Cut Down On Nukes To Shave the Deficit 369
Hugh Pickens writes "Joe Cirincione writes in the Atlantic that the US government is set to spend almost $700 billion on nuclear weapons over the next 10 years, roughly as much as it spent on the war in Iraq over the last decade. Most of the money will be spent without any clear guidance on how many weapons we need and for what purpose. As long as nuclear weapons exist, we will need some to deter nuclear threats from others, but do we really need to duplicate the entire nuclear triad for another 50 years? 'The Pentagon budget includes funds to develop a new fleet of 12 nuclear-armed submarines with an estimated cost of $110 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Also planned is $55 billion for 100 new bombers, and a new missile to replace the recently upgraded 450 Minutemen III intercontinental ballistic missiles. ... The consensus among military officials and bipartisan security experts is that nuclear reductions enhance US national security,' writes Cirincione. As the Nuclear Posture Review says, 'Our most pressing security challenge at present is preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, for which a nuclear force of thousands of weapons has little relevance.'"
Wat? (Score:5, Insightful)
We need a thousand nukes just in case we want to nuke NK and Iran a thousand times?
Wouldn't a hundred times each be enough?
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, the premise of TFA is correct - we don't need to spend ALL the money we're currently spending on nuclear weapons, but the hard question is what is a reasonable level and spread.
Isn't this kind of obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as nuclear weapons exist, we will need some to deter nuclear threats from others, but do we really need to duplicate the entire nuclear triad for another 50 years?
That's why continued reductions treaties with Russia are important. Neither country is going to do this themselves. It's not as if both countries aren't actively reducing their arsenals.
Regarding the expenditures on bombers and subs... The thing about those is you need to always be building one or the industry dies. You can build it very, very slowly, but you need to be making one at some minimum rate or you'll lose the huge investment you put into learning to build them in the first place. Aircraft carriers are similar. The problem is that when you do this, your development costs don't get spread out so the cost looks enormous - but you have to spend that money or get out of the sub/airplane/ship business altogether.
There's an argument for that, but I don't think we're ready to give up our military power just yet.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Woa, woa, woa, relax guy! The US still has enough nukes to turn the whole of Iran into glass and after that they would still have enough left over to turn Argentina into a huge sinkhole; and this is without spending an extra 700 billion.
As for defense of the homeland, a few well placed bunker busters would be quite enough to calm down any saber-rattling nation. Plus, the simple fact of staying home and not meddling would also reduce animosity towards the nation.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that the wars in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan are where the US should cut costs though.
Slow and steady (Score:4, Insightful)
It's China - which isn't a problem militarily now but certainly could be
I think you'll find that China has discovered a much easier and more profitable way to conquer the USA. A strategy they've been using successfully against America for 20+ years. They're simply buying the country.
Why bother risk getting nuked when you can simply accumulate debt from your adversary. At some point in the future the amount of american IOUs that China holds will exceed the GDP. After all, America bought Alaska off the Russians, so why shouldn't the chinese simply cash in their markers, for (say) everything west of the Rockies. Some might even be glad to see that bit go.
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
you got nukes. the nukes can't be used against chavez. the nukes are not meaningful against nk's supposed, future, nuclear forces, but tomahawks are. anyways, if usa cut back a little on their corporate benefits for select few companies you could have your nukes and cake too. just giving a check for someone to build "nuke stuff" with no idea of it's use is not the answer. and ICBM's.. well. you can't get any more ICBM than what you are already have done, that's why the nuke race stalled - nothing more to race for after having pictures of nukes that deploy multiple warheads nicely and impossibly to defend. so you're giving xxx billions of money to companies which will build a cheaper version and take more money for doing it.
Re:Hey! (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, a whopping $700 billion per decade. Wow. Why, at $70 billion per year, it'd only take about 107 years before we've saved as much as we spent on all those failed stimulus packages and bailouts! And it would only take about ten years to save as much as we spend in a single year on the social programs you mentioned.
Yes, why make big meaningful cuts, when we can make a trivial one that looks good on the evening news?
