In a new interview with Reuters, President Trump complained that the US has “fallen behind” in the nuclear arms race, and that he intends to determine the US returns to “top of the pack” in their arsenal. This is the second time since the November election that Trump has suggested increases in US nuclear arms spending with an eye toward surpassing every other nation.
The US and Russia have long had comparable numbers of warheads. but as the the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation was quick to point out, the US already has the larger deployed arsenal of the two, and is thus already the “top of the pack” without any new investments.
Other anti-proliferation NGOs were similarly critical of the talk of expanding the arsenal, saying that it would mark “an alarming reversal” of decades of effort to reduce the size of nuclear arsenals the world over.
The comments seem to put Trump on the side of those who have been angling for a massive increase in US nuclear weapons spending with an eye toward “modernization,” a program which is estimated to cost in excess of $1 trillion over the next 30 years.
The US does have a lot of outdated delivery systems that should be replaced. The problem is when that replacement happens the defense contractors will propose pie in the sky missiles and submarines that cost 10x what they should. It’s the same scam that is rife throughout our military procurement process.
Meanwhile the Russians, who seem to still possess common sense, regularly update their systems with a total defense budget 1/10th of ours!
No, that nuclear weapons themselves are outdated is the whole point. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty commits nuclear states to phase out all nuclear weapons – comprehensive disarmament. Any modernization will be a clear sign that the US has no intention of living up to that… it’s just pie in the sky. If that’s the case, sooner or later all the nations outside the nuclear club will decide it’s time to get in.
More likely just more proxy states belonging to the superpowers. I think there’s a possibility that those damn Muslims in Iran are telling the truth about not ever allowing nuclear weapons on their soil. If not then wouldn’t Russia and/or China moved some there to defend Iran?
Oh well, maybe the will be able to place religious beliefs aside in favour of survival?
The Missle Gap. Again. And true to the farce it is, it’ll work … again. It plays well to a freightened base, not to mention the MIC.
It got Kennedy elected.
February 22, 2017 Instead of ‘Draining the Swamp’, Trump is Feeding the Alligators
“Bannon Breaks With Pence, Delivers Warning To Europe” and noted that before U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis reassured European leaders this past weekend that the U.S. is as anti-Russian now as it was under Barack Obama, U.S. President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, had told European leaders “that he viewed the EU as a flawed construct and favoured conducting relations with Europe on a bilateral basis” — and that this fact supposedly raises a question regarding the Trump Administration, of “which axis is dominant: that of Trump/Bannon/Miller or Pence/Mattis/Haley.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/instead-of-draining-the-swamp-trump-is-feeding-the-alligators/5576297
This article is a joke. It doesn’t even mention the material fact that Obama fought for and won a trillion dollar nuclear weapons modernization program. A reader would get the idea that we are not already in a massive ramp-up in nuclear weapons spending. Trump will simply spend what Obama asked for and got.
Luv ya Jamie! Turning Trump’s ambitious plans to make America great again into something to do with the black guy!
Maybe it’s just too soon to forget how uppity he was?
Let’s remember Obama, after all he argued for that one trillion dollar nuclear weapons modernization budget and got it. But that’s not surprising, the nuclear power industry was always one of his big donors:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/us/politics/ties-to-obama-aided-in-access-for-exelon-corporation.html
Funny how you race-bait to deflect from Obama’s trillion dollar nuclear weapons push. Didn’t you hear? An ICBM will kill you, regardless of the race of the President who financed it.
It’s my heightened sense of smell jamie.
That great stock photo of Trump again Jason Ditz! It’s beginning to cause me to think of Raimondo when in a reference to Trump’s ambitions.
The Missile Gap…