The Washington Monthly
"Obama's new budget plan includes a little-noted sea change in U.S. nuclear policy, and a step towards his vision of a denuclearized world. It provides no funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, created to design a new generation of long-lasting nuclear weapons that don't need to be tested. (The military is worried that a nuclear test moratorium in effect since 1992 might endanger the reliability of an aging US arsenal.) But this spring Obama issued a bold call for a world free of nuclear weapons, and part of that vision entails leading by example. That means halting programs that expand the American nuclear stockpile. For the past two budget years the Democratic Congress has refused to fund the Bush-era program. But Obama's budget kills the National Nuclear Security Administration program once and for all.
7 comments:
This is a "I hope you know what you are doing move."
I think it certainly makes sense given budget constraints not to pursue programs like this, but obviously, nuclear deterrence is a vital capability. Presumably this doesn't meaningfully threaten that.
I think this is a terrible idea. I tend to hate it when Republicans use tired phrase "it would be lovely if the world would agree to stand around holding hands and singing kumbaya, but that's not the reality of the world we live in."
I really do hate it. But, I think it would be lovely if the world would agree to stand around holding hands and singing kumbaya, but that's not the reality of the world we live in.
Seriously, are we going to put ourselves in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and ours have gone untested for 20 years? Really? Because I'd love to not have nukes, but I'd really, really not love to not have nukes.
So, I have the same opinion as Matt, except I don't know whether this means we are giving up our deterrence capability.
It is very possible that this is an example of military overspending. I really don't know.
I read this as "stopping the expansion of the stockpile." I think we all agree that not having nukes at all would be bad indeed. Hopefully the "reliability" of the existing arsenal will be good enough that they can sit in their silos and continue to deter...
It's entirely possible that Obama's had a briefing from Sec. Chu and it turns out that this funding was entirely redundant or useless or was otherwise unnecessary. If so, great. The gesture or the immediate appearance of "leading by example" can be nice and helpful.
If this really might "endanger the reliability of an aging US arsenal" or even put it slightly at risk, then I think I'll have to join Team Cheney in saying that Barack Obama is endangering our country's safety. In fact, how exactly could this be interpreted any other way? SF, are you actually of the opinion that being less well-armed with nukes in the next few decades is good?
I'm fine with "less well-armed." Not with "dis-armed," mind you. The number of warheads we have has been steadily declining for decades, and I'm OK with that trend continuing.
So long as we have enough nominally operational weapons to convince Putin and Admadineajad that it would be a Bad Idea [tm] to try anything funny, that's good enough for me. Whether that's ten, a hundred, or a thousand warheads I can't pretend to know.
I'm also predicating this on the idea that they are not actually going to be used. An aging and less-than-100% reliable world-destroying arsenal seems to me to be just as effective a deterrent than a brand-new 100% reliable world-destroying arsenal. Either way, we can inflict so much pain on our enemies that they will respect the threat.
That makes sense. I don't agree entirely, I think maintaining a technological advantage is a really good idea, but your vision of the future is also probably pretty okay, too.
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