U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services. Statement of John A. Gordon, Undersecretary
of Energy for Nuclear Security and Administrator, National Nuclear Security
Administration. February 14, 2002.
100 Funding to rebuild the nuclear weapons production complex increased from $9 million
in FY2001 to $197 million in FY2002. The Bush Administration requested $243 million
for FY2003. See Weisman, Jonathan. Nuclear Arms Scientists May Lack “Sense of
Mission”. USA Today. March 18, 2002. P. 6
101 U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services. Statement of John A. Gordon,
Undersecretary of Energy for Nuclear Security and Administrator, National Nuclear
Security Administration. February 14, 2002.

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force of nuclear warheads; and the capacity to maintain the readiness of sufficient
numbers and types of weapons. Specifically, the NPR recommends that the
infrastructure have the capacity to identify and repair emerging problems in existing
warheads in three to four years and to allow for the design, development, and
production of new types of warheads within five years of a decision to enter full scale
development.102
The Administration has identified a number of specific tasks that the
infrastructure must accomplish over the next decade. At the top of the list is the
refurbishment of several existing warheads, including the W87, B61-7/11, W80, and
W76. It plans to retain these aging warheads for the foreseeable future. This
refurbishment effort will take place at the Pantex Plant, and will use most of the
existing capacity at that facility. In addition, the NPR has indicated that the United
States should be able to produce new warheads if the international security
environment dictates. Therefore, the NPR reportedly indicates that Pantex will need
to expand its capacity, from the current level of around 350 warheads per year to 600
warheads per year,103 so that it could assemble sufficient quantities of new warheads
without interfering with the planned refurbishment program. In the past decade
Pantex has concentrated on dismantling warheads removed from service; in the
future, DOE will schedule warhead dismantlement at Pantex when there is time
between refurbishment and other production efforts. DOE also plans to expand the
capacity at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, so that it can meet the expected
workload for replacing uranium components in the existing U.S. nuclear arsenal.104
The Administration has also announced that it will re-establish small “advanced
warhead concepts teams” at each of the national labs and at the DOE headquarters
in Washington. These teams had existed during the Cold War, but they were
disbanded during the 1990s after the United States instituted a moratorium on nuclear
testing and ceased efforts to design and develop new types of nuclear warheads. The
new teams will evaluate evolving military requirements and assess options for new
or modified warheads that might meet these requirements. They will focus on both
theoretical work and engineering design work and could perform tests and
simulations using weapons components and subassemblies.105 The Administration
notes that this effort will not only prepare the United States to respond to emerging
threats, but will also help train the next generation of weapons scientists.
Included in the efforts of the advanced concepts initiative is possible research
into the development of new, low-yield nuclear weapons. Congress had prohibited
such research in the FY1994 Defense Authorization Act. In its FY2004 budget, the
Bush Administration requested that Congress repeal the ban and appropriate $6
102 Ibid.
103 Pincus, Walter. Nuclear Plans Go Beyond Cuts. Washington Post. February 19, 2002.
104 Faking Nuclear Restraint: The Bush Administration’s Secret Plan for Strengthening U.S.
Nuclear Forces. Natural Resources Defense Council. February 13, 2002.
105 U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services. Statement of John A. Gordon,
Undersecretary of Energy for Nuclear Security and Administrator, National Nuclear
Security Administration. February 14, 2002.

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million for research on low yield nuclear weapons.106 After a lengthy and contentious
debate, Congress approved the Administration’s request, although the Defense
Appropriations Bill did withhold $4 million of the approved funds, pending the
completion of a study on the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
The press has also reported widely on the Administration’s plans to explore one
specific modified nuclear warhead — the “robust earth penetrator.” This type of
warhead would be designed to penetrate below the ground before exploding, so that
it could increase the probability of destroying hardened and deeply buried targets.
