nuclear-news

$400 billion for USA nuclear weapons upgrade?

“That program is unaffordable, unrealistic and unnecessary because there are cheaper alternatives to extend the life of the weapon,” 

US readies for $400 bln nuclear arms upgrade Rt.com : November 01, 2013 
High-ranking Pentagon officials told members of Congress this week that the United States is in dire need of billions of dollars’ worth of upgrades to the country’s arsenal of antiquated atomic warheads.

Before a meeting of the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, United States Department of Defense officials said the US must spend at least a decade working to revitalize the high-power weapons, and insisted that doing otherwise could be detrimental to the country’s national security.

Madelyn R. Creedon, the assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs, insisted to lawmakers that the US is obligated to move forward with plans to invest a tremendous amount of time and money into the program, because the repercussions of not doing so would be not worth risking.

“Modernization work of this kind is expensive, but there is no doubt that the investment … is necessary,” Creedon said, according to Reuters’ David Alexander.

Alexander reported that Creedon considers the US’ B61 gravity bomb, currently deployed in Europe, a “cornerstone” of America’s commitment to protect its fellow NATO nations.

Elsewhere during the hearing, the commander of the US Strategic Command said that three key functions performed by the nation’s nuclear arsenal could be questioned if upgrades aren’t made soon……..Launching an operation now, though — even if some call it imperative — is too costly to consider for others. The non-partisan Stimson Center think-tank estimated last year estimated that the cost of upgrading the nation’s entire nuclear arsenal over the course of a decade, including weapons, infrastructure and delivery systems, could come at a price-tag as high as $400 billion. At the same time, the sequestration deal signed earlier this year calls for the Pentagon to slash spending by roughly $1 trillion during that same time-span.

Not all say it’s worth it, and among those is Kingston Reif, an analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. According to Reuters, Reif said that spending even as little as $11 billion to upgrade just the B61 bomb would be inappropriate.

“That program is unaffordable, unrealistic and unnecessary because there are cheaper alternatives to extend the life of the weapon,” Reif said in a recent interview cited by Reuters. http://rt.com/usa/atomic-nuclear-upgrades-needed-043/

November 2, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA, weapons and war