Titan II Nuclear Missile in Silo (Image from Flickr)Gordon Adams & Richard Sokolsky, Defense One: Obama Is About To Launch A New Nuclear Arms Race. There’s a Better Way.
The United States is on the cusp of launching an unnecessary, expensive, and potentially dangerous plan to modernize its strategic nuclear forces, helping stimulate what is being called a “new nuclear arms race.” Before Washington starts down this path, it needs to step back and ask, “How much is enough?” or, as the Cold War adage went, “How high do we need to make the rubble bounce? The United States can deter any country from using nuclear weapons against America and its treaty allies with a nuclear force that is far smaller, less destabilizing, and less expensive than the one the Pentagon is planning to build.
This October will mark the 30th anniversary of the Reykjavik Summit, where President Ronald Reagan and then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came close to abolishing nuclear weapons. Six years ago, President Barack Obama made the same commitment. But today, a quarter-century after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the United States is planning to spend $1 trillion over the next three decades to replace or upgrade virtually all of its strategic nuclear weapons. At the same time, Russia also has undertaken ambitious plans to upgrade its strategic nuclear forces with new multi-warhead missiles, aircraft, submarines, and even a rumored nuclear underwater drone.
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WNU Editor: Does the U.S. have the funds ($1 trillion) to cover this program ... apparently it does. Is the U.S. exploring other options .... no. But in all fairness to the White House .... the Kremlin is following this same expensive policy.