These types of targets might include command and control facilities, storage depots
for weapons of mass destruction, or other military assets. The United States currently
has one type of nuclear weapon — the B-61 mod 11 bomb — that is designed to
penetrate before detonating. But this weapon can only penetrate about 10 meters and
may not survive penetration in many types of terrain.107 Consequently, DOE has
initiated a research project on a new earth penetrating weapon. According to
Ambassador Linton Brooks, the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security
Administration, this research is focusing on modifications to the B-61 and B-83
bombs.108 This study may cost $10 million in FY2003 and $40-$50 million over
three years.109 Congress authorized the Administration’s request for $15 million for
the second year of this study in FY2004, but it only appropriated 7.5 million. The
Administration has requested $27.5 million in its FY2005 budget to begin
“developmental ground tests” on the “candidate weapons designs. It also plans to
request sharply higher levels of funding in the next few years, including $95 million
in FY2006, $145.3 million in FY2007, and $128.4 million in FY2008.110
The NPR also recommended that the United States reduce the amount of time
that it would take to resume nuclear explosive testing at the Nevada Test Site. The
Administration claims that this “enhanced test readiness” is “prudent as a hedge for
the possibility that a future safety or reliability problem could not be fixed without
106 For a detailed discussion of this initiative, see U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional
Research Service. Nuclear Weapons Initiatives: Low Yield R&D, Advanced Concepts,
Earth Penetrators, Test Readiness. CRS Report RL32130, by Jonathan Medalia. October
28, 2003.
107 Tyson, Anne Scott. New Push for Bunker-Buster Nuke. Christian Science Monitor.
May 9, 2002. P. 1.
108 The Bush Administration Views on the Future of Nuclear Weapons. An Interview with
NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks. Arms Control Today. January/February 2004. p. 3.
109 Weisman, Jonathan. Nuclear Arsenal Upgrade Planned. USA Today. March 18, 2002.
p. 1. See also Pincus, Walter, Nuclear Warhead Study Aims at Buried Targets. Washington
Post, March 15, 2002, p. 16. According to Spencer Abraham, Secretary of Energy, the study
will focus on whether an existing warhead can be modified for use as an earth penetrating
weapon. Because it will not seek to develop a new warhead, the study will not violate a
1994 congressional ban on the design and development of new nuclear weapons.
110 Department of Energy FY2005 Congressional Budget Request. National Nuclear
Security Administration. DOE/ME-0032, Volume 1. January 2004. pp. 63 and 76.

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testing.”111 If a problem came up in these processes, it would take 24-36 months for
DOE to prepare for and conduct an underground nuclear test. Furthermore, the
Administration has noted that this time might lengthen in the future, as remaining
personnel with nuclear testing skills and expertise retire. Consequently, the
Administration included $15 million in the FY2003 DOE budget and $25 billion in
the FY2004 DOE budget to begin to reduce the time needed to prepare for nuclear
testing. These funds would be used to augment key personnel and increase their
proficiency, begin training the next generation of personnel, conduct additional
subcritical tests, replace key components, modernize certain test diagnostic
capabilities, and decrease time to show regulatory compliance.112
The Administration also plans to begin construction on a new facility that would
be able to produce the “pits” for nuclear weapons. DOE will continue to use the
interim pit facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory, but this facility would only
be able to produce 20-50 pits per year and would not be able to manufacture all the
types of pits currently in the U.S. stockpile. According to the Administration, this
facility may not be sufficient if the United States must replace large numbers of aging
pits in the future. Therefore, it plans to bring a new facility on line by 2020.113 It will
size this facility with the capacity to support the planned workload for maintaining
and replacing existing pits and to address “surprise” requirements and the need for
potential new warhead production.114
Issues Raised by the NPR
The Role of Nuclear Weapons in U.S. Defense Policy
As was noted above, the Clinton Administration retained much of the existing
U.S. nuclear weapons policy and force posture in the decade after the demise of the
Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in official documents, the Administration stated that
nuclear weapons were playing a smaller role in U.S. defense strategy than they had
during the Cold War, and it stated that these weapons existed primarily to serve as
a deterrent for adversaries who were armed with their own nuclear weapons. The
Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration before it, also eliminated many
specific targets from the U.S. war plan, and began to reduce the size of the U.S.
nuclear arsenal, in response to the demise of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union. But
the central tenets of the U.S. deterrence strategy and nuclear employment plans
remained essentially unchanged. Furthermore, during the 1990s, the Clinton
111 U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services. Statement of John A. Gordon,
Undersecretary of Energy for Nuclear Security and Administrator, National Nuclear
Security Administration. February 14, 2002.
