Following the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991, the US military has reorganized its nuclear planning against North Korea. Nuclear strike planning in support of operation plans (OPLAN) and other contingencies has been transferred to the 4th Fighter Wing based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. In case the […]
Tag Archives: Nuclear Strategy Project
Analysis and Articles
The titles below provide links to various reports and articles that describe US nuclear planning as it has occurred in the 1990s: Hans M. Kristensen and Joshua Handler, “Nuclear Forces 2001,” SIPRI Yearbook 2001, (forthcoming) Hans M. Kristensen, “The Elusive Foe: China in US Nuclear War Planning,” The Nautilus Institute, Berkeley, CA, February 2001. (forthcoming) […]
Nuclear Submarines
Information about submarine operations are among some of the most tightly held secrets. Requests for information are frequently denied for no other reason than they concern submarine operations. The items below provide links to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and other publications that provide information about submarine operations. FOIA documents >> US Department […]
TMD Planning In Korea
This page describes an 1998 7th Air Force briefing on Theater Missile Defense (TMD) in Korea. The document was partially declassified and released under the Freedom of Information Act and describes the TMD “strategy we are employing on the Korean Peninsula.” The briefing examines how the US detects and warns CFC (Korean-US Combined Forces Command) […]
US Korean Nuclear Relations
4th Fighter Wing Nuclear Planning, 1998 Following the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991, the US military has reorganized its nuclear planning against North Korea. Nuclear strike planning in support of operation plans (OPLAN) and other contingencies has been transferred to the 4th Fighter Wing based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in […]
Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons
The U.S. has two types of non-strategic nuclear weapons: the B61 bomb and the Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missile. Approximately 800 B61s exist in three versions, while 320 W80 warheads are available for the Tomahawk. None of these warheads are covered by existing arms control agreements. Non-strategic B61 bombs are assigned to US F-16C/D, F-15E, and […]
The Nautilus Institute Nuclear Strategy Project: The Warfighter’s Assessment Post-START II Arms Restrictions
In December 1996, a few months after the White Paper on post-START II arms control was completed and only a few months before the U.S. and Russia agreed in Helsinki to a START III Treaty of 2,000-2,500 warheads, STRATCOM published the results of another force structure study on post START II arms reductions. As with […]
1994 Nuclear Posture Review
This web page gives a brief description of the 1994 NPR and provides links in the right-hand bar to documents (pdf format) released by the Department of Defense at the time, as well as documents since obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The Objective of the 1994 NPR In response to President Clinton’s direction […]
The Nautilus Institute Nuclear Strategy Project: White Paper Post-Start II Arms Control
After the Nuclear Posture Review was completed in September 1994 and START I entered into force three months later, STRATCOM began preparing for what would come after START II. To ensure international support for an indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the NPT Review and Extension conference in New York in April […]
The Nautilus Institute Nuclear Strategy Project: Sun City Extended Study
During the Nuclear Posture Review deliberations in 1994, STRATCOM published the Sun City Extended study. Emerging less than a year after completion of the original Sun City study from 1993, the new study contained important changes compared with its predecessor. Although the declassified Sun City Extended is heavily redacted, the new study’s perhaps most interesting […]