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{{Infobox nukes |country_name=United States, [1939], 1945], 1952], 1992] (October 31, 1954)])|current_stockpile=5,163 active, 9,938 total (est.)Norris, Robert S., and Hans M. Kristensen, "The U.S. stockpile, today and tomorrow", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 63:5 (September/October 2007): 60-63, .|maximum_range=13,000 kilometers/8,100 miles (land)
12,000 kilometers/7,500 miles (sub)|NPT_signatory=Yes (1968, one of five recognized powers)] was the first country in the world to successfully develop nuclear weapons, and is the only country to have used them in Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During the Cold War it conducted over a thousand Nuclear testing and developed many long-range weapon delivery systems. It maintains an arsenal of about ten thousand warheads to this day , as well as facilities for their construction and Nuclear weapon design, though many of the Cold War facilities have since been deactivated and are sites for environmental remediation.

Development history Manhattan Project " explosion was the first nuclear weapon ever tested.

The United States of America first began developing nuclear weapons during World War II under the order of President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt in 1939, motivated by a fear that they were engaged in a potential race with Nazi Germany to develop such a weapon. After a slow start under the direction of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, at the urging of United Kingdom scientists and American administrators the program was put under the Office of Scientific Research and Development, where in 1942 it was officially transferred under the auspices of the United States Army and became known as the Manhattan Project. Under the direction of General (United States) Leslie Groves, over thirty different sites were constructed for the research, production, and testing of components related to bomb making. These included the scientific laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory (in New Mexico), under the direction of physicist Robert Oppenheimer, a plutonium production facility, Hanford Site (in Washington), and a Enriched uranium facility, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (in Tennessee).

By investing heavily both in breeding plutonium in early nuclear reactors, and in both the electromagnetic and gaseous diffusion enrichment processes for the production of uranium-235, the United States was able by mid-1945 to develop three usable weapons. A plutonium-Nuclear weapon design weapon was tested on July 16, 1945 ("Trinity test"), with around a 20 kiloton yield. On the orders of President Harry S. Truman, on August 6 of the same year a uranium-Nuclear weapons design bomb ("Little Boy") was Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and on August 9 a plutonium-implosion design bomb ("Fat Man") was used against the city of Nagasaki, Japan. The two weapons killed approximately 250,000 Japanese citizens outright, and many more thousands have died over the years from radiation sickness and related cancers.

Cold War In the postwar period, the United States was soon engaged in a nuclear arms race against the Soviet Union, who it feared had strong territorial ambitions in postwar Europe and potential ideological ambitions to wage war against the United States. The U.S. invested heavily in a continued program of weapons research, development, and production, under the auspices of the civilian-run United States Atomic Energy Commission. Research also commenced in delivery systems, including the improvement of bomber aircraft and the development of rocketry for use with nuclear systems.

", in 1952.

In 1950, in response to the detonation of the USSR's first fission weapon in 1949 ("Joe 1"), Truman ordered a crash research program towards developing thermonuclear weapons. At that point the weapons were still purely theoretical, with no method known for successfully igniting a nuclear fusion reaction. After a theoretical breakthrough by the mathematician Stanislaw Ulam and physicist Edward Teller, however, workable method was developed and tested in the "Ivy Mike" shot in November 1952, with a yield of 10 megatons. A deployable version of the Teller–Ulam design was tested in the "Castle Bravo" shot of February 1954, with a yield of 15 megatons, over twice the projected expectations. Because of this error in calculation and unfortunate changes in weather conditions, the "Bravo" shot resulted in the depositing of large amounts of nuclear fallout onto the Marshall Islands at the test site in the Pacific. An evacuation ensued, but many of the natives exposed suffered from cancers and a high incidence of birth defects. A Daigo Fukuryu Maru was additionally exposed and resulted in one death from radiation sickness, which gained considerable international attention.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the United States continued on its path, developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), with which to hold a credible Deterrence theory against the USSR. In this period the U.S. stockpile of weapons increased exponentially to its maximum point of over 32,000 warheads in 1966.Natural Resources Defense Council, "Figure of US Nuclear Stockpile, 1945-2002", at http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/dafig9.asp The generally agreed upon point at which the U.S. came closest to nuclear war with the USSR occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

In the 1970s and 1980s, warhead production slowed somewhat though innovation in warhead design allowed for new generations of delivery systems such as multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) to be produced. Since this advance in the miniaturization of thermonuclear weapons in the mid-1970s, most experts and weapons scientists have said that most nuclear weapons design was focused on small improvements and modifications rather than any radical changes.

In the 1980s, under President Ronald Reagan, a reinvigoration of the arms race took place, and also introduced the extensive advocacy of the use of nuclear and non-nuclear approaches to missile defense through the Strategic Defense Initiative. For technical and political reasons, however, funding was eventually cut back heavily on this program.

Post-Cold War Atmospheric reentry is subjected to a wall of fire to determine how its aging components would react if used today, as part of the program of stockpile stewardship.

After the end of the Cold War following the History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991)#Yeltsin and the dissolution of the USSR of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. nuclear program was heavily curtailed, halting its program of nuclear testing, ceasing in the production of new nuclear weapons, and reducing its stockpile by half by the mid-1990s under President Bill Clinton. Many of its former nuclear facilities were shut down, and their sites became targets of extensive environmental remediation. Much of the former efforts towards the production of weapons became involved in the program of stockpile stewardship, attempting to predict the behavior of aging weapons without using full-scale nuclear testing. Increased funding also was put into anti-nuclear proliferation programs, such as helping the states of the former Soviet Union eliminate their former nuclear sites, and assist Russia in their efforts to inventory and secure their inherited nuclear stockpile. As of February 2006, over United States dollar1.2 billion were paid under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 to U.S. citizens exposed to nuclear hazards as a result of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, and by 1998 at least $759 million was paid to the Marshall Islands in compensation for their exposure to U.S. nuclear testing, and over $15 million was paid to the Politics of Japan following the exposure of its citizens and food supply to nuclear fallout from the 1954 "Bravo" test."Radiation Exposure Compensation SystemClaims to Date Summary of Claims Received", updated regularly at http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/omp/omi/Tre_SysClaimsToDateSum.pdfBrookings Institution, "50 Facts About Nuclear Weapons", at http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/50.HTM

During the presidency of George W. Bush, and especially after the September 11 Terrorism September 11, 2001 attacks of 2001, rumors have circulated in major news sources that the U.S. has been considering design of new nuclear weapons ("bunker-busting nukes"), and potentially the resumption of nuclear testing for reasons of stockpile stewardship, and non-nuclear missile defense has received additional funding as well. Statements by the U.S. government in 2004, however, imply that by 2012 the arsenal will drop to around 5,500 total warheads, around half of its size by the 1990s.Norris, Robert S., and Hans M. Kristensen, "The U.S. stockpile, today and tomorrow", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 63:5 (September/October 2007): 60-63, .