112 Ibid.
113 Costa, Keith, NNSA To Begin Work on New Plutonium Pit Production Plant. Inside the
Pentagon. June 6, 2002. p . 14.
114 U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services. Statement of John A. Gordon,
Undersecretary of Energy for Nuclear Security and Administrator, National Nuclear
Security Administration. February 14, 2002

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Administration began to develop targeting options for the use of nuclear weapons in
response to chemical or biological attack from nations other than Russia, and, in its
declaratory policy, the Administration would not rule out the possible first use of
nuclear weapons in these circumstances.
At the same time, many participants in the public debate over nuclear weapons
policy argued that the United States should alter sharply its nuclear weapons strategy
and force posture. They claimed that, in the absence of the global threat from the
Soviet Union, the United States could maintain its deterrent posture with a far
smaller number of nuclear weapons; many proposed reductions to levels of around
1,000 warheads. Some also argued that, with its overwhelming superiority in
conventional weapons, the United States could defeat almost any potential adversary
without threatening to resort to nuclear weapons. Several studies concluded that a
policy of “nuclear abolition” could be a practical, albeit long term, goal for the
United States and other nations with nuclear weapons. In the meantime, they argued
that the United States should use its nuclear weapons only to deter the potential use
of nuclear weapons by other nations. In this framework, the United States could
consider its nuclear weapons to be “weapons of last resort.”115
The Bush Administration’s description of the role of nuclear weapons differs
sharply from the views advocated by many analysts over the last decade, but it is
more consistent with official policies and posture adopted by the Clinton
Administration. The Bush Administration assumes that nuclear weapons will be a
part of U.S. security strategy for at least the next 50 years. Given this time frame,
the NPR recommends that the United States begin now to develop weapons systems
that will enter the force in the years between 2020 and 2040. Therefore the
Administration clearly does not assume that the current systems in the U.S. nuclear
arsenal will be the last. The Administration also has a role for nuclear weapons that
goes well beyond a “weapon of last resort” designed to deter only nuclear attack. The
Administration not only argues that nuclear weapons can deter chemical, biological,
and conventional attack, it believes they can do more than just deter attack. It has
argued that they can also be used to assure allies of U.S. commitments, dissuade
adversaries from acquiring weapons of mass destruction or threatening the United
States, and defeat adversaries by destroying critical targets if deterrence fails. This
last objective has contributed to the Administration’s interest in developing new
types of nuclear weapons that can threaten hardened and deeply buried targets.
The Administration has argued, however, that this expanded role for nuclear
weapons does not mean that the United States is increasing its reliance on nuclear
weapons. It has noted that the addition of missile defenses and precision-guided
conventional weapons to U.S. deterrent forces will give the President a greater
number of options in a crisis and actually reduce the likelihood of nuclear use.
Critics, however, question this logic, arguing that the Administration’s approach will
115 “... as the Cold War waned, so did the notion that nuclear weapons could be used to fight
a war. While Washington did not give up its option to make the first use of nuclear weapons
against a Warsaw Pact attack, it cast the use of such weapons as a last resort. With the end
of the Cold War, the need for nuclear weapons seemed to fade further.” Gordon, Michael
