nuclear-news

• Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis used to question the US’s nuclear arsenal and had called for certain elements to be removed or reduced.
• But since joining the Trump administration, Mattis has seemingly reversed his position, and he now supports building more.
• Mattis’ U-turn suggests he has gained information that nuclear weapons will become important as the Pentagon confronts China and Russia.

The retired US Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis used to doubt the need for the US’s massive stockpile of nuclear weapons, but he has changed his tune since joining President Donald Trump’s administration as secretary of defence.

When Trump’s team this month rolled out the Nuclear Posture Review, a report laying out US nuclear policy, Mattis, who vocally opposed expanding or even keeping all of the nuclear arsenalin the past, gave it his blessing.

In 2015, Mattis questioned whether the US still needed ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, as he found the risk of accidental launches a bit troubling. When the Senate was confirming him as Trump’s secretary of defence, Mattis refused to offer his support for a program to update the US’s air-launched nuclear cruise missile.

But now Mattis has signed off on a new nuclear position that not only will modernise the ICBMs and cruise missiles but also calls for the creation of two new classes of nuclear weapons…….

The nuclear review, rolled out this year along with new national defence and national security strategies, points to a US more focused on combating major powers like Russia and China. Before joining the president, Mattis openly questioned the purpose of US nukes: Do they exist only to deter attacks? Or do they have an offensive value?

The nuclear posture now advocated by Mattis calls for an increase in an already massive arsenal and actually advocates building smaller nuclear weapons to make them more usable in “limited” nuclear conflicts……… https://www.businessinsider.com.au/mattis-flipped-nuclear-weapons-since-pentagon-nuclear-posture-review-china-russia-2018-2?r=US&IR=T