Between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. spent at least $5.8 trillion (in 1996 dollars) on nuclear weapons development.Brookings Institution, "Estimated Minimum Incurred Costs of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Programs, 1940-1996", at http://www.brook.edu/fp/projects/nucwcost/figure1.htm Over half of this was spent on building delivery mechanisms for the weapons, around 0.02% of it (the lowest category of expenditure) was spent on United States Congress oversight. $365 billion was spent on Radioactive waste management and environmental remediation. Between 1945 and 1990, more than 70,000 total warheads were developed, in over 65 different varieties, ranging in yield from around .01 kilotons (such as the man-portable Davy Crockett (nuclear device)) to the 25 megaton B41 nuclear bomb.Brookings Institution, "50 Facts About Nuclear Weapons", at http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/50.HTM

Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site.

Between July 16, 1945, and September 23, 1992, the United States maintained a program of vigorous nuclear testing, with the exception of a moratorium between November 1958 and September 1961. A total of (by official count) 1,054 nuclear tests and two nuclear attacks were conducted, with over 100 of them taking place at sites in the Pacific Ocean, over 900 of them at the Nevada Nevada Test Site, and ten on miscellaneous sites in the United States (Alaska, Colorado, Mississippi, and New Mexico).Carey Sublette, "Gallery of U.S. Nuclear Tests", online at http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/ Until November 1962, the vast majority of the U.S. tests were atmospheric (that is, above-ground); after the acceptance of the Partial Test Ban Treaty all testing was regulated underground, in order to prevent the dispersion of nuclear fallout.

The U.S. program of atmospheric nuclear testing exposed a number of the population to the hazards of fallout. Estimating exact numbers, and the exact consequences, of people exposed has been medically very difficult, with the exception of the high exposures of Marshallese Islanders and Japanese fisherman in the case of the "Castle Bravo" incident in 1954. A number of groups of U.S. citizens — especially farmers and inhabitants of cities downwind of the Nevada Test Site and U.S. military workers at various tests — have sued for compensation and recognition of their exposure, many successfully. The passing of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 allowed for a systematic filing of compensation claims in relation to testing as well as those employed at nuclear weapons facilities. As of March 2006 over a billion dollars total has been given in compensation, with over $485 million going to "downwinders".

A few notable U.S. nuclear tests include: (1946) was the first underwater nuclear explosion. ) seen through the periscope of the USS Carbonero (SS-337).

Delivery systems " bomb, were extremely large and difficult to use.

The original weapons ("Little Boy" and "Fat Man") developed by the United States during the Manhattan Project were relatively large (the latter had a diameter of 5 feet) and heavy (around 5 tons each) weapons which required specially modified bomber planes to be adapted for their bombing missions against Japan, each of which could only carry one such weapon and only within a limited range. After these initial weapons, a considerable amount of money and research was conducted towards the goal of standardizing ("G.I. proofing") nuclear warheads (so that they did not require highly specialized experts to assemble them before use, as in the case with the idiosyncratic wartime devices) and miniaturization of the warheads for use in more variable delivery systems.

Through the aid of brainpower acquired through Operation Paperclip at the tail end of the European branch of World War II, the United States was able to embark on an ambitious program in rocketry. One of the first products of this was the development of rockets capable of holding nuclear warheads. The MGR-1 Honest John was the first of such weapons, developed in 1953 as a surface-to-surface missile with a 15 mile/25 kilometer maximum range. Because of their limited range, their potential use was heavily constrained (they could not, for example, threaten Moscow with an immediate strike).

was the first nuclear-tipped rocket developed by the U.S. in 1953.

Development of long-range bombers, such as the B-29 Superfortress, during World War II was continued during the Cold War period. The development of the B-52 Stratofortress in particular was able by the mid-1950s to carry a wide arsenal of nuclear bombs, each with different capabilities and potential use situations. Starting in 1946, the U.S. based its initial deterrence threat around the Strategic Air Command, which maintained a number of nuclear-armed bombers in the sky at all times, prepared to receive orders to attack the USSR whenever needed. This system was, however, tremendously expensive, both in natural resources and human resources, and raised the possibility of accidental or purposeful beginning of nuclear war, parodied famously in the 1964 film by Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

During the 1950s and 1960s, elaborate computerized early warning systems were developed to detect incoming Soviet attacks and to coordinate response strategies. During this same period, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems were developed which could deliver a nuclear payload across vast distances, allowing the U.S. to house nuclear forces capable of hitting the Soviet Union in the Midwestern United States. Shorter-range weapons, including small "tactical" weapons, were fielded in Europe as well, including nuclear artillery and man-portable Special Atomic Demolition Munition. The development of submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) systems allowed for hidden nuclear submarines to covertly launch missiles at distant targets as well, making it virtually impossible for the Soviet Union to successfully launch a first strike attack against the United States which would not guarantee a deadly response.

, to carry many nuclear warheads at one time.

Improvements in warhead miniaturization in the 1970s and 1980s allowed for the development of MIRVs — missiles which could carry multiple warheads, each of which could be separately targetable. The question of whether these missiles should be based on constantly rotating train tracks (so as to avoid being easily targeted by opposing Soviet missiles) or based in heavily fortified silos (to possibly withstand a Soviet attack) was a major political controversy in the 1980s (eventually the silos won out). MIRVed systems allowed the U.S. to make the Soviet missile defense economically unfeasible, as each offensive missile would require between three and ten defensive missiles to counter.

Additional developments in weapons delivery included cruise missile systems, which allowed a plane to fire a long-distance, low-flying nuclear-tipped missile towards a target from a relatively comfortable distance. This innovation would make missile defense additionally difficult, if not impossible.



The current delivery systems of the U.S. makes virtually any part of the globe within the reach of its nuclear arsenal. Though its land-based missile systems have a maximum range of 10,000 kilometers (less than worldwide), its submarine-based forces extend its reach from a coastline 12,000 kilometers inland. Additionally, the ability to refuel long-range bombers in flight and the use of aircraft carriers extends the possible range virtually indefinitely.

Public reactions , nuclear weapons have remained highly controversial and contentious objects in the forum of public debate.

From the public debut of nuclear weapons during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were a highly controversial technology among the citizens of the United States. While it appears that most Americans in the postwar period believed that they had, as claimed by the government, hastened the end of the war with Japan, even at that early period there were questions about the ethics of their use. In the immediate postwar period, much of the public debate was on the question of whether or not the U.S. should attempt to have a monopoly on the weapons — potentially encouraging a nuclear arms race — or whether or not it should relinquish them to an intergovernmental body (such as the newly created United Nations) or contribute to some other form of international control or information dispersal. According to the historian of science Spencer Weart, it was not until the development of multi-megaton hydrogen bombs in the 1950s that a belief that nuclear weapons could potentially end all life on the planet (especially through means of nuclear fallout, highlighted by the "Castle Bravo" accident) became common in American thought or cultural expression. For the most part, however, the vast majority of American citizens believed during this time that nuclear weapons were necessary in order to ward off the apparent threat from the Soviet Union.

was developed (in the United Kingdom) as the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and was taken up enthusiastically by anti-nuclear protesters in the U.S. during the 1960s.