R. Nuclear Arms For Deterrence or Fighting? New York Times, March 11, 2002. p. 1.

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blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons and increase the
likelihood of nuclear use. According to one analyst, the Administration has outlined
a role for nuclear weapons that emphasizes war-fighting over deterrence. He has
argued that “if military planners are now to consider the nuclear option any time they
confront a surprising military development, the distinction between nuclear and
nonnuclear options fades away.”116 Others have also concluded that the
Administration’s plan will increase U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons. Former
Senator Sam Nunn, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and retired General
Eugene Habiger wrote that the Administration’s policy is “expanding options for
nuclear attacks, widening the number of targeted nations and developing new nuclear
weapons variants.” They note that “each of these ideas may have a plausible military
rationale,” but “their collective effect is to suggest that the nation with the world’s
most powerful conventional forces is actually increasing its reliance on nuclear
forces.”117
Some critics of the Administration’s policy continue to argue for a far more
limited role for nuclear weapons in U.S. defense and security policy. They question
whether threats to use nuclear weapons in response to anything other than a nuclear
attack would be either necessary or credible. Therefore, according to one analyst,
“the U.S. would be far better served by adopting a genuinely new nuclear posture,
one that maintains nuclear weapons only to deter nuclear attack. Given the awesome
power of U.S. conventional forces, we do not need nuclear weapons for any other
purpose, even to deter a chemical or biological attack.”118 Furthermore, given the
long-standing “taboo” against the use of nuclear weapons, some argue that the United
States would enhance its standing in the international community if it sought to
reduce, rather than expand, the role of nuclear weapons in international affairs.
Credible Deterrence
In many ways, the debate over the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense
policy follows from a more fundamental debate over how to make deterrence
credible. This debate surfaced frequently during the Cold War, when the United
States sought to develop a mixture of strategy, doctrine, and force posture that would
deter not only a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States but also a conventional
attack by the Soviet Union or its allies against U.S. allies. For example, some
analysts questioned whether the Soviet Union would believe U.S. threats to launch
a massive retaliatory strike in response to an attack in Europe, when the Soviet Union
could respond by devastating U.S. cities. Concerns about the credibility of the U.S.
deterrent underlined many of the U.S. efforts to develop smaller, more accurate
nuclear weapons and war plans that contained options allowing attacks against a
116 Comments attributed to Ivo Daalder, of the Brookings Institution. See Dao, James.
Pentagon Study Urges Arms Shift, For Nuclear to High Tech. New York Times. January
9, 2002.
117 Nunn, Sam, William Perry, and Eugene Habiger. Still Missing: A Nuclear Strategy.
Washington Post. May 21, 2002. p. 17.
118 Scoblic, J. Peter. Think Anew About U.S. Nukes. Christian Science Monitor. March
19, 2002.

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range of targets. Analysts hypothesized that, if the Soviet Union knew that the
United States could launch an attack more tailored to the provocation, and more
directed against Soviet nuclear forces, then U.S. threats might seem more credible to
the Soviet leadership. In other words, the more prepared the United States appeared
to fight and win a nuclear war, the more likely it would be for the Soviet Union to
refrain from aggression and for deterrence to succeed. Others argued, however, that
such large force structures and elaborate plans were simply overkill, that the threat
of nuclear destruction with as few as 100 warheads, known as a minimum deterrent,
could be enough to deter any rational leader from challenging the United States.
In the years after the end of the Cold War, debates over the credibility of nuclear
deterrence often focused on whether nations armed with chemical or biological
weapons might believe U.S. threats to retaliate with nuclear weapons if attacked with
chemicals or biological agents. Some argued that the potential loss of life from a
biological attack would be so severe that nuclear deterrent threats would be both
appropriate and credible. Others argued that nations simply would not believe that
the United States would cross the nuclear threshold in response to anything less than
a nuclear attack, so nuclear threats would not be a credible deterrent for chemical or
biological weapons. Furthermore, some argued that if a nation did use chemical or
biological weapons, and the United States did not retaliate with nuclear weapons, the
United States would be caught in a bluff and the credibility of its nuclear deterrent
would be further damaged. These views contributed to the theory that the United
States should threaten to use nuclear weapons only as a “last resort.”
The Bush Administration has outlined plans to develop a more focused nuclear
war-fighting capability for the United States. The emphasis on the development of
penetrating nuclear weapons that can destroy hardened and deeply buried targets,
along with the “capabilities” based approach that states the United States will seek
the ability to destroy threatening capabilities possessed by any potential adversary,
are a part of this new strategy. As was noted above, critics have argued that these
changes in the U.S. nuclear posture make it more likely that the United States will
use nuclear weapons in a future crisis. The Bush Administration has argued,
however that U.S. plans and capabilities to use nuclear weapons against smaller
countries would make nuclear use less likely because it would make the U.S.
