The two largest nuclear powers on the planet, the United States and Russia have enough nuclear weapons to effectively end human civilization. Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President-elect Donald Trump both agree that’s not nearly enough.
Putin presented the effort as a need to adapt to changes in the world, and to ensure that Russia retains the ability to “neutralize threats” and can reliably penetrate future missile defense systems with their massive nuclear arsenal.
Trump’s comments were a lot less specific, saying that the US needs to “greatly strengthen and expand” their nuclear weapons capability, adding that he’d just keep expanding the American arsenal “until the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”
The New START Treaty intends to limit the number of nuclear weapons both the US and Russia are deploying at any given time, and with both Russia and the US are currently on track to meet the goals of that treaty, it doesn’t seem to be the general trend in the future.
Estimates on the cost of the US “modernization” scheme for its nuclear arsenal are that it will be in excess of $1 trillion. These figures have steadily risen in recent years, and doesn’t factor in the “expansion” of arsenal Trump is talking about on top of the modernization.
US hawks have argued that the massive arsenal they already have been sitting on for decades is old and therefore some of the bombs might not work, though given the nature of a full-scale nuclear war and arsenals capable of wiping out the species several times over, being down to 80% or 90% of the warheads detonating doesn’t realistically change the result.
Still, both nations virtually bankrupted themselves during the Cold War building these huge caches of weapons, and the massive amount of money being thrown around on such projects is the sort of thing officials salivate about, meaning practical needs ends up beside the point.
Yes Donald, just keep making more nukes until the rest of the world comes to its senses. What brilliance.
Trump also just appointed a hawk on China, Peter Navarro. No mention of it on this site.
You guys are gonna rue the day you supported Trump. I promise you that.
Nyet! Craziness is what we need. Let him perform clusterfuck operations. America can use some pain instead of the forever progressive chloroform daze.
If by “you guys” you mean Antiwar.com, Antiwar.com never supported Trump. Antiwar.com does not endorse candidates.
I didn’t say the site officially endorsed him. However, these statements from Justin R , to me, indicate support. Let’s not be cute here.
I’d call these and many more statements hedging bets, semantic obfuscation and more. Im not impressed.
“That’s why I resisted the temptation to vote for Trump, and contented myself with the pleasure of merely rooting for him” (!!!!) -Justin
“No, I didn’t vote for Trump in the California primary: I didn’t vote for anyone for President. However, I am voting for the Trump movement: it’s the best thing to happen to this country since the original America First movement, which Trump has courageously evoked by adopting “America First” as the slogan of his campaign.” – Justin
“Yet my opinion of Trump as basically unreliable doesn’t preclude my enthusiasm for the movement he has spawned: far from it. Like Trump, his supporters have no systematic worldview: what they have are instincts. And those instincts are mostly good.
“- Justin
Instincts ? Getting conned? Yes, brilliant instincts. Hating other races and religions? Wanting a strongman ? Need we discuss the ‘alt right’? Consider this- most of his supporters supported the Iraq war for many years after it was clear it was bs and a disaster. So, it wasn’t about that.
Many of these people are morons with fascist longings. That’s good instincts? Call me an out of touch elitist if you like, but I spend plenty of time offline hanging out with trump voters . I know whereof I speak.
This is the sort of brainless, anti-intellectual pandering that will bring us to what’s coming. And this site’s founder and main figure didn’t oppose it.
Justin likes to cherry pick. The pickings are slim with Trump. Russia. That’s it.
Trump also said Bush lied about Iraq and he promised to be neutral between Israel and Palestine.
We have a contract to buy our Uranium from Russia . Russia supplies most of the Uranium for the whole world and also most for the USA .They supply our low grade Uranium and weapons grade uranium This is all under a special contract that the money changing hands can not be frozen . But with all the sanctions we put on Russia what will we do if Russia should put a sanction on us . There seems to be a lot of strange deals that we might find hard to believe . First Hillary just sold Russia 1/4 of all our known Uranium . So what , why shouldn’t She . Russia has to mine the Uranium before they can supply our contract . Yet John McCain and Graham make speeches saying we cain’t trust Russia . Evidently somebody must have trusted Russia or these strange contracts would have never been made . There seems to be a lot of classified deals and also a lot of belligerent talk that doesn’t make sense when you understand the deals we have made . I don’t even know if the sale of our Uranium was a classified sale . But for sure Trump won’t be able ruin this country , unless he unconditionially surrenders our whole country to that nasty little short guy from North Korea
That Short little North Korean leader is the only world leader that I generally rate lower than our last 3 presidents
I have to congratulate Donald Trump for making his first successful deal with Putin! Trump and Putin have agreed to build more nukes. What a great idea! And remember, Trump is the guy who asked his advisers what is the point of having nuclear weapons if you can’t use them? Kinda takes all the fun out of being President. But let’s give Trump a chance. I think the man has a plan. Like maybe if we build enough nukes, ISIS will stop messing with us.
Let me try to enter the brains of our Presidents after the Iranian revolution. Their brains ask the question: “if I nuke Iran would Russia or China retaliate against us and thereby start a big nuclear war”? No. They will not retaliate and let us destroy them for Iran.
I am sure that their brains are correct.
This is analogous to Hitler knowing that France would not begin a new war if his Wehrmacht went back into the Rheinland.
There is one aspect of nuclear arsenals which almost never enters analyses and discussions. It is the fact that weapons mounted on ICBM’s are not the only ones. There are also so-called “battlefield nukes”. What about them Mr. Trump?
The Trump tweet is so bare in specifics that it is dangerously idiotic. Nuclear policies of our governments should never be aired in tweets. That is what congressional hearings, even secret ones, are for. Nukes are not toy trains under the Christmas tree. Perhaps for Putin but not for our Presidents.
This is really about trying to make American nukes shielded from Russian defensive technologies. As it stands right now, very few IF ANY American ICBMs and sea-based nukes would ever hit payload. The tesla-based systems and space-based plasma, the electromagnetic domes, it’s all way over the heads of politicians and the press. They don’t tell us the truth because once they let the cat out of the bag concerning the real, hidden space programs, people around the world would blame their leaders for holding humanity hostage, forcing it to live within the constrains of 19th century technology that is ruining our lives and our planet.
Not quite correct.
Putin’s government talked of a nuclear buildup. Trump *responded* to that with a promise to overwhelm them if they try. Putin in his end of year news conference addressed that response from Trump by backing down, saying they intended to cut spending, not do an arms race.
No race. Trump stood up to Putin, and Putin backed down.
But Trump must be belittled, and Putin demonized, so the story is twisted to suit.