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Pres Barack Obama signed and transmitted to Congress a new nuclear cooperation agreement with China on April 21, and a day later, US and South Korean officials held a ceremony to initial a new cooperation pact. The proposed 30-year agreement with China would permit the transfer of equipment, including reactors, and material, components, information, and technology for nuclear research and nuclear power production. Notably, the agreement would grant each party advance consent, as specialists call it, to reprocess nuclear material transferred under the agreement and used in or produced through the use of transferred material or equipment. The new agreement would replace an existing agreement signed in 1985 and set to expire at the end of this year. Adapted from the source document.

The Obama administration is proposing to increase spending to accelerate by two years the development of a new nuclear-armed cruise missile, according to budget documents released February 2. The increase in proposed spending is part of a major funding hike in the fiscal year 2016 budget request for programs to sustain and to rebuild nuclear-armed missiles, submarines, and bombers and their associated nuclear warheads and supporting infrastructure. An updated cost analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released on January 22 estimated that the administration's nuclear weapons spending plans would cost $348 billion between fiscal years 2015 and 2024. Some current and former US S defense officials have questioned whether the modernization plans can be implemented as currently conceived, given continued pressure to reduce military spending. The Air Force is seeking $36.6 million in fiscal year 2016 for research and development for a long-range standoff weapon, more than 10 times as much as the $3.4 million that Congress appropriated for the current fiscal year. Adapted from the source document.

The US Strategic Command appears to be backing away from a September 2014 estimate that maintaining and modernizing the US nuclear arsenal will require close to 10% of the Defense Department budget for a period of time. Adm. Cecil Haney, who has led STRATCOM since November 2013, made the estimate in a letter to Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee. In the letter, Haney says the Defense Department currently spends 2.5% of its budget on nuclear forces but that current plans to rebuild US nuclear-armed missiles, submarines, and bombers and the associated nuclear warheads and supporting infrastructure for these weapons will cause this ratio to quadruple in the future. Adapted from the source document.

The US Air Force is planning to build about 1,000 new nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM), several sources said last month. The projected purchase would roughly double the size of the existing US fleet of ALCMs. A knowledgeable source said in an April 7 e-mail that the plans called for 1,000-1,100 new missiles at a cost of roughly $9 billion. In a subsequent e-mail exchange, Maj. Kelley Jeter, an Air Force spokeswoman, confirmed the number of planned missiles, but declined to comment on the cost. The Air Force is aiming to receive approval later this year from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to go to the next stage of the acquisition process, which includes maturing the technology, refining requirements, and finalizing cost estimates for the new missile. The first new missile is slated for completion in 2026. The Air Force does not currently plan to develop a conventional variant of the new missile, Jeter said. Adapted from the source document.

Russia is suspending its participation in meetings of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty Joint Consultative Group, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement on March 10. The announcement marks a further pullback from the treaty that Moscow had largely abandoned in 2007. In a March 11 interview with Interfax, Mikhail Ulyanov, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, said Moscow's suspension was not due to the deterioration in the US-Russian relations resulting from Russia's actions in Ukraine. Adapted from the source document.

Russia's ambassador to the US reaffirmed his country's commitment to the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) last month amid questions about the value of the agreement from influential voices in both countries. Speaking on February 18 at a conference in Washington, Sergey Kislyak said he doesn't foresee developments -- he hopes he is right -- that would force at least Russia to reconsider its commitment to New START. The treaty constitutes a very serious undertaking, and we are taking it seriously, he added. US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Rose Gottemoeller, said it is in times like these that arms control proves its worth. Adapted from the source document.