deterrent more credible and robust.119 Analysts who support the Bush
Administration’s approach have noted that “leaders of rogue states may not take
seriously a U.S. threat to launch massive nuclear strikes on leadership and weapons
sites.... Thus, having the capability to destroy such targets with smaller and less
destructive weapons would strengthen, rather than erode deterrence.”120
In addition to altering the U.S. force posture and war plans, the Bush
Administration has been somewhat more explicit in threatening the use of nuclear
weapons in retaliation for chemical or biological attacks. As was noted above, U.S.
policy, both during the Cold War and in the decade since its end, has been one of
119 McManus, Doyle. Nuclear Use as “Option” Clouds Issue. Los Angeles Times. March
12, 2002. p. 1.
120 Sokolsky, Richard D. and Eugene B. Rumer. Nuclear Alarmists. Washington Post.
March 15, 2002. p. 23.

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“studied ambiguity” about the circumstances under which it would retaliate with
nuclear weapons for a chemical, biological, or even conventional attack. It never
openly declared that it would use nuclear weapons (and therefore, never would have
been caught in a “bluff” if it did not retaliate with nuclear weapons), but it also would
not foreswear the first use of nuclear weapons. President Bush has not altered this
policy, but he has stated that “we want to make it very clear to nations that you will
not threaten the United States or use weapons of mass destruction against us or our
allies.” He said that “I view our nuclear arsenal as a deterrent, as a way to say to
people that would harm America that ... there is a consequence.”121
U.S. Nuclear Posture and Nonproliferation Policy
In its report on the National Security Strategy of the United States, released in
September 2002, the Bush Administration stated that the United States would “deter
and defend against the threat [of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons] before
it is unleashed.” But the report also stated that the United States would seek to
“strengthen nonproliferation efforts to prevent rogue states and terrorists from
acquiring the materials, technologies, and expertise necessary for weapons of mass
destruction.” The report says that the United States will “enhance diplomacy, arms
control, multilateral export controls, and threat reduction assistance that impede
states and terrorists seeking WMD...”122
According to the Administration, the development of new types of nuclear
weapons that can defeat hardened and deeply buried targets, along with the potential
use of nuclear weapons in retaliation for non-nuclear attacks, are a part of the U.S.
effort to dissuade other nations from acquiring and threatening to use chemical,
biological, or nuclear weapons. But many critics of the Administration’ approach
argue that this policy is likely to undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts to discourage
nuclear proliferation. According to one analyst, “by emphasizing the important role
of nuclear weapons, the Pentagon is encouraging other nations to think it is important
to have them as well.”123 Senator John Kerry expressed a similar view when he
stated that the NPR would undermine U.S. credibility when it sought to convince
other nations to forego nuclear weapons, noting that “it reduces all our bona fides on
the proliferation issue.124
Critics of the Administration’s policy point specifically to the implications its
views on the U.S. negative security assurance might have for U.S. nonproliferation
efforts. Many note that, through the negative security assurance, the United States
sought to convince other nations that they would not need their own nuclear weapons
to deter a nuclear threat from the United States. But, there would be “no reason for
other countries to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons” if the United States
121 Miller, Greg. Bush Puts Nuclear Use in “Options Available.” Los Angeles Times,
March 14, 2002.
122 White House. National Security Strategy of the United States. September 2002. p. 14.
123 Comments of Stan Norris in Gordon, Michael R. Nuclear Arms For Deterrence or
Fighting? New York Times, March 11, 2002. p. 1
124 Miller, Greg. Democrats divide over Nuclear Plan. Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2002.

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abandoned that policy.125 Not only would these nations receive no security benefit
from the absence of nuclear weapons in their arsenals, they might also conclude that
they could only deter a U.S. attack if they were to acquire their own nuclear weapons.
