The contradiction becomes more obvious given that the Biden administration is planning to advocate nuclear transparency and criticize some other states for not being transparent about their nuclear arsenal during the first session of the preparatory committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which will take place in Geneva this week.
"While US diplomats were busy advocating nuclear transparency abroad, the Department of Defense and Department of Energy rejected two requests from the Federation of American Scientists to declassify nuclear weapons stockpile and dismantlement numbers," FAS said in a press release.
In 2022, the Biden administration decided to stop publishing data on the US nuclear arsenal, which directly contradicts statements by US officials who shared with participants of the NPT Review Conference in August 2022 only a percentage reduction of the arsenal since 1967 instead of announcing the actual stockpile size as of September 2021, the release said.
"The Department of Defense and Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration do not believe that is in the best interest of the United States to declassify the size of the US nuclear stockpile, the number of weapons dismantled, or the number of weapons awaiting dismantlement as of the end of FY [fiscal year] 2021 at this time," the Office of Classification of the US Energy Department said in a response to FAS.
FAS estimates that the US stockpile at present includes about 3,700 nuclear warheads.