While debate rages over domestic spending, the US government is quietly planning to blow $1,000,000,000,000 updating their ability to lay waste to all life on Earth.
[From the Arms Control Association (ACA)]
“Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work testified to the House Armed Services Committee on June 25, 2015 that “modernizing and sustaining” the nuclear arsenal will cost an average of $18 billion per year between 2021 and 2035 in FY 2016 dollars. When combined with the cost to sustain the current arsenal as the new systems are built, this will roughly double spending on nuclear weapons.”
The Obama administration has requested massive increases for nuclear weapons programs. Current and proposed spending levels currently exceed what the administration originally claimed they would be.
In fact, president Obama’s FY 2016 request for nuclear weapons programs at the Energy Department is roughly $3.5 billion more than President Bush’s final budget request.
Thanks, Obama.
The update will include Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), strategic bomber aircraft, modernized strategic delivery systems, refurbishing nuclear warheads, modernizing the production complex, and updating command and control systems. Pretty much everything you’d need to wipe small planet of all life, turning a once shimmering biosphere into a charred powdery remnant of human shame.
“The Air Force is planning to purchase 80-100 new, dual-capable long-range penetrating bombers that will replace the B-1 and B-52 bombers. Known as the LRS-B, the Pentagon estimates the average procurement unit cost per aircraft will be $511 million in 2010 dollars when procuring a 100 aircraft. The Obama administration asked for $1.2 billion for the program in FY 2016. The Air Force plans to spend $41.7 billion over the next ten years on research and development for the new bomber (in then-year dollars).” [ACA]
For all the details visit: the Arms Control Association
Keep reading:
“Hiroshima: Breaking the Silence” by Howard Zinn with an introduction by Yuki Tanaka
Nuclear Darkness: The Deadly Cost of a Nuclear War