Others, however, have argued that the negative security assurance has done little
to stem proliferation or enhance U.S. security because other nations do not consider
the U.S. nuclear posture or declaratory policy when making their decisions about the
acquisition of nuclear weapons. Even if the United States did not have any nuclear
weapons, some nations would seek them for themselves to counter their neighbors
or offset the U.S. advantage in conventional weapons. Furthermore, some analysts
consider the negative security assurance, and its specific focus on nuclear weapons,
as an “outdated policy that effectively gives non-nuclear countries a safe haven for
developing chemical and biological weapons.”126
Nevertheless, many critics of the Administration’s policy have questioned the
wisdom of an approach that might undermine U.S. nuclear nonproliferation
objectives, even in the interest of providing new tools to address chemical and
biological weapons. They note that the United States currently possesses
conventional forces that are far superior to those of any other country. If, however,
potential adversaries were to acquire nuclear weapons, they might present the United
States with an “asymmetrical threat” that could offset U.S. conventional superiority.
Therefore, these critics argue, the United States should seek to “marginalize as much
as possible the role that nuclear weapons play in U.S. defense and foreign policy.”
Nations can only negate the overwhelming U.S. conventional superiority with
nuclear weapons, so “it is in U.S. interest to keep the firewall between nuclear and
conventional high and strong.”127
Strategic Nuclear Weapons
As was noted above, the Bush Administration’s plans for the U.S. arsenal of
strategic nuclear weapons contain a number of key components:
! Reductions in the number of “operationally deployed” strategic
nuclear warheads to between 2,200 and 1,700 warheads;
! Retention of most deployed delivery vehicles (ICBMs, SLBMs, and
bombers), with reductions in the number of warheads carried by and
counted on these vehicles;
! Storage of many warheads removed from deployment;
! The ability to restore stored warheads to deployed delivery vehicles
in days, weeks, or months — a capability known as the “responsive
force.”
125 Comments of Joseph Cirincione in McManus, Doyle. Nuclear Use as “Option” Clouds
Issue. Los Angeles Times. March 12, 2002. p. 1.
126 Sokolsky, Richard D. and Eugene B. Rumer. Nuclear Alarmists. Washington Post.
March 15, 2002. p. 23.
127 Daalder, Ivo and James M. Lindsay. A New Agenda for Nuclear Weapons. The
Brookings Institution. Policy Brief No. 94. February 2002. p. 6.

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The Administration argues that this combination of features will allow the
United States to reduce its deployed forces while retaining the flexibility it needs to
respond to unexpected or potential contingencies that might come up in the future.
When combined with the plans to rebuild a robust infrastructure, these plans indicate
that the United States will maintain the ability to enhance both the size and the
capabilities of its strategic nuclear forces.
Analysts have raised numerous questions about the Administration’s plans.
First, they question why, if Russia and the United States are no longer enemies, does
the United States need to maintain 2,200 warheads in its deployed forces. They argue
that Russia is the only potential adversary that has enough nuclear, leadership, and
military targets to justify such a large U.S. force, and, by insisting on retaining this
many weapons, the United States must still be developing war plans that contemplate
wide-spread attacks on Russian targets. The Administration disputes this claim,
noting that the United States has other potential adversaries, and, even if these
nations do not possess thousands of nuclear warheads, some may expand their
nuclear forces or chemical and biological capabilities in the future.
Analysts have also noted that the Administration’s claims of deep reductions in
offensive nuclear weapons are undermined by its plans to retain thousands of
warheads in storage for a “responsive force.” They note that, if these warheads were
deployed on existing delivery vehicles, the United States could have a deployed force
of nearly 4,000 warheads in a relatively short amount of time. They also argue that,
if Russia adopts a similar posture, the threat of nuclear terrorism could increase
because Russia’s stored warheads might be vulnerable to theft or sale to nations
seeking their own nuclear weapons.
The Administration has countered by noting that the United States has never
destroyed warheads removed from delivery vehicles under past arms control
agreements; it has always retained an active stockpile of warheads for spares and
testing purposes. On the other hand, under arms control agreements, the United
States did have to destroy delivery vehicles so that their warheads would no longer
count in the total of deployed warheads. The Bush Administration does not plan to
destroy either the silos for the Peacekeeper missiles or the Trident submarines that
will be removed from the strategic force. It also plans to retain the same number of
delivery vehicles that the United States would have retained, and counted as 3,500
warheads, under the START II Treaty. Hence, even if the United States deploys only
2,200 warheads on a day-to-day basis, it could expand its forces relatively rapidly.
