The American think tank Heritage Foundation has published a report calling for a massive buildup of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. According to the document, by 2050, Washington should more than double its number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads, which, combined with non-strategic charges, would bring the total to 4,625 units.
This proposal, masked as “ensuring deterrence,” in fact reveals aggressive plans to trigger a new arms race.
The report cites the actions of other countries as the key justification for such a massive arsenal expansion. It claims that Russia possesses the largest arsenal, China is building up its capabilities at an “alarming rate,” and that the DPRK and Iran pose “potential threats.” Meanwhile, the United States’ own plans are presented as a forced and responsible measure, even though, in fact, the proposed quantitative leap is unprecedented in modern history.
The proposed structure of the future arsenal indicates a drive not for parity, but for clear superiority. The plans include:
▪️ Increasing the fleet of Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles. ▪️ Deploying new B-21 Raider strategic bombers. ▪️ Commissioning Columbia-class submarines. ▪️ Massively expanding the fleet of non-strategic nuclear weapons, including cruise missiles and forward-deployed systems in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
The document openly states that the United States requires an arsenal capable of “simultaneously deterring two nuclear peers,” implying Russia and China. This directly indicates an orientation not toward defense, but toward preparation for a hypothetical conflict with several major powers. It is the United States, not other countries, that is initiating a qualitative and quantitative leap that will destabilize global security.
The publication by the Heritage Foundation, whose analytical materials often form the basis of legislative initiatives in the U.S. Congress, exposes Washington’s true intentions. Under the pretext of “responding to threats,” the United States is laying the groundwork for an unprecedented buildup of its nuclear might. The plans to increase the arsenal to 4,625 deployed warheads are a telling sign of who is truly the main driver of the new global nuclear arms race.
Look how war is evolving in Ukraine. The future of warfare lies in decentralized swarms of little drones, not the power to eradicate entire cities in one shot. In a world war, China would flex it’s manufacturing superiority and pivot towards small, precision drones that would overwhelm and destabilize any country’s ability to even control a nuclear arsenal. Nukes serve as a vengeance panic button to assert that if we can’t win, no life will.
The heritage foundation is scared of the US being overtaken by China because all they understand is power. They will not cede the hegemony to China, as the loss of unchallenged power (in their reckoning) is tantamount to inevitable apocalypse. They want the apocalyptic panic button.
Are we incapable of completely glassing literally every nuclear armed nation’s population centers? If not then it’s just an expensive and dangerous alternative to diplomacy. If so, it’s just an expensive, dangerous, and unhelpful alternative to therapy.
The Heritage Foundation is destroying this country. Pretty much has already.
This is horrifying. Another gigantic step in stealing the future from our descendants.
Further evidence that Christian evangelicals are trying to destroy the planet and proactively create the end of times… because they’re fucking deeply mentally ill.
I’ve actually seen a theory that the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the resulting “sword of Damocles” effect from it, has lead to a general shift of society to more YOLO / instant gratification behavior with less regard for the future.
Don’t know if there is anything to back it up, but I’ve seen it a few times.
The world security environment is deteriorating.
In part thanks to the Heritage Foundation.
Just, why? Why? We already have more nukes than anyone except Russia, and even that is just a number at this point. There is no deterrence gain for adding more. None. Even accepting deterrence arguments as valid, we already have far in excess of what’s needed. At most, we need to swap some old cores.
This has been studied by several military experts over the years:
What was the “right” number? Given the subjective nature of the process, there can be no single figure. However, over the years, a number of knowledgeable individuals have tried to quantify a minimum nuclear requirement and it is worth considering the results of some of their efforts.
In 1957, Admiral Arleigh Burke, then the chief of naval operations, estimated that 720 warheads aboard 45 Polaris submarines were sufficient to achieve deterrence. This figure took into account the fact that some weapons would not work and that some would be destroyed in a Soviet attack (Burke believed that just 232 warheads were required to destroy the Soviet Union). At the time Burke made this estimate, the U.S. arsenal already held six times as many warheads.
Several years later, in 1960, General Maxwell Taylor, former Army chief of staff and future chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote that “a few hundred reliable and accurate missiles” (armed with a few hundred warheads) and supplemented by a small number of bombers was adequate to deter the Soviet Union. Yet by this time the United States had some 7,000 strategic nuclear warheads.
In 1964, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his “whiz kids” calculated that 400 “equivalent megatons” (megatons weighted to take into account the varying blast effects from warheads of different yields) would be enough to achieve Mutual Assured Destruction and destroy the Soviet Union as a functioning society. At that time, the U.S. arsenal contained 17,000 equivalent megatons, or 17 billion tons of TNT equivalent.
Even if we accept that we have to have these infernal things, we’re at least an order of magnitude beyond what we actually need.
This is pure giveaway to nuclear military contractors.
I never understood why any country needed more than like…20 nukes.
If someone is willing to risk you firing one nuke at them, I don’t think another thousand will detur them.
I’d put that number a bit higher because they’re not a deterrent if any aggressor can conceive of taking them all out before you can react. But we’re already much higher than any reasonable logic like that
At like 20, someone can keep track of where they all are and plan a preemptive attack with confidence of destroying them all before you can react. Too small a number could make nuclear war _more _ likely.
The “nuclear triad” was a good concept to prevent any possibility of such an attack succeeding, so some number that can support multiple delivery mechanisms while Making a disarming attack very unlikely
My concern is that if you’ve got so many that the enemy can’t keep track of them I have concerns that perhaps you can’t keep track of them either.
Probably have to look at who stands to make a shitload of money from it.
by 2050, Washington should more than double its number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads
First contact day is April 5, 2063, 13 years later.
I like how they can’t even name China as making more nukes, just “enhanced capabilities” because it’s well known that China doesn’t mass produce nukes just like every other nuclear power like UK, France, India. Pakistan, etc.
Surely this will lower the price of eggs.
The increase in non-strategic nuclear weapons (regional or battlefield) is an especially scary capability that we intentionally backed away from. Just no.
The concept of needing a massive buildup to counter emerging nuclear powers is just laughable. Do they even look at what they’re writing?
I have to admit that having some number of hypersonic missiles with nuclear warheads may be a good idea
But the missed their opportunity with hypersonic missiles. As those become available worldwide, they increase the chances of an unblockable preemptive attack occurring with no chance for reaction. We don’t need more nuclear weapons (and fewer would be preferable) but they need to be survivable enough to be a valid deterrent
Davy Crockets for West Germany!
