US to spend $1 trillion to revitalize its aging nuclear arsenal: Report

Congressional hawks believe that the new plan will put the United States in a “stronger position if a new arms race breaks out” and hope the renovated nuclear plants could allow the US arsenal to “expand rapidly” under a different president, according to the report

"IF" a new arms race breaks out..??? Hmmmmmm .....oh the irony of that statement.

a reply to: minkmouse

Uh, I think future-Nigeria describes Russia better. Oil-based kleptocracy, though more effectively killing Islamic fundamentalists within.

Russia is on a losing course. China is on a winning course. USA is galumphing towards mediocrity, but not loserdom.

a reply to: johnthejedi24

No we don't. Last i checked, non nuclear armament was approaching really big explosions on par with some nuclear ones. One type causes extinction level events, the other does not.

Your reasoning also doesn't fly with me either. Did the United States nuke the USSR when the Soviet Union collapsed? Did we nuke them out of existence? After all, that was the time to do it, yeah?

No more nukes. We do not need them. This can be considered direct violation of treaty. I think it is a bailout to the tune of 1 trillion dollars over 30 years to the war machine, as starting new wars as of late, have been tough sells.

First thing we do not need megaton bombs any more.

In many cases we do not even need high yield kiloton bombs any more.

With the guidance systems we have today we can fly bombs into windows of buildings.

GPS guided bombs and cruse missiles can hit within feet of targets. with deep penetrater nuke(Nuclear bunker buster) we can punch down and use a lot less explosive power.

Many targets of low yield nuke weapons can now be hit with conventional non nuke cruse missiles instead of tactical nuclear weapons making them obsolete.

The old ICBMs hit with in a km of targets and needed the big nukes to take out a target.

For example, the United States retired the B-53 warhead, with a yield of 9 megatons, because the B-61 Mod 11 could attack similar targets with much lower yield (400 kilotons) due to the latter's superior ground penetration, by burying itself into the ground before detonation,

This means during a nuclear war a lot less radiation would be spread around the world.