Many of the questions raised by the Administration’s critics reflect their views
on the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security and their views on what is
needed to maintain a credible deterrent. Generally, they believe that the United
States should adopt a posture where nuclear weapons are weapons of “last resort,”
used only to deter or respond to nuclear attack on the United States. They conclude
that the United States could maintain a credible deterrent with a far smaller number
of nuclear weapons, perhaps 1,000 or fewer, and without significant investments in
new infrastructure or new nuclear weapons capabilities. The Administration, on the
other hand, has outlined a posture that reflects the view that nuclear weapons should
play a broader role in U.S. national security strategy than just the deterrence of
nuclear attack, that a credible deterrent requires the capability to effectively threaten

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and destroy a range of critical targets, and that the United States may need different
numbers of nuclear weapons and different types of nuclear weapons to address
threats that emerge in the future. Under this formula, the flexibility to restore nuclear
warheads quickly, expand the number of deployed warheads over time, and develop
new weapons with new capabilities makes it possible for the United States to reduce
its deployed weapons in the near term without creating potential risks to its security
in the future.
Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons
As was noted above, the United States withdrew from deployment most its
nonstrategic nuclear weapons during the early 1990s, leaving a few hundred air-
delivered bombs deployed at bases in Europe. Although some analysts question the
need for these weapons, and their relevance to NATO’s strategy in the absence of the
Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, most concerns about nonstrategic nuclear weapons
focus on the potential for the loss or theft of Russia’s weapons. Unclassified reports
estimate that Russia may still have 12,000 nonstrategic nuclear weapons at storage
areas around the country, and that these storage areas might be poorly guarded and
the weapons may be vulnerable to theft. One Member of Congress, Curt Weldon, has
referred to the issue of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons as “severe” and “critical.”128
Many analysts believe that, to address concerns about Russia’s nonstrategic
nuclear weapons, the United States must propose unilateral or negotiated reductions
in these forces. Others argue that negotiations are not an option because, with just
a few hundred weapons deployed, the United States would have little leverage to
convince Russia to reduce its stocks of nonstrategic nuclear weapons. Many contend
that the United States should focus, instead, on measures to improve security at
Russia’s nuclear weapons storage facilities and to enhance transparency and openness
so that both sides can remain confident in the safety and security of Russia’s
stockpile. Efforts in these areas are funded by DOD’s Nunn-Lugar Cooperative
Threat Reduction Program.
The Bush Administration did not address questions about U.S. or Russian
nonstrategic nuclear weapons in the NPR or in the testimony and briefings that
accompanied its release. However, in the months following the release of the NPR,
and particularly after the United States and Russia signed the Strategic Offensive
Reductions Treaty in May 2002, the Administration began to recognize that
nonstrategic nuclear weapons should be on the agenda for discussions between the
United States and Russia. Press reports indicated that this issue would be on the
agenda during the May summit when Presidents Bush and Putin signed the Treaty.129
This did not occur, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld noted, at the time, that the
issue on nonstrategic nuclear weapons was one that “keeps getting set aside.”130
However, during hearings on the Treaty before the Senate Foreign Relations
128 Roosevelt, Ann. Weldon: Time to Discuss Tactical Nuclear Weapons Cuts
129 Raum, Tom. Tactical Weapons Next Topic. Moscow Times. May 20, 2002. p. 5.
130 Rumsfeld: Fate of Deactivated Nuclear Warheads Still Undetermined.
InsideDefense.com. May 21, 2002.

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Committee in July 2002, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Secretary of State
Powell both acknowledged that the two sides did need to address the issue. Both
indicated that nonstrategic nuclear weapons would be on the agenda for the new
Consultative Group for Strategic Stability, which was announced in the Joint
Declaration released after the May 2002 summit in Moscow. This group, which is
chaired by the U.S. Secretaries of Defense and State and Russia’s Ministers of
Defense and Foreign Affairs, held its first meeting in September 2002. Although
their efforts are still in the earliest stages, many analysts believe that this group
should place its highest priority on addressing the risks posed by Russia’s arsenal of
nonstrategic nuclear weapons.

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