The Obama administration has sent out mixed signals on the issue of nuclear weapons. When elected, Obama was very clear that he wanted to move aggressively to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in national arsenals around the world. However, he has recently asked for a thirty year one trillion dollar project to upgrade the nuclear arsenal of the United States. Nuclear tensions around the world have been rising, especially between Russia and the U.S. but upgrading and expanding our nuclear arsenal does not seem like a good way to reduce those tensions. Some critics of the plan have suggested that there are at least three U.S. nuclear weapons projects that should be canceled.
I have written about the B61-12 gravity bomb before. The U.S. says that this is just an upgrade of the B61 bomb that has been in the U.S. arsenal for a long time. However, the Russians say that should be considered a new weapon and it is a violation of nuclear disarmament treaties.
The new version of the bomb will have the ability to be set for different yields in the range of thee hundred tons of TNT to thirty thousand tons of TNT. It will also be steerable which will make it much more accurate. The combination of low yield and high accuracy makes it more probable that this tactical nuclear weapon will be used someday.
One hundred and eighty of B61-12s are slated to be deployed to Europe as part of our answer to recent Russian nuclear belligerence in Eastern Europe. Critics say that they don't think that the Russians will be particularly impressed and that the B61-12 will have little utility as a deterrent. It has been recommended that the U.S. not deploy any B61-12 to Europe. As much as six billion dollars out of the estimated project cost of ten billion dollars could be saved.
The Long Range Standoff or LRSO cruise missile is the new version of an Air-Launched Cruise Missile. The original ALCR, the AGM-86, was developed as part of the U.S. arsenal in the 1980s as a counter to Soviet air defense systems and military superiority in Europe. Critics of the development and deployment of the LRSO say that existing cruise missiles can do the same job and that there are other weapons in the U.S. arsenal that render the LRSO redundant and a waste of money. Cruise missiles are "dangerous" and "destabilizing" because they can have a conventional or nuclear warhead. If an enemy sees a flock of U.S. cruise missiles headed for them, they have no way of knowing whether those missiles have conventional or nuclear warheads. This means that a conflict could escalate into a nuclear confrontation because of the use of cruise missiles with any type of warhead. The program is just getting started and cancelling it could save tens of billions of dollars from the estimated thirty billion dollar cost.
The U.S. has about four hundred Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in silos in the middle of the continental U.S. which cost billions of dollars to maintain. Critics point out that these have little strategic value. Stationary land based missiles are very vulnerable to attack.
Because they are so vulnerable, the current U.S. policy is to launch them if there is a warning that an enemy attack is in progress. This leaves little time for assessment of the validity of a warning and has almost led us into a mistaken war several times already.
The best use of land-based missiles would be for a first strike surprise attack. While President Obama has not ruled out the possibility of the U.S. launching a first strike against an enemy, it is very unlikely that the U.S. would do such a thing. If we did launch a first strike against an enemy like Russia, they would retaliate and destroy much of the U.S. Even if they did not, it has been estimated that the detonation of as few as one hundred nuclear warheads anywhere in the would cause a nuclear winter that would end human civilization.
The Air Force wants to replace existing ICBMs. The cost estimate has risen so much that the project was recently halted for reevaluation when the estimate hit eighty five billion dollars. If this program is cut, savings of one hundred and twenty five billion could result.
Cutting, delaying or reducing other items in the nuclear upgrade could result in total savings of as much as two hundred and ten billion dollars. The U.S. has over fifteen hundred nuclear weapons currently in its arsenal. This could be seriously reduced without any reduction in supposed deterrence of attacks from other nuclear armed nations.
LRSO cruise missile:
