USA
The United States of America is a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is one of the ‘depositary’ or legal guardians of the NPT. They have signed but so far refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and have contravened the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty since signing it in 1972.
There are 103 nuclear power plants in the US supplying around 20% of the country's energy generating capacity, and a policy has been in place since early 2001 to replace and expand this number.
The 2005 Energy Act includes tax breaks and other incentives such as the relaxing of licensing requirements to make it easier to build new nuclear power plants.
The fiscal year 2008 budget request is for USD$114 million to enable and encourage the building of new nuclear reactors.
The US nuclear arms stockpile contains nearly 10,000 nuclear warheads split into an 'active' (operationally deployed) stockpile and a ‘reserve’, or one kept on hand just in case they are needed.
There are over 5,700 active nuclear warheads and around 4,200 kept in reserve.
In December 2006 the US announced its plans for a new nuclear warhead known as the ‘Reliable Replacement Warhead’ and has recently announced plans to totally revamp its nuclear weapons complex.
The US plans to spend USD$1,600 million on maintaining its nuclear arsenal in 2008 alone.
However, Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has stated:
"I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance... involving civilians. Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table." - MSNBC, Aug 2, 2007.
Read the profile on the USA from the Model Nuclear Inventory (pdf), produced by the Reaching Critical Will project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Read the July 2007 three-page statement on US nuclear weapons written by Condoleezza Rice (Secretary of State), Robert Gates (Secretary of Defense), and Samuel Bodman (Secretary of Energy). This paper is a response to Congressional criticisms that there is no coherent US nuclear weapons policy and, in particular, no rationale for the Reliable Replacement Warhead and the Complex 2030 infrastructure intended to produce it.
This document concedes that the Cold War rationale for nuclear weapons no longer exists; assumes that the US must nevertheless need nuclear weapons to deter something; and tries to define that need as some combination of terrorist threats and an uncertain future. It's a theological, not a logical, argument. The case is made that building a permanent stockpile of new nuclear weapons actually fulfills US disarmament obligations, an argument ICAN rejects as an illogical, inherently flawed and contradictory.