Of course, we should cut everywhere we can, but let's stop being pussies about this. Cut these extra nukes. Cut military spending. Cut social security. Cut whatever the fuck has to be cut to bring spending down to an amount lower than revenue. Period. There's no way to make cuts that will be painless to absolutely everyone, so let's stop bullshitting ourselves about "well, we can't cut this, because all those government employees will be out of a job" and "now muh gramma gonna have to choose between her tv dinners and her medication durp durp".
Re:Wat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pakistan, that's the real threat to global peace.
I bet my watch and warrant that the same applies to the USA.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Woa, woa, woa, relax guy! The US still has enough nukes to turn the whole of Iran into glass and after that they would still have enough left over to turn Argentina into a huge sinkhole; and this is without spending an extra 700 billion.
As for defense of the homeland, a few well placed bunker busters would be quite enough to calm down any saber-rattling nation. Plus, the simple fact of staying home and not meddling would also reduce animosity towards the nation.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that the wars in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan are where the US should cut costs though.
You know Chavez is from Venezuela, right? Not sure where the attitude against Argentina came from, but they are some ok dudes... Is your map of South America maybe upside down?
Nice Attempt at Deflection (Score:3, Insightful)
Reagan won out the cold war without firing a shot.
And he also ensured that our future would forever be saddled with debt [wikipedia.org]. Which makes me laugh when I read the end of your original post:
Stop Iraq, Libya and Afghan wars. There is your savings and cost reductions. Keep our military strong here at home to DEFEND us.
Spend more on your military industrial complex than you take in on taxes. THERE is your ensured debt and eventual country-wide bankruptcy. Raise the debt ceiling? Sure why not? We've done it, how many times since Reagan [ritholtz.com]?
You're in fantasy land where communists are nice people, just misunderstood. Never mind the hundred + million they've killed since the 1920's.
You're in a fantasy land where a large part of today's world population are mass murderers just because they live in a communist society! Put that blame on communist leaders and we'll talk. I rip China apart more than anybody on Slashdot, I don't need to hear you assume that I think they're misunderstood angels. Their leaders are human rights violators but I don't hold the citizens responsible for death. When you nuke a country do you think the leaders are the only ones that get hurt?
The only fear monger is you "Oh God we're all gonna die!"
What in the hell are you talking about? We're trying to have a discussion about possible ways to decrease our spending so we can catch up with the insane amount of debt we've been accumulating. And you totally skirted any indication that you even understand that whether we build a thousand more nukes or stick with our current numbers, the outcome is the same. We could hold the entire world hostage right now if we wanted to just by threatening to detonate all of our nuclear weapons on ourselves and I think it's time to consider that enough force if to increase that means $700 billion.
Re:You Need to Think About the Two Outcomes ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Reagan did jack and squat the USSR was broke and falling apart no matter what we did. Commies not only kill people, but also can't run an economy for shit. Jimmy Carter lost for lots of reasons, some his fault some not, adults know that.
We have enough nukes, no one is saying give them up. Just that we don't need to spend this much on them.
Eisenhower (Score:5, Insightful)
Myth that China can cash in IOUs (Score:5, Insightful)
... so why shouldn't the chinese simply cash in their markers ...
Because they need to buy US bonds in order to drive the relative value of their currency down in order to maintain their export based economy.
It is inaccurate to think that China's current advantage is merely low cost labor. For simplistic goods, say beaded necklaces for Mardi Gras, that are priced as commodities low labor costs do help. However for the more technical and advanced goods, say an iPhone, labor represents a smaller component of the overall costs. I think GE recently announced expanding production of jet engines in the US, IIRC labor was only 15-20% of the cost of the engine so outsourcing for low labor wasn't helpful. What gives China an advantage in higher end goods is not labor costs, rather it is a currency that is artificially devalued. So what can they do with all those US dollars exporters are collecting? The exporters can't return those dollars to the various world markets, that would move the Chinese currency in the "wrong" direction. So the government buys the dollars from the exporters. What is the government to do with the dollars, like the exporters they can not return them to a world market. However they can buy US treasury notes, that will not cause their currency to rise in relative value. So as long as China has an export based economy driven by an artificially low currency they can not get rid of those notes.
