Despite President Barack Obama’s efforts to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy, the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile reductions and warhead dismantlements have slowed under his administration, according to updated stockpile numbers declassified last week by the Department of Defense.
The U.S. stockpile consisted of 4,571 active and reserve nuclear weapons at the end of fiscal 2015, down from 4,717 in fiscal 2014 and 25,540 in 1962. Meanwhile, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in fiscal 2015 dismantled the lowest number of nuclear warheads during the president’s term: 109 weapons, down from 299 dismantlements in 2014 and 356 in 2009.
The 2015 figure brings the total number of weapons dismantled to 10,360.
An analysis by Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, found that “the Obama administration has reduced the U.S. stockpile less than any other post-Cold War administration” and that dismantlement numbers have shown a general downward trend during his presidency. He also noted the latest dismantlement numbers are the lowest in one year “since at least 1970.”
Secretary of State John Kerry announced last April that the U.S. would accelerate the dismantlement of warheads retired by fiscal 2009 by 20 percent. The NNSA then requested in its fiscal 2017 budget proposal $69 million to meet this commitment and complete dismantlement work one year earlier than originally planned, by fiscal 2021.
However, Kristensen noted in his analysis that the Obama administration’s average of roughly 280 dismantlements per year indicates “it will take at least until 2024 before the total current backlog is dismantled.”
These numbers cast a shadow on the nonproliferation and disarmament objectives the president intended to be part of his legacy, outlined in an April 2009 speech in Prague, where he spoke of the need to enhance the security of fissile material globally while working toward a nuclear-weapons-free world.
The Defense Department’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review also highlighted the reduced role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy as key for eventually achieving a nuclear-free world.
“More than anything, I think the numbers show the limits of a president’s ability to shape the arsenal amid domestic and international constraints that tightened considerably after Prague speech – congressional pressures for arsenal modernization and Russia’s more hardline policy under Putin,” Miles Pomper, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said by email.
He added that “generating expectations you don’t fulfill can lead non-nuclear-weapon states to be even more resistant to U.S. efforts to tighten rules against proliferation,” and that the next president will likely be “hard pressed not to engage in a massive modernization program,” dependent also upon the makeup of Congress.
Obama again spoke about global nuclear stockpile reductions at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan on May 27 while commemorating the over 100,000 lives lost in the U.S. atomic bombing of Japanese cities in World War II.
“We may not be able to eliminate man’s capacity to do evil, so nations and the alliances that we form must possess the means to defend ourselves,” said Obama, the first sitting U.S. president to visit the first city to suffer an atomic bomb attack. “But among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.”
“We may not realize this goal in my lifetime, but persistent effort can roll back the possibility of catastrophe. We can chart a course that leads to the destruction of these stockpiles. We can stop the spread to new nations and secure deadly materials from fanatics,” Obama added.
The president noted that the United States and Japan have forged a strong alliance over the years “that has won far more for our people than we could ever claim through war.” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered his own remarks at the memorial, extending “eternal condolences” for the Americans killed during the war, and calling the U.S.-Japanese alliance “an alliance of hope for the world.”
Reaffirming the two nations’ desire for a world without nuclear weapons, Abe said, “No matter how long and how difficult the road will be, it is the responsibility of us who live in the present to continue to make efforts.”
Some commentators criticized Obama’s speech at the memorial, calling it an implicit apology for the U.S. decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki while ignoring the actions of Imperial Japan during the war. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wrote Saturday on Twitter, “Does President Obama ever discuss the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor while he’s in Japan? Thousands of American lives lost.”
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, highlighted in an article the discrepancy between Obama’s statement that “existing U.S. and global nuclear weapons capabilities are already more than enough,” presumably for deterrence, and the administration’s “costly, all-of-the-above plan to maintain and upgrade U.S. nuclear forces at force levels that exceed U.S. nuclear deterrence requirements.”
Under the Obama administration, the U.S. finalized a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, helped negotiate an agreement to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, and organized four high-level nuclear security summits. However, critics and anti-nuclear activists continue to point to the ongoing U.S. nuclear arsenal modernization program, expected to cost about $1 trillion over 30 years, as an initiative incompatible with the president’s stated intentions.
