The United States and Russia have agreed to exchange telemetric information this year on the launch of an ICBM or submarine-launched ballistic missile that each nation conducted in 2012, announced the State Department on Tuesday. This exchange falls under the verification and confidence-building measures called for in the New START agreement that entered force in February 2011. Under New START, the United States and Russia are reducing their respective strategic nuclear arsenals to no more than 1,550 deployed warheads, 700 deployed launchers, and 800 deployed/non-deployed launchers by February 2018. US and Russian delegations decided upon the telemetric exchange during a meeting of the Bilateral Consultative Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, according to the State Department’s Feb. 19 release. The BCC is the forum in which the two parties discuss treaty implementation issues. (See also New START: Plus One and Counting and Off to a Good New START.)
The Air Force is shoring up its cyber defenses both on and off base for critical infrastructure such as water and electrical power, and industry experts are calling for more, even specialized, dedicated microgrids offsite to support USAF operations in case of a total blackout caused by cyberattacks.