During the 1960s, following the rise of political activism in the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968), the controversy over the Vietnam War, and the beginnings of the environmentalism movement, public anxiety related to nuclear weapons began to rise to the point of direct protest. While there is little evidence that these sentiments were felt or expressed by any more than a minority of the U.S. population, their expression became increasingly amplified, especially in relation to the health hazards of nuclear testing. After the cessation of American atmospheric nuclear testing, however, the sentiment against nuclear weapons in general lost much of its momentum. During the period of détente in the 1970s, marked by weapons reduction and restriction treaties between the U.S. and the USSR, much of the anxiety over nuclear weapons in the populace and activists was transferred towards protesting civilian nuclear power plants, according to Spencer Weart's analysis.

During the presidency of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, public anti-nuclear weapons sentiment reached its highest point, spurred by the administration's strong anti-Soviet rhetoric, Strategic Defense Initiative, and apparent reinvigoration of the arms race. Again, however, the majority of the American populace generally felt the weapons were required for U.S. national security, even though they increasingly became the flashpoints of political controversies and concern. Anti-nuclear activists shifted to a strategy of describing in detail the results of a potential nuclear attack on the United States, and a number of prominent anti-nuclear films were developed during this period, typified by the controversial The Day After in 1983.

With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the cessation of the arms race, U.S. public attitudes towards nuclear weapons became less polarized on the whole. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks of 2001, however, concerns over whether the U.S. should develop new weapons have reinvigorated some of the older debates over their practicality, morality, and danger. The debate over the ethical implications of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, begun in private amongst scientists and statesmen during the war, has continued to this day, in the general public as well as amongst historians, military experts, and other scholars.

Accidents Nuclear fallout plume spread dangerous levels of radioactive material over an area over 100 miles long, including inhabited islands, in the largest single U.S. nuclear accident.

The United States nuclear program has, since its inception, suffered from a number of accidents of varying forms, ranging from single-casualty research experiments (such as that of Louis Slotin during the Manhattan Project), to the nuclear fallout dispersion of the "Castle Bravo" shot in 1954, to the accidental dropping of nuclear weapons from aircraft ("United States military nuclear incident terminology#Broken arrows"). How close any of these accidents came to being "major" nuclear disasters is a matter of technical and scholarly debate and interpretation.

Weapons accidentally dropped by the United States include incidents near Atlantic City, New Jersey, New Jersey (1957), Savannah, Georgia, Georgia (U.S. state) (1958) (see Tybee Bomb), Goldsboro, North Carolina, North Carolina (1961), off the coast of Okinawa (1965), Palomares H-Bomb Incident, Spain (1966), and near Qaanaaq, Greenland (1968). In some of these cases (such as near Palomares), the explosive system of the fission weapon discharged, but did not trigger a nuclear chain reaction (safety features prevent this from easily happening), but did disperse hazardous nuclear materials across wide areas, necessitating expensive cleanup endeavors. Eleven American nuclear warheads are thought to be lost and unrecovered, primarily in submarine accidents.

The nuclear testing program resulted in a number of cases of fallout dispersion onto populated areas. The most significant of these was the aforementioned Castle Bravo test, which spread radioactive ash over an area of over one hundred miles, including a number of populated islands. The populations of the islands were evacuated but not before suffering radiation burns. They would later suffer long-term effects, such as birth defects and increased cancer risk. There were also instances during the nuclear testing program in which soldiers were exposed to overly high levels of radiation, which grew into a major scandal in the 1970s and 1980s, as many soldiers later suffered from what were claimed to be diseases caused by their exposures.

Many of the former nuclear facilities (see next section) produced significant environmental damages during their years of activity, and since the 1990s have been Superfund sites of cleanup and environmental remediation. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 allows for U.S. citizens exposed to radiation or other health risks through the U.S. nuclear program to file for compensation and damages.

Development agencies United States Atomic Energy Commission (1946-1974) managed the U.S. nuclear program after the Manhattan Project.The initial U.S. nuclear program was run by the National Institute of Standards and Technology starting in 1939 under the edict of President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Its primary purpose was to delegate research and dispense of funds. In 1940 the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was established, coordinating work under the Committee on Uranium among its other wartime efforts. In June 1941, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was established, with the NDRC as one of its subordinate agencies, which enlarged and renamed the Uranium Committee as the S-1 Uranium Committee. In 1941, NDRC research was placed under direct control of Vannevar Bush as the OSRD S-1 Section, which attempted to increase the pace of weapons research. In June 1942, the United States Army Corps of Engineers took over the project to develop atomic weapons, while the OSRD retained responsibility for scientific research.

This was the beginning of the Manhattan Project, run as the Manhattan Engineering District (MED), an agency under military control which was in charge of developing the first atomic weapons. After World War II, the MED maintained control over the U.S. arsenal and production facilities and coordinated the Operation Crossroads tests. In 1946, after a long and protracted debate, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 was passed, creating the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as a civilian agency which would be in charge of the production of nuclear weapons and research facilities, funded through Congress, with oversight provided by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. The AEC was given vast powers of control over secrecy, research, and money, and could seize lands with suspected uranium deposits. Along with its duties towards the production and regulation of nuclear weapons, it additionally was in charge of stimulating development in civilian nuclear power while also regulating its safety uses. The full transference of activities was finalized in January 1947.

In 1975, following the "energy crisis" of the early 1970s and public and congressional discontent with the AEC (in part because of the impossibility to be both a producer and a regulator), it was disassembled into component parts as the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), which assumed most of the AEC's former production, coordination, and research roles, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which assumed its civilian regulation activities.

is currently responsible for weapons development and maintenance.

ERDA was short-lived, however, and in 1977 the U.S. nuclear weapons activities were reorganized under the United States Department of Energy , which currently maintains such responsibilities through the semi-autonamous National Nuclear Security Administration today. Some functions have also been taken over or shared by the United States Department of Homeland Security in 2002. The already-built weapons themselves are in the control of the United States Strategic Command, which is part of the United States Department of Defense.

In general, these agencies served to coordinate research and build sites. They generally operated their sites through contractors, however, both private and public (for example, Union Carbide, a private company, ran Oak Ridge National Laboratory for many decades; the University of California, a public educational institution, has run the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory laboratories since their inception, and will joint-manage Los Alamos with the private company Bechtel as of its next contract). Funding was received both through these agencies directly, but also from additional outside agencies, such as the Department of Defense. Each branch of the military also maintained its own nuclear-related research agencies (generally related to delivery systems).

Weapons production complex This table is not comprehensive, as numerous facilities throughout the United States have contributed to its nuclear weapons program. It includes the major sites related primarily to the U.S. weapons program (past and present), their basic site functions, and their current status of activity. Not listed are the many bases and facilities at which nuclear weapons have been deployed. In addition to deploying weapons on its own soil, during the Cold War the United States also stationed nuclear weapons in 27 foreign countries and territories, including Japan, Greenland, Germany, Taiwan, and Morocco.

