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As a reversal of the Trump administration’s policies, the State Department on Tuesday disclosed the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpiles. It stated that this will help global efforts to control the spread of such weapons.
The department said that as of September 2020, the number of US weapons, including active weapons and long-term storage weapons, was 3,750. This is down from 3,805 a year ago and 3,785 in 2018.
As recently as 2003, the total number of nuclear weapons in the United States was slightly more than 10,000. It reached a peak of 31,255 in 1967.
The last time the U.S. government announced its inventory figures was in March 2018, when it stated that the total as of September 2017 was 3,822. That was in the early days of the Trump administration, and subsequently kept the updated figures secret and rejected the federal request from scientists to decrypt them.
“Return to transparency,” said Hans Christensen, director of the Nuclear Information Program at the Federation of American Scientists. He said that the Biden administration is wise to reverse the policies of the previous administration.
Christensen said that publicizing the inventory will help US diplomats conduct arms control negotiations and review the disarmament commitments made by nuclear powers, including the United States, at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting next year.
The Biden administration is conducting a nuclear weapons posture and policy review, which is expected to be completed early next year.
At the Conference on Disarmament in February last year, Secretary of State Anthony Brinken said: “President Biden has made it clear that the United States has the necessity and moral responsibility of national security to reduce and ultimately eliminate the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction. “
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