Summer Quarterly 2018
Nuclear Shorts
Several Democrats in Congress tried to cancel the Long Range Stand-Off missile (LRSO), a so-called “low-yield” nuclear weapon estimated by the Government Accounting Office to cost at least $30 billion. “We are inalterably opposed to it,” Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., told reporters. “Talk of ‘low-yield’ H-bombs makes people start calculating: ‘… maybe we’ll have a small nuclear exchange and that will be OK,’” Smith said, “but our deterrence policy has to be: ‘No nukes under any circumstances.’” Former Sec. of Defense William Perry has rejected the LRSO earlier, writing in the Washington Post, “The US does not need to arm its bombers with a new generation of nuclear-armed cruise missiles,” and demanding, “Mr. President, kill the new cruise missile.” Rep. Smith has also sponsored a bill requiring a nuclear no-first-use policy which is stuck in committee (H.R.669 of 2017). Likewise, California Sen. Diane Feinstein, ranking Democrat on the Senate Sub-committee on Energy and Water Development, voiced opposition to a $65 million appropriation for a new so-called “low-yield” sea-launched nuclear missile. “I cannot support a new nuclear weapon,” she said. “Quite frankly, I don’t believe there’s anything such as a limited nuclear war. I don’t see any reason to develop new low-yield weapons. Once a nuclear weapon is used, by any country against any target, I believe it’s Armageddon, and it’s the end of us.” —Defense News online, May 23 & 24, 2018; New York Times, Sept. 30, 2016; Washington Post, Oct. 15, 2015
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