Friday, October 7, 2016

Russia’s Nuclear Surge: Putin Adding Nukes While Obama Cuts

As of Oct. 1, Russia had hundreds more nuclear warheads deployed than the United States did. A startling 429 more, in fact, according to the U.S. State Department.
Don’t panic quite yet. The current warhead gap is probably temporary. But that doesn’t mean all’s well when it comes to potentially world-ending weaponry.
The reason for the current disparity is simple. While the U.S. military has been steadily cutting the number of nukes it loads on submarines and bombers and in missile silos, Russian forces have recently been adding nukes.

Seemingly more worrying for the United States, Russia’s 1,796 deployed warheads exceed—by a whopping 246 weapons—the cap of 1,550 deployed nuclear weapons that Moscow and Washington agreed to as part of the 2011 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. READ MORE