Pentagon chief pledges $108B to fix nuclear force
Defence Secretary Ash Carter said Monday the Pentagon is committed to correcting decades of short-changing its nuclear force, including forging ahead with building a new generation of weapons at a cost of more than $100 billion.
In his first nuclear-focused speech since taking over the Pentagon in February 2015, Carter implicitly rejected arguments for eliminating any element of the nuclear force or scaling back a modernization plan that some consider too costly.
With the nose of a B-52 bomber at his back, Carter told airmen that the credibility of the American nuclear arsenal is crucial to ensuring its deterrence power. That credibility, he said, is built on personal performance.
“The confidence that you’re ready to respond is what stops potential adversaries from using nuclear weapons against the United States or our allies in the first place,” he said.
Earlier he flew by helicopter to a Minuteman 3 missile field and was taken 85 feet underground to a launch control centre where two airmen are always present - 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year - and ready to execute a presidential order to launch. The nuclear-tipped Minuteman 3 can reach a target on the other side of the globe in about 30 minutes.
It was Carter’s first visit to a nuclear weapons base as defence chief.
In his speech, Carter argued that even though the Cold War is long over, nuclear weapons are still needed to deter Russian and other potential aggressors from thinking they could get away with a nuclear attack.
He sketched an international security landscape dotted with nuclear dangers. He accused Russia of “nuclear sabre rattling” and North Korea of nuclear and missile provocations.
“A diverse and dynamic spectrum of nuclear threats still exists,” he said, adding that this makes it imperative that the U.S. ramp up its plan to modernize its nuclear weapons.