Source: Reuters
Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned on Tuesday that America’s aging nuclear weapons stockpile faces a bleak future of decline just as rival nations including Russia and China are modernizing their nuclear arsenals.
Nearly two decades after the end of the Cold War, Gates said the U.S. nuclear program is suffering from an exodus of qualified designers and technicians, the stockpile has not been modernized and no weapons have been tested since 1992.
“Let me first say very clearly that our weapons are safe, secure and reliable. The problem is the long-term prognosis — which I would characterize as bleak,” Gates said in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.
Gates used the warning to urge Congress to fund a modernization effort by the Pentagon and the Energy Department to create new weapons designs that he said could be used to create a safer and more secure stockpile without abandoning the 16-year-old unilateral U.S. ban on new weapons tests.
Russia has begun to rely increasingly on its nuclear force by developing new land- and sea-based missiles while maintaining the ability to manufacture new warheads, Gates told his audience.
He said China has also expanded the number of missiles and pursued new land, sea and air systems that can deliver nuclear warheads.
“Currently, the United States is the only declared nuclear power that is neither modernizing its nuclear arsenal nor has the capability to produce a new nuclear warhead,” Gates said.
Full Story
Technorati Tags: Defense Secretary Robert Gates
Related Blogs
Related posts
Get Out of Dodge!
U.S. must update nuclear arsenal as rivals are: Gates
Source: Reuters
Full Story
Technorati Tags: Defense Secretary Robert Gates
Related Blogs
Related posts