Robert Reich is correct. The number of nuclear weapons is inconsequential when any nuclear-armed country can obliterate another “with a small fraction of their current arsenals.”
Robert Reich writes:
Today Trump declared that the United States has “fallen behind on nuclear weapon capacity,” and placed some of the blame for this on the 2010 New START agreement, signed by President Barack Obama and aimed at further reducing the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States. Trump said it was “another bad deal that the country made.”
“If countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack,” he added.
Hello? The United States has an arsenal of about 6,800 nuclear weapons to Russia’s 7,000. That 200 nuke difference is of no consequence. Being “at the top of the pack” is meaningless when either can obliterate the other (and, along the way, make the planet uninhabitable) with a small fraction of their current arsenals. (The next most heavily equipped nation is France, with 300).
But Trump doesn’t care about the facts. He cares only about being “on top of the pack,” even if that means abandoning an agreement to reduce both Russia’s and America’s stockpiles. It’s Trump’s approach in general. Making America “great” means making us bigger and better than anyone else.