{]||Los Alamos, New Mexico, New Mexico||[Livermore, California, California||[Livermore, California, California; Albuquerque, New Mexico, New Mexico||[Richland, Washington, Washington)||Not active, [remediation|-||Oak Ridge National Laboratory, [Tennessee, fusion fuel), research||Active to some extent|-||[Y-12 National Security Complex, [Tennessee, [uranium storage]||Near Las Vegas, Nevada, Nevada and [nuclear waste disposal]||Nevada Test Site||[Marshall Islands||Near [Denver, Colorado, Colorado|-||[Pantex, [Texas, [Kentucky)||Active (commercial use)|-||[Fernald Feed Materials Production Center||Near Cincinnati, Ohio, Ohio)||Not active, [remediation|-||Kansas City Plant, [Missouri, [Ohio purification||Not active, [remediation|-||Portsmouth Gaseous diffusion Plant||Near Portsmouth, Ohio, Ohio)||Active, but not for weapons production|-||Pinellas Plant||[Largo, Florida, Florida||Near [Aiken, South Carolina, South Carolina, [Tritium)]|-|colspan="4" align="center"| Grayed-out sites are not currently active.|}

Proliferation Early on in the development of its nuclear weapons, the United States relied in part on information-sharing with both the United Kingdom and Canada, as codified in the Quebec Agreement of 1943. These three parties agreed not to share nuclear weapons information with other countries without the consent of the others, an early attempt at Nuclear proliferation. After the development of the first nuclear weapons during World War II, though, there was much debate within the political circles and public sphere of the United States about whether or not the country should attempt to maintain a monopoly on nuclear technology, or whether it should undertake a program of information sharing with other nations (especially its former ally and likely competitor, the Soviet Union), or submit control of its weapons to some sort of international organization (such as the United Nations) who would use them to attempt to maintain world peace. Though fear of a nuclear arms race spurred many politicians and scientists to advocate some degree of international control or sharing of nuclear weapons and information, many politicians and members of the military believed that it was better in the short term to maintain high standards of nuclear secrecy and to forestall a Soviet bomb as long as possible (and they did not believe the USSR would actually submit to international controls in good faith).

program distributed nuclear technology, materials, and know-how to many less technologically advanced countries.

Since this path was chosen, the United States was, in its early days, essentially an advocate for the prevention of nuclear proliferation, though primarily for the reason originally of self-preservation. A few years after the USSR detonated its first weapon in 1949, though, the U.S. under President Dwight D. Eisenhower sought to encourage a program of sharing nuclear information related to civilian nuclear power and nuclear physics in general. The Atoms for Peace program, begun in 1953, was also in part political: the U.S. was better poised to commit various scarce resources, such as enriched uranium, towards this peaceful effort, and to request a similar contribution from the Soviet Union, who had far fewer resources along these lines; thus the program had a strategic justification as well, as was later revealed by internal memos. This overall goal of promoting civilian use of nuclear energy in other countries, while also preventing weapons dissemination, has been labeled by many critics as contradictory and having led to lax standards for a number of decades which allowed a number of other nations, such as India, to profit from dual-use technology (purchased from other nations other than the U.S.).

The United States is one of the five "nuclear weapons states" permitted to maintain a nuclear arsenal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory on July 1, 1968 (ratified March 5, 1970).

workers use U.S. provided equipment to dismantle a Soviet-era nuclear missile silo.

The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency was established after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 to aid former Soviet bloc countries in the inventory and destruction of their sites for developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and their methods of delivering them (ICBM silos, long range bombers, etc.). Over $4.4 billion has been spent on this endeavor to prevent purposeful or accidental proliferation of weapons from the former Soviet arsenal.

After India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, President Bill Clinton imposed economic sanctions on the countries. In 1999, however, the sanctions against India were lifted; those against Pakistan were kept in place as a result of the military government which had taken over. Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush lifted the sanctions against Pakistan as well.

The U.S. government has officially taken a silent policy towards the nuclear weapons ambitions of the state of Israel, while being exceedingly vocal against proliferation of such weapons in the countries of Iran and North Korea, something which has been called hypocritical by many critics. The same critics point out the fact that not only is the United States sitting on the largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world, but it is also violating its own non-proliferation treaties in the pursuit of so-called "nuclear bunker busters". The 2003 2003 invasion of Iraq of Iraq by the U.S. was done, in part, on accusations of weapons development, and the Presidency of George W. Bush#Administration and Cabinet has said that its policies on proliferation were responsible for the Libyan Politics of Libya's agreement to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

==Current status== missile was phased out of the U.S. arsenal in 2005. treaty, the U.S. will reduce its stockpile to 2,220 operationally deployed warheads by 2012.

The United States is one of the five recognized nuclear powers under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It maintains a current arsenal of around 9,960 intact warheads, of which 5,735 are considered active or operational, and of these only a certain number are deployed at any given time. These break down into 5,021 "strategic" warheads, 1,050 of which are deployed on land-based missile systems (all on Minuteman missile ICBMs), 1,955 on bombers (B-52 Stratofortress and B-2 Spirit), and 2,016 on submarines (Ohio class submarine), according to a 2006 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Of 500 "tactical nuclear weapon"/"nonstrategic" weapons, around 100 are BGM-109 Tomahawk and 400 are B61 nuclear bombs. A few hundred of the B61 bombs are located at seven bases in six European NATO countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom), the only such weapons in forward deployment.

Around 4,225 warheads have been removed from deployment but have remained stockpiled as a "responsible reserve force" on inactive status. Under the May 2002 SORT, the U.S. pledged to reduce its stockpile to 2,200 operationally deployed warheads by 2012, and in June 2004 the United States Department of Energy announced that "almost half" of these warheads would be retired or dismantlement by then.

The future nuclear stockpile under SORT will be based on:



The SORT treaty does not make the U.S. reduce its Tactical Nuclear weapons arsenal so there will be 500-800 active Tactical nuclear weapons. Also the weapons taken from active states do not have to be destroyed so there will be at least 2400 responsive reserve warheads.

A 2001 nuclear posture review published by the Presidency of George W. Bush#Administration and Cabinet called for a reduction in the amount of time needed to test a nuclear weapon, and for discussion on possible development in new nuclear weapons of a low-yield, "bunker-busting" design (the Nuclear bunker buster). Work on such a design had been banned by United States Congress in 1994, but the banning law was repealed in 2003 at the request of the United States Department of Defense. The United States Air Force Air Force Research Laboratory researched the concept, but the United States Congress canceled funding for the project in October 2005 at the National Nuclear Security Administration's request. According to {{Infobox nukes |country_name=United States, [1939], 1945], 1952], 1992] (October 31, 1954)])|current_stockpile=5,163 active, 9,938 total (est.)Norris, Robert S., and Hans M. Kristensen, "The U.S. stockpile, today and tomorrow", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 63:5 (September/October 2007): 60-63, .|maximum_range=13,000 kilometers/8,100 miles (land)
12,000 kilometers/7,500 miles (sub)|NPT_signatory=Yes (1968, one of five recognized powers)] was the first country in the world to successfully develop nuclear weapons, and is the only country to have used them in Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During the Cold War it conducted over a thousand Nuclear testing and developed many long-range weapon delivery systems. It maintains an arsenal of about ten thousand warheads to this day , as well as facilities for their construction and Nuclear weapon design, though many of the Cold War facilities have since been deactivated and are sites for environmental remediation.

