How Donald Trump Can Rebuild America’s Nuclear Arsenal

Michaela Dodge

Security,

How can he do it? 

President Donald Trump concluded last week by calling upon to the military to ensure that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is at the “top of the pack.”

This is a reasonable goal. The United States’ nuclear weapons are meant to deter large-scale attacks that could potentially end life as we know it.

They also serve a nonproliferation purpose. The United States prevents nuclear proliferation by guaranteeing the security of allies around the world who rely on our nuclear deterrent, rather than developing and creating their own.

We’d better make sure our nuclear arsenal is the best it can be.

During the Cold War, the United States designed and developed nuclear weapons that were at a “Ferrari” level relative to other nuclear weapon states. Our warheads were leaps and bounds ahead of those of our adversaries, particularly with regard to their safety and security features.

Despite deploying tens of thousands of these warheads, the United States has never experienced an accidental nuclear detonation.

Today, the nuclear picture is much different. Our nuclear warheads are aging and remain based on designs from the 1970s. The world is very much a different place than it was during the Cold War, yet the United States has completely barred itself from considering what kinds of nuclear warheads would best meet the challenges of today.

The Trump administration would be wise to reverse this policy and provide the intellectual space to examine the state of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

U.S. adversaries have no such self-imposed restrictions. They design, develop, and to some extent test their own nuclear warheads as they desire. They have very active nuclear delivery platform modernization programs and robust scientific and production complexes relative to the United States.