“We’re at a dead end for arms control,” said Gary Samore, who was a top nuclear adviser to Mr. Obama. “This weapon will modernize the air-based leg of the nuclear triad,” the Air Force secretary, Heather Wilson, said in a statement. He said it was “shocking” that the Trump administration was signing contracts to build these weapons before it completed its own strategic review on nuclear arms. And he called the new cruise missile “a destabilizing system designed for nuclear war fighting,” rather than for deterrence. But the Trump administration appears determined to hold on to the ground-based system, and to invest heavily in it.

Source: New York Times August 27, 2017 18:14 UTC