Russia and US 'agree to nuclear deal'

The US and Russia have agreed in principle on a deal to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) that expired in December after 15 years as the centerpiece of nuclear arms control, the Wall Street Journal reports today.

The deal, which officials said could be ready to sign in two months, would cut each side’s nuclear arsenal to between 1,500 and 1,675 operationally deployed warheads — down from 2,200 on the American side and 2,800 in Russia, which has also kept an unknown number in reserve.

Both countries would also commit to deeper cuts in the number of operational launch vehicles, whether missiles, submarines or aircraft. The total number would be limited to between 700 and 800 on each side. “There may be finessing and fine-turning, but the issues, from our perspective, are all addressed,” a US official said. Chief among these issues was Russian resistance to international inspections of its launch sites and a proposal for both powers to share missile test data.

What’s the difference between “Operationally Deployable” warheads and those “in Reserve”?

Could mean a lot of things. Often the same "physics package" is used in different warheads or bombs. If the physics package is not installed in a bomb or warhead, it would not be operationally deployable, although it could be made so fairly quickly. At a lower level, the device itself is made up of various components, and if those are not assembled into a device, again it's not operationally deployable, and in this case would take longer to assemble into a device and then a weapon. At a hihger level, it doesn't help much to have a warhead, but no missile to put it on. With bombers it's bit more complex, since conventional "bombers", and even fighters, can carry nukes, if you have the nukes.

The thought of F-117s with nukes scared the snot out of the Kremlin, and likely the Chinese too. You could do a decapitation (go for leadership and command facilities) and they'd have zero warning, assuming they could not see the -117s coming. And they could never be sure which F-117s, if any, had nukes.

But as always, the devil is in the details, and we rarely get to see those until after the deed is done.

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