§496 Consideration of expansion of nuclear forces of other countries

Summary

At least 60 days before the President recommends cutting U.S. nuclear forces, the President must send Congress a report. The report must give, for every country that has nuclear weapons, the intelligence community’s high, medium, and low confidence estimates about: how many and what kinds of nuclear weapons they have; their plans to modernize those weapons; their capacity to make warheads and the systems that deliver them; their nuclear policy; and how the U.S. reductions would affect U.S. deterrence and extended deterrence. The commander of U.S. Strategic Command must also tell Congress whether the cuts would hurt the U.S. ability to handle unexpected strategic or technical problems or would weaken deterrence or assurance to allies. The report must be unclassified, but it can include a classified annex. “Appropriate congressional committees” means the congressional defense committees and the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees.