By Hans M. KristensenFour NATO countries supported by six others have proposed a series of steps that NATO and Russia should take to increase transparency of U.S. and Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons.
The steps are included in a so-called "non-paper" that Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland jointly submitted at the NATO Foreign Affairs Minister meeting in Berlin on 14 April.
Six other NATO allies - Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, Luxemburg and Slovenia - also supported the paper.
The four-plus-six group recommend that NATO and Russia:
1. Use the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) as the primary framework for transparency and confidence-building efforts concerning tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.2. Exchange information about U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear weapons, including numbers, locations, operational status and command arrangements, as well as level of warhead storage security.
3. Agree on a standard reporting formula for tactical nuclear weapons inventories.
4. Consider voluntary notifications of movement of tactical nuclear weapons.
5. Exchange visits by military officials [presumably to storage locations].
6. Exchange conditions and requirements for gradual reductions of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, including clarifying the number of weapons that have been eliminated and/or stored as a result of the 1991-1992 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs).
7. Hold a NRC seminar on tactical nuclear weapons in the first quarter of 2012 in Poland.
According to estimates developed by Robert Norris and myself (Hans M. Kristensen), the United States currently has an inventory of approximately 760 non-strategic nuclear weapons, of which 150-200 bombs are deployed in five European countries. Russia (updated estimate forthcoming soon, previous estimate here) has larger inventory of 3,700-5,400 nonstrategic weapons in central storage, of which an estimated 2,000 are deliverable by nuclear-capable forces.
While this is not reaching our goal, the retreat of Tactical Nuclear Weapons from the US and Russia this moment, this initiative is not a bad start !Ak Malten, Pro Peaceful Energy Use
No comments:
Post a Comment