Development history Manhattan Project " explosion was the first nuclear weapon ever tested.

The United States of America first began developing nuclear weapons during World War II under the order of President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt in 1939, motivated by a fear that they were engaged in a potential race with Nazi Germany to develop such a weapon. After a slow start under the direction of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, at the urging of United Kingdom scientists and American administrators the program was put under the Office of Scientific Research and Development, where in 1942 it was officially transferred under the auspices of the United States Army and became known as the Manhattan Project. Under the direction of General (United States) Leslie Groves, over thirty different sites were constructed for the research, production, and testing of components related to bomb making. These included the scientific laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory (in New Mexico), under the direction of physicist Robert Oppenheimer, a plutonium production facility, Hanford Site (in Washington), and a Enriched uranium facility, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (in Tennessee).

By investing heavily both in breeding plutonium in early nuclear reactors, and in both the electromagnetic and gaseous diffusion enrichment processes for the production of uranium-235, the United States was able by mid-1945 to develop three usable weapons. A plutonium-Nuclear weapon design weapon was tested on July 16, 1945 ("Trinity test"), with around a 20 kiloton yield. On the orders of President Harry S. Truman, on August 6 of the same year a uranium-Nuclear weapons design bomb ("Little Boy") was Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and on August 9 a plutonium-implosion design bomb ("Fat Man") was used against the city of Nagasaki, Japan. The two weapons killed approximately 250,000 Japanese citizens outright, and many more thousands have died over the years from radiation sickness and related cancers.

Cold War In the postwar period, the United States was soon engaged in a nuclear arms race against the Soviet Union, who it feared had strong territorial ambitions in postwar Europe and potential ideological ambitions to wage war against the United States. The U.S. invested heavily in a continued program of weapons research, development, and production, under the auspices of the civilian-run United States Atomic Energy Commission. Research also commenced in delivery systems, including the improvement of bomber aircraft and the development of rocketry for use with nuclear systems.

", in 1952.

In 1950, in response to the detonation of the USSR's first fission weapon in 1949 ("Joe 1"), Truman ordered a crash research program towards developing thermonuclear weapons. At that point the weapons were still purely theoretical, with no method known for successfully igniting a nuclear fusion reaction. After a theoretical breakthrough by the mathematician Stanislaw Ulam and physicist Edward Teller, however, workable method was developed and tested in the "Ivy Mike" shot in November 1952, with a yield of 10 megatons. A deployable version of the Teller–Ulam design was tested in the "Castle Bravo" shot of February 1954, with a yield of 15 megatons, over twice the projected expectations. Because of this error in calculation and unfortunate changes in weather conditions, the "Bravo" shot resulted in the depositing of large amounts of nuclear fallout onto the Marshall Islands at the test site in the Pacific. An evacuation ensued, but many of the natives exposed suffered from cancers and a high incidence of birth defects. A Daigo Fukuryu Maru was additionally exposed and resulted in one death from radiation sickness, which gained considerable international attention.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the United States continued on its path, developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), with which to hold a credible Deterrence theory against the USSR. In this period the U.S. stockpile of weapons increased exponentially to its maximum point of over 32,000 warheads in 1966.Natural Resources Defense Council, "Figure of US Nuclear Stockpile, 1945-2002", at http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/dafig9.asp The generally agreed upon point at which the U.S. came closest to nuclear war with the USSR occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

In the 1970s and 1980s, warhead production slowed somewhat though innovation in warhead design allowed for new generations of delivery systems such as multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) to be produced. Since this advance in the miniaturization of thermonuclear weapons in the mid-1970s, most experts and weapons scientists have said that most nuclear weapons design was focused on small improvements and modifications rather than any radical changes.

In the 1980s, under President Ronald Reagan, a reinvigoration of the arms race took place, and also introduced the extensive advocacy of the use of nuclear and non-nuclear approaches to missile defense through the Strategic Defense Initiative. For technical and political reasons, however, funding was eventually cut back heavily on this program.

Post-Cold War Atmospheric reentry is subjected to a wall of fire to determine how its aging components would react if used today, as part of the program of stockpile stewardship.

After the end of the Cold War following the History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991)#Yeltsin and the dissolution of the USSR of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. nuclear program was heavily curtailed, halting its program of nuclear testing, ceasing in the production of new nuclear weapons, and reducing its stockpile by half by the mid-1990s under President Bill Clinton. Many of its former nuclear facilities were shut down, and their sites became targets of extensive environmental remediation. Much of the former efforts towards the production of weapons became involved in the program of stockpile stewardship, attempting to predict the behavior of aging weapons without using full-scale nuclear testing. Increased funding also was put into anti-nuclear proliferation programs, such as helping the states of the former Soviet Union eliminate their former nuclear sites, and assist Russia in their efforts to inventory and secure their inherited nuclear stockpile. As of February 2006, over United States dollar1.2 billion were paid under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 to U.S. citizens exposed to nuclear hazards as a result of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, and by 1998 at least $759 million was paid to the Marshall Islands in compensation for their exposure to U.S. nuclear testing, and over $15 million was paid to the Politics of Japan following the exposure of its citizens and food supply to nuclear fallout from the 1954 "Bravo" test."Radiation Exposure Compensation SystemClaims to Date Summary of Claims Received", updated regularly at http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/omp/omi/Tre_SysClaimsToDateSum.pdfBrookings Institution, "50 Facts About Nuclear Weapons", at http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/50.HTM

During the presidency of George W. Bush, and especially after the September 11 Terrorism September 11, 2001 attacks of 2001, rumors have circulated in major news sources that the U.S. has been considering design of new nuclear weapons ("bunker-busting nukes"), and potentially the resumption of nuclear testing for reasons of stockpile stewardship, and non-nuclear missile defense has received additional funding as well. Statements by the U.S. government in 2004, however, imply that by 2012 the arsenal will drop to around 5,500 total warheads, around half of its size by the 1990s.Norris, Robert S., and Hans M. Kristensen, "The U.S. stockpile, today and tomorrow", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 63:5 (September/October 2007): 60-63, .

