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Walter Pincus on the astronomic costs of USA’s nuclear warheads

It seems the Pentagon can never have enough deployed nuclear warheads WP By Walter Pincus Reporter June 29 Rhetoric about nuclear weapons is heating up between Washington and Moscow, but there is no need to reinstate the foolish and wasteful arms race that dominated the Cold War period.

For one reason, the security challenges have changed.  Having 1,500 or more deployed U.S. nuclear warheads on land- or sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, or strategic aircraft with nuclear bombs or missiles, will not help a U.S. president defeat terrorists or deal with proxy wars somewhere in the world — or even protect American assets in the new confrontational arenas of space and cyberspace.

There also are the astronomical costs for modernizing not just the current triad of delivery systems — the strategic submarines, bombers and land-based ICBMs — but also continuing the life-extension programs for the nuclear stockpile and upgrading the nuclear weapons-building complex itself.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work told the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the cost for all that modernization would average $18 billion a year from 2021 through 2035 — or $252 billion over that 14-year period…………..

I am not saying nuclear weapons are useless. I am suggesting the United States doesn’t need a nuclear force large enough to survive a decapitating first strike because there is no such threat — the idea of a Soviet first strike was a myth, but nonetheless it led to the Cold War nuclear arms race. Let’s not do it again. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/it-seems-the-pentagon-can-never-have-enough-deployed-nuclear-warheads/2015/06/29/3defafbe-1c3e-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_s

July 1, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general