US General: Russian ‘Aggression’ Justifies Upgrades to Nuclear Weapons
Says US Overdue for Major Nuclear Upgrades
by Jason Ditz, March 22, 2017
Lt. Gen. Jack Weinstein the deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence, today argued for the US to advance on a costly proposal to modernize and upgrade their massive arsenal of nuclear weapons, insisting that the “much more aggressive” behavior by Russia justified such a move.
Weinstein, an Air Force general whose puvieww is mostly the US nuclear arsenal, argued that history had shown that keeping huge numbers of nuclear weapons on hand “basically kept the peace” since World War II, and that he sleeps very well at night knowing the US has such a large arsenal.
Weinstein’s argument that the move is “justified” ignores the question of whether it is affordable, as estimates have put the modernization scheme’s overall cost well in excess of a trillion dollars, above and beyond an already massive military budget that continues to grow annually.
But like most generals, he wants more and newer weapons. Indeed, Weinstein argued that the US nuclear arsenal is mostly the product of the 1960s, and that while there was an upgrade in the 1980s that the US should’ve done similar upgrade around 2001, and was overdue.
The push will likely be welcomed by the Trump Administration, as President Trump has argued that the US has “fallen behind” in nuclear weapons, and needs to have the top arsenal in the world, even though by most metrics, they already have one.
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