The nuclear weapons dismantlement problem
Abstract
In preparation for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) review conference next year, the United States reports great
progress in physically dismantling its nuclear weapons—a foundation for a
key pillar of the treaty, which aims, ultimately, to reduce and
eventually eliminate the arsenals of the world’s nuclear powers. The
US Government Accountability Office (GAO), however, presents a very
different picture. The US government’s statements about nuclear weapons
dismantlement “may be misleading,” the GAO concluded in a 2014 report,
finding that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which
oversees dismantlement within the Energy Department, “does not track the
actual date that dismantled weapons were retired” and “will not
dismantle some weapons retired prior to fiscal year 2009, but will
reinstate them,” causing the US nuclear stockpile to grow.
Moreover,
the Obama administration seeks to cut dismantlement funding and plans
to halt dismantlement altogether after 2022, until new and costly
nuclear warhead production facilities are established, tentatively in
the early 2030s. Until nuclear dismantlement policies are reformed,
disposal of unneeded nuclear weapons and their components will continue
to be an afterthought, with huge costs looming in the future. Without
reform, dismantlement will remain a mismanaged process kept in the
shadows, except when it is burnished for display at NPT review
conferences.
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