Nuclear weapons of the United States

[Note 1] Between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. federal government spent at least US$11.3 trillion in present-day terms[5] on nuclear weapons, including platforms development (aircraft, rockets and facilities), command and control, maintenance, waste management and administrative costs.Under the direction of General Leslie Groves, over thirty different sites were constructed for the research, production, and testing of components related to bomb-making.By investing heavily in breeding plutonium in early nuclear reactors and in the electromagnetic and gaseous diffusion enrichment processes for the production of uranium-235, the United States was able to develop three usable weapons by mid-1945.[23] As a result, beginning in 1950 the AEC embarked on a massive expansion of its production facilities, an effort that would eventually be one of the largest U.S. government construction projects ever to take place outside of wartime.[26] By 1990, the United States had produced more than 70,000 nuclear warheads, in over 65 different varieties, ranging in yield from around .01 kilotons (such as the man-portable Davy Crockett shell) to the 25 megaton B41 bomb.[27] Brown says that most of this radioactive contamination over the years at Hanford were part of normal operations, but unforeseen accidents did occur and plant management kept this secret, as the pollution continued unabated.A number of groups of U.S. citizens—especially farmers and inhabitants of cities downwind of the Nevada Test Site and U.S. military workers at various tests—have sued for compensation and recognition of their exposure, many successfully.Through the aid of brainpower acquired through Operation Paperclip at the tail end of the European theater of World War II, the United States was able to embark on an ambitious program in rocketry.Starting in 1946, the U.S. based its initial deterrence force on the Strategic Air Command, which, by the late 1950s, maintained a number of nuclear-armed bombers in the sky at all times, prepared to receive orders to attack the USSR whenever needed.During the 1950s and 1960s, elaborate computerized early warning systems such as Defense Support Program were developed to detect incoming Soviet attacks and to coordinate response strategies.In 1972, three hijackers took control of a domestic passenger flight along the east coast of the U.S. and threatened to crash the plane into a U.S. nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.Non-proliferation policy experts have questioned "the use of private contractors to provide security at facilities that manufacture and store the government's most dangerous military material".[63][64] Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010 that is believed to have been created by the United States and Israel to attack Iran's nuclear fuel enrichment facilities.[65] The initial U.S. nuclear program was run by the National Bureau of Standards starting in 1939 under the edict of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.In June 1942, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took over the project to develop atomic weapons, while the OSRD retained responsibility for scientific research.After World War II, the MED maintained control over the U.S. arsenal and production facilities and coordinated the Operation Crossroads tests.[67] In 1975, following the "energy crisis" of the early 1970s and public and congressional discontent with the AEC (in part because of the impossibility to be both a producer and a regulator), it was disassembled into component parts as the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), which assumed most of the AEC's former production, coordination, and research roles, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which assumed its civilian regulation activities.After the development of the first nuclear weapons during World War II, though, there was much debate within the political circles and public sphere of the United States about whether or not the country should attempt to maintain a monopoly on nuclear technology, or whether it should undertake a program of information sharing with other nations (especially its former ally and likely competitor, the Soviet Union), or submit control of its weapons to some sort of international organization (such as the United Nations) who would use them to attempt to maintain world peace.Since this path was chosen, the United States was, in its early days, essentially an advocate for the prevention of nuclear proliferation, though primarily for the reason of self-preservation.Shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush lifted the sanctions against Pakistan as well, in order to get the Pakistani government's help as a conduit for US and NATO forces for operations in Afghanistan.[77] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2005 proposed a comprehensive ban on fissile material that would greatly limit the production of weapons of mass destruction.[78] In 1958, the United States Air Force had considered a plan to drop nuclear bombs on China during a confrontation over Taiwan but it was overruled, previously secret documents showed after they were declassified due to the Freedom of Information Act in April 2008.[81] By 14 August 2010, the program had already identified 45,799 civilians who lost their health (including 18,942 who developed cancer) due to exposure to radiation and toxic substances while producing nuclear weapons for the United States.The Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, is the only location in the United States where weapons from the aging nuclear arsenal can be refurbished or dismantled.[92] Following a renewal of tension after the Russo-Ukrainian War started in 2014, the Obama administration announced plans to continue to renovate the US nuclear weapons facilities and platforms with a budgeted spend of about a trillion dollars over 30 years.[97] The Air Force has modernized its Minuteman III missiles to last through 2030, and a Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) is set to begin replacing them in 2029.[98] The Navy has undertaken efforts to extend the operational lives of its missiles in warheads past 2020; it is also producing new Columbia-class submarines to replace the Ohio fleet beginning 2031.[101] On 12 June 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war arms race.[101] In May 2010, some 25,000 people, including members of peace organizations and 1945 atomic bomb survivors, marched from downtown New York to the United Nations headquarters, calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.Sam Nunn, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and George Shultz—have called upon governments to embrace the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, and in various op-ed columns have proposed an ambitious program of urgent steps to that end.