While Trump talks tough, US quietly cutting nuke force

The Air Force is quietly shrinking its deployed force of land-based nuclear missiles as part of a holdover Obama administration plan to comply with an arms control treaty with Russia.

The reductions are nearing completion despite President Donald Trump's argument that the treaty gives Moscow an unfair advantage in nuclear firepower. The reduction to 400 missiles from 450 is the first for the intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, force in a decade when the arsenal came down from 500 such weapons.

The Air Force says the latest cut in Minuteman 3 missiles will be completed in April, leaving the deployed ICBM arsenal at its smallest size since the early 1960s. In 2014, President Barack Obama's administration announced the planned ICBM reduction to tailor the overall nuclear force, including bombers and nuclear-armed submarines, to the New START accord that the US and Russia sealed in 2010. Both nations must comply with the treaty's limits by February 2018.

The shrinking of the ICBM force runs counter, at least rhetorically, to Trump's belief that the US has fallen behind Russia in nuclear muscle. In December, he tweeted that the US must "greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."

He has criticized New START as a bad deal. It's unclear how Trump intends to conduct a nuclear expansion, which critics call unnecessary and a potential drain on funds needed for non-nuclear forces.

A long-term plan to replace and modernize nuclear force is already underway and will end up costing hundreds of billions of dollars. As of March 14, the Air Force had 406 Minuteman missiles in launch-ready silos, Maj Daniel Dubois, an Air Force spokesman, said Friday. In September the number was 417. Dubois said the number will be down to 400 by April. Also as part of the treaty's compliance process, the Air Force in January finished converting 41 B-52H bombers to non-nuclear status.

Michaela Dodge, a defense policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, says the US should get out of New START.