U.Sl. Upgrading Nuclear Arsenal?

Timothy Birdnow

An article in Pravda claims the U.S. is quietly upgrading her nuclear arsenal in Eastern Europe.
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/20-06-2011/118250-nuclear_russia-0/ They are hopping mad about it, too.

From the article:

"This time, the command of the U.S. Air Force intends to modernize their existing nuclear bombs B61. As stated by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the goal of modernization is not an increase of capacity, but increased safety, reliability and service life of the weapons systems.

[...]


However, a number of scientists believe that the commanders and politicians are not openly telling the entire story. According to Hans Kristensen, a specialist on nuclear weapons with the Federation of American Scientists, the modernization of these bombs could make them more powerful, which contradicts earlier policy for universal nuclear disarmament proclaimed by the president. The expert believes that it is impossible to modernize without increasing capacity. As a result, he thinks that the military may find such a weapon suitable for liquidation purposes, while previously such weapons were unavailable because of too much collateral damage.

[...]

Of particular concern is the fact that the U.S. intends to modernize its nuclear bombs stored at our borders. Of course, all this is directed against us. The Russian side has tried before to raise this question and initiate a discussion regarding the possibility of placing nuclear arsenals of the United States in the countries of Eastern Europe seeking membership in NATO, but the Americans were very evasive in this discussion. Their answers boiled down to the fact that "we cannot prevent and prohibit members of the alliance to have such weapons on their territory, since they are all equal."

It is beneficial for the Americans. One of the main problems for them now is to achieve reduction of our power at the expense of Russia's nuclear potential. In fact, at the moment we are the only ones who can compete with them in this regard. Developing missile defense, and seeking further reduction of our nuclear weapons, they reduce our benefits to zero. Today we see yet another "gift" from the U.S. coming from the Black Sea in the form of a cruiser equipped with a missile defense system. There are no guarantees that it will not remain there. However, most likely, nothing will prevent it and other like ships from going there again if need be. In fact, we find ourselves in a situation of confrontation in terms of conventional weapons, where we are greatly inferior to only the U.S."

End excerpts.

Now, the hypocrisy of Pravda is staggering; Russia modernized her nuclear arsenal, largely with money given to Russia to dismantle their old Soviet arsenal and with materials from their "nuclear cities which Bill Clinton helped retool to keep Russian scientists from selling to terrorists, and the Russian leadership thought they had suckered America by getting us to agree to freeze our 1980's era arsenal. Clearly, the Obama administration has found loopholes to allow us to modernize our moldy oldies, and that would negate the entire purpose of START III, which was intended to make a missile defense system worthless. The goal of the Russian leadership was to be capable of overwhelming any defensive system with a large strike - a strike we could not respond to in any credible way. A modern American arsenal coupled with a missile defense system means the Russians gain nothing.

Clever, if one believes the Obama Administration would actually do it.

I don't believe it, but it appears they may have done the right thing in this instance. For once I have to give kudos to the O'Bumbler.