US Strategic Command chief Gen. John Hyten continues to argue in favor of massive spending on nuclear weapons upgrades, insisting that despite the $1 trillion estimates the cost is “affordable,” and that “deterrence will always be cheaper than war.”
Hyten also faulted the idea of getting an estimate before starting the spending at all, saying getting the estimate first is “just a crazy way to build things,” and that he thinks the US should be able to build this massive arsenal “for an affordable price,” insisting it is “the most critical thing that we do in the military.”
Though early estimates on the nuclear weapons upgrade started at several hundred billion dollars, more recent estimates have shown that it was likely to be much larger than that, with most recent figures in excess of a trillion dollars over the next 30 years.
While in Hyten’s estimation that’s “affordable,” it’s not at all clear where it would fit in President Trump’s budget, which is already planning large military spending increases to buy more warships and planes, and is struggling to cut domestic spending to pay for that without having to find more for the nuclear program.
While the Trump administration savagely cuts social services and takes food out of the mouths of poverty-stricken children, our apparently unaccountable military machine seems to be able to summon endless vast sums to feed its boundless greed. For a truly maddening description of this lunatic raid on our treasury (sixty percent of our tax revenues) read “Pay Any Price, Greed, Power and Endless War”, James Risen, Hutton Mifflin Harcourt (2014).
One trillion is roughly $ 3000 per American. The problem is that the Pentagon is never right on estimated costs. My guess is that in the end it will be closer to $ 10,000 per American.
No one doing a job likes to provide an estimate, whether it’s fixing the plumbing in my house or building nuclear weapons for a country. They do everything short of outright saying, “just write me a check and leave the amount blank.” Only fools say just do it, I don’t care what it costs.
Yes, I’m afraid so, and in this case, we American taxpayers are the fools…
As if Putin would nuke us if we just dismantled them ? I’d rather join Russia and say to hell with this government than be radioactive dust. I fail to see what the advantage is to being an American at all anymore. Russians are just as happy.
Can Raimondo write 4 or 5 thousand words and somehow spin this in Trump’s favour?