U.S. general urges nuclear upgrade as Russia grows ‘more aggressive’
The general who oversees the United States’ atomic weapons arsenal has expressed concern over what he described as “much more aggressive” behavior by Russia in recent years, saying it justifies the need for a strengthened and modernized nuclear deterrent force in this country.
Lt. Gen. Jack Weinstein of the Air Force made the remarks against the backdrop of a reassessment by the Trump administration of American nuclear policy, including whether nuclear disarmament, as advocated in 2010 under President Barack Obama, is a realistic goal.
Gen. Weinstein, the deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, said in an interview on Tuesday with editors at The New York Times that he believed that history had shown that nuclear deterrence had basically kept the peace between the major powers since the end of World War II.
The general expressed confidence that the United States’ nuclear arsenal remained effective, saying, “I sleep very well at night.” But like an aging vehicle, the general said, the arsenal is overdue for an overhaul.
“When you look at our deterrent, it was really built in the 1960s,” he said, and was last updated in the 1980s. “It should have happened in 2000 and 2001,” the general said, but “obviously our country was a little bit busy in 2001 based on another horrific act.”
Although the Obama administration spoke of its aspiration to eliminate nuclear weapons around the world, it did designate tens of billions of dollars to upgrade nuclear laboratories and prolong the lives of aging warheads. In 2014, the Pentagon acknowledged it would have to spend additional billions through 2019 to make emergency repairs on missile silos, bombers, submarines and other infrastructure that had been permitted to languish since the Cold War.
Gen. Weinstein, whose career spans four decades, attributed the increased tensions with Russia in large part to its actions under President Vladimir Putin, punctuated by Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014.
“If you look at the Russian behavior since 2010 to the way they are now, it’s much more aggressive — much more, I’ll say, bellicose,” he said. “I woke up one day, and the Russians had invaded a sovereign nation, which was not something that was on my scope.”
When he looks back at the actions of Russia over time and its dealings with the United States, the general said, “For me the most important thing we can really do is maintain a strong nuclear deterrent.”
Gen. Weinstein is among those who have accused the Russians of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987. That pact was the first time the superpowers agreed to reduce their arsenals.
Russia has denied it is in violation of the accord, but the dispute constituted an additional irritant in the deteriorating relations with the Kremlin under Mr. Obama.