Between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. spent at least $5.8 trillion (in 1996 dollars) on nuclear weapons development.Brookings Institution, "Estimated Minimum Incurred Costs of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Programs, 1940-1996", at http://www.brook.edu/fp/projects/nucwcost/figure1.htm Over half of this was spent on building delivery mechanisms for the weapons, around 0.02% of it (the lowest category of expenditure) was spent on United States Congress oversight. $365 billion was spent on Radioactive waste management and environmental remediation. Between 1945 and 1990, more than 70,000 total warheads were developed, in over 65 different varieties, ranging in yield from around .01 kilotons (such as the man-portable Davy Crockett (nuclear device)) to the 25 megaton B41 nuclear bomb.Brookings Institution, "50 Facts About Nuclear Weapons", at http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/50.HTM

Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site.

Between July 16, 1945, and September 23, 1992, the United States maintained a program of vigorous nuclear testing, with the exception of a moratorium between November 1958 and September 1961. A total of (by official count) 1,054 nuclear tests and two nuclear attacks were conducted, with over 100 of them taking place at sites in the Pacific Ocean, over 900 of them at the Nevada Nevada Test Site, and ten on miscellaneous sites in the United States (Alaska, Colorado, Mississippi, and New Mexico).Carey Sublette, "Gallery of U.S. Nuclear Tests", online at http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/ Until November 1962, the vast majority of the U.S. tests were atmospheric (that is, above-ground); after the acceptance of the Partial Test Ban Treaty all testing was regulated underground, in order to prevent the dispersion of nuclear fallout.

The U.S. program of atmospheric nuclear testing exposed a number of the population to the hazards of fallout. Estimating exact numbers, and the exact consequences, of people exposed has been medically very difficult, with the exception of the high exposures of Marshallese Islanders and Japanese fisherman in the case of the "Castle Bravo" incident in 1954. A number of groups of U.S. citizens — especially farmers and inhabitants of cities downwind of the Nevada Test Site and U.S. military workers at various tests — have sued for compensation and recognition of their exposure, many successfully. The passing of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 allowed for a systematic filing of compensation claims in relation to testing as well as those employed at nuclear weapons facilities. As of March 2006 over a billion dollars total has been given in compensation, with over $485 million going to "downwinders".

A few notable U.S. nuclear tests include: (1946) was the first underwater nuclear explosion. ) seen through the periscope of the USS Carbonero (SS-337).

Delivery systems " bomb, were extremely large and difficult to use.

The original weapons ("Little Boy" and "Fat Man") developed by the United States during the Manhattan Project were relatively large (the latter had a diameter of 5 feet) and heavy (around 5 tons each) weapons which required specially modified bomber planes to be adapted for their bombing missions against Japan, each of which could only carry one such weapon and only within a limited range. After these initial weapons, a considerable amount of money and research was conducted towards the goal of standardizing ("G.I. proofing") nuclear warheads (so that they did not require highly specialized experts to assemble them before use, as in the case with the idiosyncratic wartime devices) and miniaturization of the warheads for use in more variable delivery systems.

Through the aid of brainpower acquired through Operation Paperclip at the tail end of the European branch of World War II, the United States was able to embark on an ambitious program in rocketry. One of the first products of this was the development of rockets capable of holding nuclear warheads. The MGR-1 Honest John was the first of such weapons, developed in 1953 as a surface-to-surface missile with a 15 mile/25 kilometer maximum range. Because of their limited range, their potential use was heavily constrained (they could not, for example, threaten Moscow with an immediate strike).

was the first nuclear-tipped rocket developed by the U.S. in 1953.

Development of long-range bombers, such as the B-29 Superfortress, during World War II was continued during the Cold War period. The development of the B-52 Stratofortress in particular was able by the mid-1950s to carry a wide arsenal of nuclear bombs, each with different capabilities and potential use situations. Starting in 1946, the U.S. based its initial deterrence threat around the Strategic Air Command, which maintained a number of nuclear-armed bombers in the sky at all times, prepared to receive orders to attack the USSR whenever needed. This system was, however, tremendously expensive, both in natural resources and human resources, and raised the possibility of accidental or purposeful beginning of nuclear war, parodied famously in the 1964 film by Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

During the 1950s and 1960s, elaborate computerized early warning systems were developed to detect incoming Soviet attacks and to coordinate response strategies. During this same period, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems were developed which could deliver a nuclear payload across vast distances, allowing the U.S. to house nuclear forces capable of hitting the Soviet Union in the Midwestern United States. Shorter-range weapons, including small "tactical" weapons, were fielded in Europe as well, including nuclear artillery and man-portable Special Atomic Demolition Munition. The development of submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) systems allowed for hidden nuclear submarines to covertly launch missiles at distant targets as well, making it virtually impossible for the Soviet Union to successfully launch a first strike attack against the United States which would not guarantee a deadly response.

, to carry many nuclear warheads at one time.

Improvements in warhead miniaturization in the 1970s and 1980s allowed for the development of MIRVs — missiles which could carry multiple warheads, each of which could be separately targetable. The question of whether these missiles should be based on constantly rotating train tracks (so as to avoid being easily targeted by opposing Soviet missiles) or based in heavily fortified silos (to possibly withstand a Soviet attack) was a major political controversy in the 1980s (eventually the silos won out). MIRVed systems allowed the U.S. to make the Soviet missile defense economically unfeasible, as each offensive missile would require between three and ten defensive missiles to counter.

Additional developments in weapons delivery included cruise missile systems, which allowed a plane to fire a long-distance, low-flying nuclear-tipped missile towards a target from a relatively comfortable distance. This innovation would make missile defense additionally difficult, if not impossible.



The current delivery systems of the U.S. makes virtually any part of the globe within the reach of its nuclear arsenal. Though its land-based missile systems have a maximum range of 10,000 kilometers (less than worldwide), its submarine-based forces extend its reach from a coastline 12,000 kilometers inland. Additionally, the ability to refuel long-range bombers in flight and the use of aircraft carriers extends the possible range virtually indefinitely.

Public reactions , nuclear weapons have remained highly controversial and contentious objects in the forum of public debate.

From the public debut of nuclear weapons during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were a highly controversial technology among the citizens of the United States. While it appears that most Americans in the postwar period believed that they had, as claimed by the government, hastened the end of the war with Japan, even at that early period there were questions about the ethics of their use. In the immediate postwar period, much of the public debate was on the question of whether or not the U.S. should attempt to have a monopoly on the weapons — potentially encouraging a nuclear arms race — or whether or not it should relinquish them to an intergovernmental body (such as the newly created United Nations) or contribute to some other form of international control or information dispersal. According to the historian of science Spencer Weart, it was not until the development of multi-megaton hydrogen bombs in the 1950s that a belief that nuclear weapons could potentially end all life on the planet (especially through means of nuclear fallout, highlighted by the "Castle Bravo" accident) became common in American thought or cultural expression. For the most part, however, the vast majority of American citizens believed during this time that nuclear weapons were necessary in order to ward off the apparent threat from the Soviet Union.

was developed (in the United Kingdom) as the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and was taken up enthusiastically by anti-nuclear protesters in the U.S. during the 1960s.