Re:Wat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pakistan, that's the real threat to global peace.
I bet my watch and warrant that the same applies to the USA.
Instead of burying the guy with troll tags, why don't you actually try discussing why you think he is wrong, because a lot of people in the world think this is true. Or is US patriotism beyond scrutiny here on /. ?
Re:Hey! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah but the top 10% make about 95% of the income so should be paying 95% (at least) of the taxes.
Re:Wat? (Score:1, Insightful)
Because he didn't bother to say what he thought was wrong? Obnoxious blanket statements like that are pretty much the definition of a troll.
Re:Eisenhower (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are nice quotes. But can you defend Eisenhower presiding over the CIA when they overthrew democratic governments in Guatemala and Iran? Can you imagine what the Middle East would be like now if Iran had a democracy for the last 58 years? The people of Guatemala suffered a lot until the current period of democracy. Iran still hasn't recovered (they can only vote for candidates approved by unelected Mullahs, better than Saudi Arabia, but not democracy).
I can't see the case for nuclear weapons anymore, so the less the better for me, and I don't want to spend a dime making new ones. If they want to spend some money shuffling things around and reprocessing so the 1,000 we keep are reliable, that's better than reports I've heard about what we're doing.
I'm not convinced we ever needed them, but I can see the argument that MAD prevented direct conflict between the US and the USSR. But now, we'd be better off spending the money on making our country more economically competitive to start paying off some debt, or just use it to pay off debt.
Also we get some benefit from that (Score:4, Insightful)
So as you note, testing is done with computers these days. The DoE has bigass supercomputers and keeps building new ones, a major reason is to accurately simulate (down to the atomic level) our nuclear weapons. Ok, well turns out those badass supercomputers are good at other kinds of simulations too, and get used for them. They aren't worthless, military only, things.
All I'm saying is consider all angles. Part of that "savings" would be cutting the US's highest end supercomptuer program. Now of course you wouldn't have to cut it, you could keep that and use them just for other kinds of research, but then your savings are less because you still spend the billions on them.
Always you need to look at the full impact of this. It is easy to look at something and say "If we cut it we save that much!" However consider what all you are cutting. You may find there is stuff in there you'd want to keep, and then your savings aren't quite what you claimed.
Re:Wat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps instead of a witty one-liner he could have made some discussable assertions.
Some things are so evident that need no further explanation. You seem to require them, so here it goes.
Vietnam and Irak were attacked by the US. Some people think this is the US being the "world police". These people tend to be US citizens, obviously. A lot of other people (myself included, and I'm not an US citizen) think that the US has no business being the world police. Thus, I conclude the US is a danger to world peace, because whichever country pisses them off, get's whacked. USA has been at war almost constantly since WW2. I think that can be said about very few (if none) countries. You can insist in saying that's the US being the world police. I disagree. I think that's the US protecting the commercial interests of the US.
Re:Easiest way to save money (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest part of the US budget is health care subsidies currently at $793 billion a year.
That isn't even the whole of it. There are also the costs that individuals (or their employers) incur to acquire medical insurance. The overall price payed by americans for health coverage is staggering. I'm not sure where the money goes - insurance companies, drug companies, medical suppliers - but someone is getting their pockets filled.
By comparison, Canada spends about 1/2* as much per capita on health care services while offering universal coverage. There are still problems with the Canadian system but at least people are not dying due to lack of coverage/services. *Note that with the fall of the American dollar, this amount will have increased.
So the biggest economy in the world is the only advanced economy that doesn't offer universal health care. But what is really sad is what I hear in the American media - the fear-mongering from the Republican party is unbelievable. Those filled pockets must have some serious political connections to be able to spin such BS. Sad to think of all the people who buy into it - it's like shooting yourself in the foot.
Ha, a visiting elderly American once said that she pitied me for being subjected to a socialist health care system. Really? You pity me? Wow, ignorance truly is bliss.