The End of the Cold War

During the 1970’s, the tension of the Cold War was eased “as evinced in the SALT [Strategic Arms Limitation Talks] I and II agreements,” explains The Encyclopædia Britannica, “in which the two superpowers set limits on their antiballistic missiles and on their strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.” Then, the late 1980’s saw the thawing of the Cold War and its eventual end.

“The end of the Cold War gave rise to hopes that the legacy of a nuclear arms race and confrontation between the United States and Russia was coming to an end,” says a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As a result of nuclear disarmament efforts, hundreds of nuclear arsenals have been dismantled in recent years. In 1991 the Soviet Union and the United States signed the Treaty on Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, which, for the first time in history, obligated these two nuclear superpowers not merely to limit but also to reduce their deployed strategic warheads to 6,000 each. At the end of 2001, both parties declared that they had complied with the treaty by cutting down their strategic nuclear warheads as agreed. Further, in 2002 the Moscow Treaty, which obligates further cuts to between 1,700 and 2,200 in the coming ten years, was agreed upon.

A Secret in “Reduction”

“More than 31,000 nuclear weapons are still maintained,” explains the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It continues: “Ninety-five percent of these weapons are in the United States and Russia, and more than 16,000 are operationally deployed.” Some may notice the seeming contradiction in the number of existing nuclear warheads. Did not these nuclear superpowers already declare that they had reduced their warheads to 6,000 each?

Here lies the secret of the “reduction.” A report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explains: “The figure of 6,000 accountable warheads uses specific accounting rules agreed to under the START [Strategic Arms Reduction Talks] treaty. Both nations will retain thousands of additional tactical and reserve weapons.” (Italics ours.) According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “many if not most of the U.S. warheads removed from the active stockpile will be placed in storage (along with some 5,000 warheads already held in reserve) rather than dismantled.”

So in addition to the thousands of ready-to-use strategic nuclear weapons still in reserve​—which are capable of being launched from one continent to another directly—​there are thousands of other nuclear warheads as well as other tactical nuclear weapons designed to attack closer targets. Unquestionably, the two nuclear superpowers still hold ample nuclear weaponry in their arsenals to destroy the entire world population several times over! Maintaining such a large number of dangerous weapons invites yet another threat​—the accidental launching of nuclear missiles.