In a time of budget cuts, and with their leadership constantly insisting there isn’t enough funding to go around, the Pentagon is planning to “modernize” the B61 tactical nuclear weapons in a plan they estimate to cost at least $10 billion.
“The B61 is the only weapon in the stockpile that fulfills both tactical and strategic missions,” insisted Gen. Robert Kehler, who insisted the plan was vital in testimony to Congress last week.
The US made the first B61s in the 1970’s, and has created nearly a dozen variants, spending billions of dollars on an arsenal whose entire point was to defend against a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.
The weapons were never used, and many decades later the Pentagon is now salivating at replacing them with the new, more powerful B61-12, costs be damned.
Analysts and the GAO are not nearly so thrilled, saying the plan is “unaffordable” and “unnecessary,” not to mention explicitly violating President Obama’s promise not to create any “new” nuclear weapons, since despite being officially a replacement, they also include major new capabilities for aggressive nuclear warfare.
Tactical weapons really should not be usable as strategic weapons – use one on the Soviet Union and they will go strategic straight away if they had any sense. Yet again this demonstrates how completely moronic "Washington" is.
"…entire point was to defend against a Soviet invasion of Western Europe."
That was what they've told the American people for years but obviously, that isn't the reason for the stockpile. It's more likely that the real reason the USG wants them is for that future when some fool panics or feels the US has been slighted and decides to flex it's arrogance for the entire world to take notice – unintended consequences be damned. And with the number of "wacko birds" getting elected these days, I'm afraid that that probability increases every year.
Not much fun if you can't use all the tools in the Pandora's war chest, eh?
Israel – we need nukes to stop the evil anti-semitic Goys from attacking us, even in retaliation after we attack them first.
US – we need nukes to stop the evil Commies from attacking us, even in retaliation after we attack them first.
Weren't we supposed to be eliminating our nuclear arsenal, or at least working in that direction as part of NPT? Is this yet another treaty the US honors only when it can be used against one of Israel's enemies, like the Chemical Weapons treaty? The Pentagon wants to upgrade missiles that almost the entire population of the globe – except for members of the global Military Industrial Corporate Political Complex – fervently wishes had never been invented. Hasn't enough money already been wasted on useless junk like the F-22 and F-35 fighters, Bradley fighting vehicles, and $600 toilet seats and hammers? Will the MADness ever stop?
The deadliest missles are the points on the tops of their heads, and shallow brain balls that hold the paranoid manufacturing juice.
The deadliest missles are the points on the tops of their heads, and shallow brain balls that hold the paranoid manufacturing juice.