Obama Promised a “World Without Nuclear Weapons,” But May Now Spend $1 Trillion on Upgrades
A recent New York Times investigation found the United States is on pace to spend as much as $1 trillion over the next three decades to modernize its nuclear arsenal and facilities. This week, more than 150 countries at the United Nations signed a joint statement calling on nuclear powers to attend the third major conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons scheduled this December in Vienna. The United States has yet to attend one of the meetings.
Phi Beta Iota: No US nuclear weapons have ever been tested operationally since Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Many US nuclear weapons have been lost, stolen, or otherwise mis-appropriated. Both the US nuclear weapons industry and the US nuclear “energy” industry are catastrophes waiting to happen — inevitably. In reality, the US nuclear program, like the US secret intelligence program, is a secret pork pie for spending money with abandon, without regard to the a actual capabilities and effects. One trillion over 30 years is roughly 30 billion a year — so a bit overstated, but add all those trillions up and you have enough to create a prosperous world at peace in which all 17 Sustainability Development Goals (SDG) are achieved within our lifetime. Hypocrisy is expensive in more ways than one.
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