But as Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, told Business Insider, there’s a huge contradiction in Trump’s recent thinking on defence projects.
“Trump may be open to expanding the number of nuclear weapons in the arsenal, building new weapons, increasing the role of nuclear weapons in US policy,” Reif told Business Insider in an interview, despite the fact that the US’s nuclear arms are already “second to none.”
However, the US’s current path towards modernising US nuclear weapons will already cost a whopping $1 trillion dollars. Though it’s not yet clear whether Trump means actually building more or different types of nuclear weapons, he also recently seemed to shun another potentially trillion-dollar US defence project that’s already well underway.
“One of the interesting contradictions here is that his tweet suggests that he is going to move full steam ahead with the current nuclear modernisation plan, but we’ve also heard him express concerns about the F-35 program, saying maybe we need to stop it,” said Reif.
But, as Reif points out, the F-35 is part of the US’s overall nuclear modernisation program.
“Later versions of the F-35 will be nuclear capable and replace other fighters and bombers,’ said Reif.
Thus begging the question: How can Trump support making our nuclear forces “stronger” without supporting the F-35?…….http://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-f-35-nuclear-weapons-2016-12?r=US&IR=T
