The administration of President-elect Joe Biden plans to revise the program to modernize nuclear weapons. Writes about this The Wall Street Journal, citing informed sources.
In particular, the White House is concerned about the high cost of a new ground-based intercontinental ballistic missile. The Pentagon estimates that more than $ 100 billion will have to be spent on its development, taking into account the warhead. “We cannot spend the announced amount of money,” one of the interlocutors told the newspaper.
All in all, $ 1.2 trillion has been allocated for nuclear weapons in the US military budget.
Biden, during his election campaign, promised voters to cut US “excessive spending” on nuclear weapons. He criticized President Trump's decision to dive into the development of new sea-based weapons, including a submarine-launched cruise missile.
On November 25, the United States Air Force (Air Force), in conjunction with Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, declassified a video in which a fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II fighter jet from an internal compartment drops a test model of a thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb B61-12.
On October 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Washington to extend the current START-3 treaty “without any conditions for at least a year, in order to be able to conduct meaningful negotiations on all parameters.” O'Brien called it a failure.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was signed in 2010 by the then presidents of Russia and the United States, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama. The agreement came into force in 2011 and expires in February 2021.
