Global Security Newswire

Three former high-level U.S. officials have joined two nonproliferation specialists in calling on Russia and the United States to continue making public details about their respective strategic nuclear arsenals (see GSN, May 12).

A letter sent to the top negotiators for the recent New START arms control pact calls on Moscow and Washington to "continue under the New START treaty the practice from the expired START treaty of releasing to the public aggregate numbers of delivery vehicles and warheads and locations."

"Doing anything less would be a serious step back that would undercut international nuclear transparency and efforts to broaden the nuclear arms control process to other countries," the letter states.

The letter's five signatories are: Linton Brooks, who led the U.S. side in negotiations for the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and later headed the National Nuclear Security Administration; former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock; former Defense Secretary William Perry; Federation of American Scientists President Charles Ferguson and FAS Nuclear Information Project Director Hans Kristensen.

The original START pact expired at the end of 2009. Its successor entered into force in February; it requires Russia and the United States to reduce their deployed strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,550 warheads and 700 delivery systems.

One worry is that the two nations might now curb public access to the "aggregate data" of their strategic nuclear arsenals, according to an FAS press release. Under the new pact, they might only give an accounting of the delivery systems without offering data on the warheads themselves or their siting, the organization said (Federation of American Scientists release, May 18).