During the 1960s, following the rise of political activism in the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968), the controversy over the Vietnam War, and the beginnings of the environmentalism movement, public anxiety related to nuclear weapons began to rise to the point of direct protest. While there is little evidence that these sentiments were felt or expressed by any more than a minority of the U.S. population, their expression became increasingly amplified, especially in relation to the health hazards of nuclear testing. After the cessation of American atmospheric nuclear testing, however, the sentiment against nuclear weapons in general lost much of its momentum. During the period of détente in the 1970s, marked by weapons reduction and restriction treaties between the U.S. and the USSR, much of the anxiety over nuclear weapons in the populace and activists was transferred towards protesting civilian nuclear power plants, according to Spencer Weart's analysis.

During the presidency of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, public anti-nuclear weapons sentiment reached its highest point, spurred by the administration's strong anti-Soviet rhetoric, Strategic Defense Initiative, and apparent reinvigoration of the arms race. Again, however, the majority of the American populace generally felt the weapons were required for U.S. national security, even though they increasingly became the flashpoints of political controversies and concern. Anti-nuclear activists shifted to a strategy of describing in detail the results of a potential nuclear attack on the United States, and a number of prominent anti-nuclear films were developed during this period, typified by the controversial The Day After in 1983.

With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the cessation of the arms race, U.S. public attitudes towards nuclear weapons became less polarized on the whole. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks of 2001, however, concerns over whether the U.S. should develop new weapons have reinvigorated some of the older debates over their practicality, morality, and danger. The debate over the ethical implications of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, begun in private amongst scientists and statesmen during the war, has continued to this day, in the general public as well as amongst historians, military experts, and other scholars.

Accidents Nuclear fallout plume spread dangerous levels of radioactive material over an area over 100 miles long, including inhabited islands, in the largest single U.S. nuclear accident.

The United States nuclear program has, since its inception, suffered from a number of accidents of varying forms, ranging from single-casualty research experiments (such as that of Louis Slotin during the Manhattan Project), to the nuclear fallout dispersion of the "Castle Bravo" shot in 1954, to the accidental dropping of nuclear weapons from aircraft ("United States military nuclear incident terminology#Broken arrows"). How close any of these accidents came to being "major" nuclear disasters is a matter of technical and scholarly debate and interpretation.

Weapons accidentally dropped by the United States include incidents near Atlantic City, New Jersey, New Jersey (1957), Savannah, Georgia, Georgia (U.S. state) (1958) (see Tybee Bomb), Goldsboro, North Carolina, North Carolina (1961), off the coast of Okinawa (1965), Palomares H-Bomb Incident, Spain (1966), and near Qaanaaq, Greenland (1968). In some of these cases (such as near Palomares), the explosive system of the fission weapon discharged, but did not trigger a nuclear chain reaction (safety features prevent this from easily happening), but did disperse hazardous nuclear materials across wide areas, necessitating expensive cleanup endeavors. Eleven American nuclear warheads are thought to be lost and unrecovered, primarily in submarine accidents.

The nuclear testing program resulted in a number of cases of fallout dispersion onto populated areas. The most significant of these was the aforementioned Castle Bravo test, which spread radioactive ash over an area of over one hundred miles, including a number of populated islands. The populations of the islands were evacuated but not before suffering radiation burns. They would later suffer long-term effects, such as birth defects and increased cancer risk. There were also instances during the nuclear testing program in which soldiers were exposed to overly high levels of radiation, which grew into a major scandal in the 1970s and 1980s, as many soldiers later suffered from what were claimed to be diseases caused by their exposures.

Many of the former nuclear facilities (see next section) produced significant environmental damages during their years of activity, and since the 1990s have been Superfund sites of cleanup and environmental remediation. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 allows for U.S. citizens exposed to radiation or other health risks through the U.S. nuclear program to file for compensation and damages.

Development agencies United States Atomic Energy Commission (1946-1974) managed the U.S. nuclear program after the Manhattan Project.The initial U.S. nuclear program was run by the National Institute of Standards and Technology starting in 1939 under the edict of President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Its primary purpose was to delegate research and dispense of funds. In 1940 the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was established, coordinating work under the Committee on Uranium among its other wartime efforts. In June 1941, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was established, with the NDRC as one of its subordinate agencies, which enlarged and renamed the Uranium Committee as the S-1 Uranium Committee. In 1941, NDRC research was placed under direct control of Vannevar Bush as the OSRD S-1 Section, which attempted to increase the pace of weapons research. In June 1942, the United States Army Corps of Engineers took over the project to develop atomic weapons, while the OSRD retained responsibility for scientific research.

This was the beginning of the Manhattan Project, run as the Manhattan Engineering District (MED), an agency under military control which was in charge of developing the first atomic weapons. After World War II, the MED maintained control over the U.S. arsenal and production facilities and coordinated the Operation Crossroads tests. In 1946, after a long and protracted debate, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 was passed, creating the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as a civilian agency which would be in charge of the production of nuclear weapons and research facilities, funded through Congress, with oversight provided by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. The AEC was given vast powers of control over secrecy, research, and money, and could seize lands with suspected uranium deposits. Along with its duties towards the production and regulation of nuclear weapons, it additionally was in charge of stimulating development in civilian nuclear power while also regulating its safety uses. The full transference of activities was finalized in January 1947.

In 1975, following the "energy crisis" of the early 1970s and public and congressional discontent with the AEC (in part because of the impossibility to be both a producer and a regulator), it was disassembled into component parts as the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), which assumed most of the AEC's former production, coordination, and research roles, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which assumed its civilian regulation activities.

is currently responsible for weapons development and maintenance.

ERDA was short-lived, however, and in 1977 the U.S. nuclear weapons activities were reorganized under the United States Department of Energy , which currently maintains such responsibilities through the semi-autonamous National Nuclear Security Administration today. Some functions have also been taken over or shared by the United States Department of Homeland Security in 2002. The already-built weapons themselves are in the control of the United States Strategic Command, which is part of the United States Department of Defense.

In general, these agencies served to coordinate research and build sites. They generally operated their sites through contractors, however, both private and public (for example, Union Carbide, a private company, ran Oak Ridge National Laboratory for many decades; the University of California, a public educational institution, has run the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory laboratories since their inception, and will joint-manage Los Alamos with the private company Bechtel as of its next contract). Funding was received both through these agencies directly, but also from additional outside agencies, such as the Department of Defense. Each branch of the military also maintained its own nuclear-related research agencies (generally related to delivery systems).

Weapons production complex This table is not comprehensive, as numerous facilities throughout the United States have contributed to its nuclear weapons program. It includes the major sites related primarily to the U.S. weapons program (past and present), their basic site functions, and their current status of activity. Not listed are the many bases and facilities at which nuclear weapons have been deployed. In addition to deploying weapons on its own soil, during the Cold War the United States also stationed nuclear weapons in 27 foreign countries and territories, including Japan, Greenland, Germany, Taiwan, and Morocco.

