Obama’s Trillion Dollar Nuclear Weapons Gamble

[mistyronin 1181]

( Defense One )Obama’s Trillion Dollar Nuclear Weapons Gamble

President Barack Obama will propose spending cuts for many federal programs in the 2016 budget request he’ll send to Congress on Monday, but not for nuclear weapons. Quite the contrary, Obama’s administration is proposing to go on a nuclear weapons spending spree. This is an expensive and profound mistake, and one that ignores the limited contribution that nuclear weapons make to U.S. security.

The administration’s costly plan proposes to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal, including the warheads, and the missiles, planes and submarines that carry them. These plans will cost $348 billion over the next 10 years, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate released last week. The National Defense Panel, appointed by Congress, found that the price tag over 30 years could be as much as a $1 trillion.

[clifdenhill 1]

Won't be seeing this on my news channels...I can't with these people.

[nodunit 397]

Why... Our arsenal is already enough to destroy the world ten times over or something like that, do we need to obliterate the solar system while we're at it?

Why start your campaign with attention to dispose and lessen the nuclear arsenal and then at the end turn around and raise it back up, what the actual fuck?

Edited February 2, 2015 by NodUnit

[jakerod 254]

do we need to obliterate the solar system while we're at it?

Yes! The Reds have already begun massing their army on Jupiter.

[drebin052 323]

^ The budget isn't aimed at expanding the amount of warheads.

It's mostly in response to the decline in quality and continuing safety issues with the existing arsenal. While the scope of the program is definitely excessive and should be toned down in terms of requirements, it doesn't change the fact that that the majority of the U.S.' Minutemans are 40-50 years old at this point and will have to be replaced eventually.

[maturin 12]

Yeah, and our ICBM personnel have proven to be slovenly and incompetent at every term. Not a state of affairs that can be tolerated, given their job.

At the same time, this is a dangerous move, given that Russia's paranoid leadership is already convinced that we are seeking First Strike capability.

[Nicholas 5]

Horrible news article that misleads the reader. As drebin stated, it's not buying more nukes, it's fixing the aging arsenal.

[nodunit 397]

Horrible news article that misleads the reader. As drebin stated, it's not buying more nukes, it's fixing the aging arsenal.

Argh curses! Foiled and made an ass of self again. Well in that case...I don't know, why not still just dispose of them, I get that nukes are considered deterrent but exactly how many do you need before they become a "real" threat?

[mistyronin 1181]

Horrible news article that misleads the reader. As drebin stated, it's not buying more nukes, it's fixing the aging arsenal.

Why would the article mislead?

It clearly says:

The administration’s costly plan proposes to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal, including the warheads, and the missiles, planes and submarines that carry them.

The whole point is if it's really worth it to spend so much money to rebuild it entirely. If there's a point in having so many nuclear weapons and systems. And what benefit do they have?

And, while recognizing the very problematic behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the truth is U.S. nuclear forces did not stop the Russian military from invading Ukraine either. Spending more money on nuclear weapons would not turn them back. The conventional forces that the United States and its allies have at their disposal are more than sufficient to respond to any Russian provocation, should policy makers decide to use them.

This is not to say U.S. nuclear weapons have no role. Their job is to deter a nuclear attack on us and our allies. Today, the United States has some 2,000 deployed nuclear weapons and more than that in reserve. The New START agreement with Russia will reduce the number of long-range warheads each country deploys to 1,550 by 2018. Yet the U.S. military has already concluded that the United States does not need more than 1,000 such weapons.

Edited February 3, 2015 by MistyRonin

[Gunter Severloh 3948]

Nice! we're already in trillions of debt, and this jackass wants to spend more of our money.

I find it funny how the US government cant balance a budget, has more debt then anyone on the planet combined, yet still spend more money as if their not in debt, then go and do this.

If citizens were to do the same thing the economy wouldn't exist, after some time no one would be able to afford anything and everyone would be in poverty, USA would be a 3rd world country.

I just love where I live, these hacks in office are liquidating the country, devaluating the dollar and setting us up to get wiped out by other countries with nukes.

[nodunit 397]

Nice! we're already in trillions of debt, and this jackass wants to spend more of our money.

I find it funny how the US government cant balance a budget, has more debt then anyone on the planet combined, yet still spend more money as if their not in debt, then go and do this.

If citizens were to do the same thing the economy wouldn't exist, after some time no one would be able to afford anything and everyone would be in poverty, USA would be a 3rd world country.

I just love where I live, these hacks in office are liquidating the country, devaluating the dollar and setting us up to get wiped out by other countries with nukes.

Must be amazing being a politician and being able to get away with virtually anything, someone needs to reign congress in line but I doubt we'll be seeing any improvements especially on the next election. Both the pubs and crats are leaning waaay to far into their own extremes and seem to have forgotten what negotiating means.

Edited February 3, 2015 by NodUnit

[maturin 12]

Nice! we're already in trillions of debt, and this jackass wants to spend more of our money.

I find it funny how the US government cant balance a budget, has more debt then anyone on the planet combined, yet still spend more money as if their not in debt, then go and do this.

If citizens were to do the same thing the economy wouldn't exist, after some time no one would be able to afford anything and everyone would be in poverty, USA would be a 3rd world country.

I just love where I live, these hacks in office are liquidating the country, devaluating the dollar and setting us up to get wiped out by other countries with nukes.

I know you're probably immune to these facts, but chill out. The deficit is plummeting, while economic growth is increasing.

If all of the United States' debt magically came due at the same time, we'd be bankrupt. But the same goes for just about every single homeowner. Luckily, we don't all live in the magical pathological madhouse of deficit-phobes.