....and we take a step back 25 years

New arms race competitors- China, Nth Korea, Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel- Nice friendly countries with safe and stable government and absolutley no interest in any offensive or war-like activity.

I think they are planning to outsource the construction and engineering of these new weapons to India. That is why they are lobbying hard to 'share our nuclear technology' with them. No one in the US wants a nuclear weapons factory near their house anyhow.

This is mostly just a strategy to spend tax dollars on weapons systems we'll never use that won't even be built by Americans.

^I don't think this is the case, but I'd be interested to see any info on it. In particular, we already have over 10K thermonuclear weapons, so anyone in the middle flat part of the country has nukes somewhat near them. We did just give India a big break on the weapons though, but I think congress still has to pass judgement on it.

I just did a whole project on this. Scary subject.

Creating new nukes is completely illegal under the Non-proliferation treaty we are supposed to be making 'good-faith efforts' to reduce arms entirely. WHOOPs.

The nukes we have are mostly the 'Wipe out huge areas' type that are indeed, 25-40 years old. We could use a series of smaller, fresher 'pocket nukes' that just puff out a valley full of unsavory industries (like Iran's uranium refining program) without leaving 10,000 years of reigning death and the other useful 'bunker buster' type for the leadership. You must consider the weapons we have are of 1970's technology, even if our delivery systems aren't. The things we have learned in the last 20 years could make for a safer, more survivable, nuclear war, since we're going to have one anyway. If we use the large ones, we're all fucked from the Tropopause leakage, anyway, except maybe Dumbskull and Kahuna, who are almost North enough to only be littered with the shattered wreckage of downed ICBMs.

I think BG is on to something. Tactical nukes are alot more useful than OMGWTFBBQ-5000000000 MEGATON-BLOW THE EARTH IN TWO nukes.

But I stand by my point that it doesn't really matter because the US political machine doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to use any of them out of fear of what (insert name of small insignificant country) might think of us.

Personally, I believe that if you are going to fight, you bring the biggest fuckin stick you have in your bag and have every intention of using it. Otherwise, stay home.