Sleepwalking Into a New Cold War, Pentagon Style

by | Nov 6, 2016

Sleepwalking Into a New Cold War, Pentagon Style

by | Nov 6, 2016

The Pentagon’s five year plan has been planted (or in Pentagon-speak, “front loaded”) with the seed money for a top-to-bottom modernization of our nuclear forces — a new bomber, new inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM) (even though the Minutemen III has just been completely modernized and is essentially a new missile), new nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBM), upgraded (read “new”) submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), a new cruise missile, and big upgrade (read “new”) to the B-61 dial-a-yield nuclear bomb (including precision guidance which implies going back to the looney tit-for-tat nuclear war-fighting doctrines of late 1970s), a new nuclear-hardened satellite based command and control system to manage all these goodies in a nuclear war, even more money for the strategic defense initiative (SDI) (the shield to protect the aforementioned swords), and a rebuilding of the nuclear lab infrastructure.

The current estimate for all of this is one trillion dollars, with a spending tail out to at least 2080.  That number is surely a grotesque underestimate, because no one really has a clue what these as yet undesigned systems will cost to buy, much less to operate in the distant future. And if the problem-plagued F-35 has proven anything, it is that the Pentagon’s ability to predict the future budgetary consequences of high-complexity weapons development programs is laughable.

If you were a Russian with proud and painful memories of the bloodletting, terror, bravery, and patriotic myths of the 1812, WWI, WWII, and the Cold War, how would you react when a possible adversary becomes hell-bent on shoveling money into such a program? Would you believe it is for deterrence only?

Read the rest at Ron Paul’s Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Our Books

Shop books published by the Libertarian Institute.

libetarian institute longsleeve shirt

Our Books

cb0cb1ef 3fcb 417d 80d8 4eef7bbd8290

Recent Articles

Recent

“Smart War” and State Terrorism

“Smart War” and State Terrorism

On June 16, 2025, President Donald Trump threatened the 10 million inhabitants of Tehran, Iran, with death, for their government’s alleged nuclear aspirations: Iran should have signed the “deal” I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply...

read more
US Bombing of Iran Harms Non-Proliferation

US Bombing of Iran Harms Non-Proliferation

Iran didn’t violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the United States did. When the U.S. bombed Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities on June 23, they didn’t just violate the cardinal rule of international law by attacking a sovereign nation, without Security...

read more

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This