“These are sharp, significant increases, and we are not seeing sharp, significant increases in defense spending overall.”The Trump administration has quietly and steadily poured billions of dollars into America’s nuclear weapons industry, the largest expansion since the end of the Cold War, with bipartisan congressional backing. “We see no need for additional nuclear weapons of a new type, either in capability or in capacity,” Gen. James Cartwright, then-vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in 2010. The Trump administration asked Congress for $53 million to begin designing a warhead new enough to get its own title, the W93. And it has also begun construction of a new, $144-million bunker for storing nuclear weapons in Cheyenne, Wyo., as big as 18 basketball courts. Roughly 50,000 Americans are now involved in making nuclear warheads at eight principal sites stretching from California to South Carolina.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 24, 2020 00:00 UTC