US general asks cut in nuclear stockpile
Source: Boston Globe
The Pentagon calls the stockpile an “active reserve.” Others call it a hidden nuclear arsenal. International arms control treaties do not apply to it and officials rarely discuss it publicly. But now, the nation’s backup supply of nuclear weapons may be next up for major cuts.
For the first time a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is suggesting the United States’ nuclear weapons reserve is too large and becoming too expensive to maintain.
“We have more backup systems in terms of weapons systems than we actually have deployed,” General Norton A. Schwartz, chief of staff of the Air Force, told the Globe in a recent interview. “Some of that is a reasonable hedge [but] there is probably room for reductions.’’
The call by Schwartz to consider cutting the stockpile is supported by the findings of a report cowritten in May by retired Marine Corps General James Cartright, who had been in charge of all nuclear weapons. The report recommended that the United States during the next 10 years reduce its nuclear force to a total of 900 weapons, half of them on alert and half in reserve.
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Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2012/08/06/top_air_force_officer_backup_supply_of_nuclear_warheads_larger_than_needed/
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