{]||Los Alamos, New Mexico, New Mexico||[Livermore, California, California||[Livermore, California, California; Albuquerque, New Mexico, New Mexico||[Richland, Washington, Washington)||Not active, [remediation|-||Oak Ridge National Laboratory, [Tennessee, fusion fuel), research||Active to some extent|-||[Y-12 National Security Complex, [Tennessee, [uranium storage]||Near Las Vegas, Nevada, Nevada and [nuclear waste disposal]||Nevada Test Site||[Marshall Islands||Near [Denver, Colorado, Colorado|-||[Pantex, [Texas, [Kentucky)||Active (commercial use)|-||[Fernald Feed Materials Production Center||Near Cincinnati, Ohio, Ohio)||Not active, [remediation|-||Kansas City Plant, [Missouri, [Ohio purification||Not active, [remediation|-||Portsmouth Gaseous diffusion Plant||Near Portsmouth, Ohio, Ohio)||Active, but not for weapons production|-||Pinellas Plant||[Largo, Florida, Florida||Near [Aiken, South Carolina, South Carolina, [Tritium)]|-|colspan="4" align="center"| Grayed-out sites are not currently active.|}

Proliferation Early on in the development of its nuclear weapons, the United States relied in part on information-sharing with both the United Kingdom and Canada, as codified in the Quebec Agreement of 1943. These three parties agreed not to share nuclear weapons information with other countries without the consent of the others, an early attempt at Nuclear proliferation. After the development of the first nuclear weapons during World War II, though, there was much debate within the political circles and public sphere of the United States about whether or not the country should attempt to maintain a monopoly on nuclear technology, or whether it should undertake a program of information sharing with other nations (especially its former ally and likely competitor, the Soviet Union), or submit control of its weapons to some sort of international organization (such as the United Nations) who would use them to attempt to maintain world peace. Though fear of a nuclear arms race spurred many politicians and scientists to advocate some degree of international control or sharing of nuclear weapons and information, many politicians and members of the military believed that it was better in the short term to maintain high standards of nuclear secrecy and to forestall a Soviet bomb as long as possible (and they did not believe the USSR would actually submit to international controls in good faith).

program distributed nuclear technology, materials, and know-how to many less technologically advanced countries.

Since this path was chosen, the United States was, in its early days, essentially an advocate for the prevention of nuclear proliferation, though primarily for the reason originally of self-preservation. A few years after the USSR detonated its first weapon in 1949, though, the U.S. under President Dwight D. Eisenhower sought to encourage a program of sharing nuclear information related to civilian nuclear power and nuclear physics in general. The Atoms for Peace program, begun in 1953, was also in part political: the U.S. was better poised to commit various scarce resources, such as enriched uranium, towards this peaceful effort, and to request a similar contribution from the Soviet Union, who had far fewer resources along these lines; thus the program had a strategic justification as well, as was later revealed by internal memos. This overall goal of promoting civilian use of nuclear energy in other countries, while also preventing weapons dissemination, has been labeled by many critics as contradictory and having led to lax standards for a number of decades which allowed a number of other nations, such as India, to profit from dual-use technology (purchased from other nations other than the U.S.).

The United States is one of the five "nuclear weapons states" permitted to maintain a nuclear arsenal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory on July 1, 1968 (ratified March 5, 1970).

workers use U.S. provided equipment to dismantle a Soviet-era nuclear missile silo.

The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency was established after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 to aid former Soviet bloc countries in the inventory and destruction of their sites for developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and their methods of delivering them (ICBM silos, long range bombers, etc.). Over $4.4 billion has been spent on this endeavor to prevent purposeful or accidental proliferation of weapons from the former Soviet arsenal.

After India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, President Bill Clinton imposed economic sanctions on the countries. In 1999, however, the sanctions against India were lifted; those against Pakistan were kept in place as a result of the military government which had taken over. Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush lifted the sanctions against Pakistan as well.

The U.S. government has officially taken a silent policy towards the nuclear weapons ambitions of the state of Israel, while being exceedingly vocal against proliferation of such weapons in the countries of Iran and North Korea, something which has been called hypocritical by many critics. The same critics point out the fact that not only is the United States sitting on the largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world, but it is also violating its own non-proliferation treaties in the pursuit of so-called "nuclear bunker busters". The 2003 2003 invasion of Iraq of Iraq by the U.S. was done, in part, on accusations of weapons development, and the Presidency of George W. Bush#Administration and Cabinet has said that its policies on proliferation were responsible for the Libyan Politics of Libya's agreement to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

==Current status== missile was phased out of the U.S. arsenal in 2005. treaty, the U.S. will reduce its stockpile to 2,220 operationally deployed warheads by 2012.

The United States is one of the five recognized nuclear powers under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It maintains a current arsenal of around 9,960 intact warheads, of which 5,735 are considered active or operational, and of these only a certain number are deployed at any given time. These break down into 5,021 "strategic" warheads, 1,050 of which are deployed on land-based missile systems (all on Minuteman missile ICBMs), 1,955 on bombers (B-52 Stratofortress and B-2 Spirit), and 2,016 on submarines (Ohio class submarine), according to a 2006 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Of 500 "tactical nuclear weapon"/"nonstrategic" weapons, around 100 are BGM-109 Tomahawk and 400 are B61 nuclear bombs. A few hundred of the B61 bombs are located at seven bases in six European NATO countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom), the only such weapons in forward deployment.

Around 4,225 warheads have been removed from deployment but have remained stockpiled as a "responsible reserve force" on inactive status. Under the May 2002 SORT, the U.S. pledged to reduce its stockpile to 2,200 operationally deployed warheads by 2012, and in June 2004 the United States Department of Energy announced that "almost half" of these warheads would be retired or dismantlement by then.

The future nuclear stockpile under SORT will be based on:



The SORT treaty does not make the U.S. reduce its Tactical Nuclear weapons arsenal so there will be 500-800 active Tactical nuclear weapons. Also the weapons taken from active states do not have to be destroyed so there will be at least 2400 responsive reserve warheads.

A 2001 nuclear posture review published by the Presidency of George W. Bush#Administration and Cabinet called for a reduction in the amount of time needed to test a nuclear weapon, and for discussion on possible development in new nuclear weapons of a low-yield, "bunker-busting" design (the Nuclear bunker buster). Work on such a design had been banned by United States Congress in 1994, but the banning law was repealed in 2003 at the request of the United States Department of Defense. The United States Air Force Air Force Research Laboratory researched the concept, but the United States Congress canceled funding for the project in October 2005 at the National Nuclear Security Administration's request. According to

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Acronym Definition; NWAP: Northwest Area Partnership: NWAP: Nuclear Weapons ... Nuclear weapons and the United States Nuclear weapons and the United States of America

Kirsch Foundation Nuclear Disarmament
At a time when the United States brands as 'evil' certain countries based, in part, on their pursuit of nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction, we must be careful as we ...

 

Nuclear Weapons And The United States



 
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