Defense Secretary calls for modernizing nuclear weapons

In a major speech today at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that modernization of U.S. nuclear weapons is necessary to prevent its deterioration, and to enable cuts in the nuclear arsenal. "To be blunt," Gates said, "there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program."

In answer to a question from David Culp of the Ploughshares-funded Friends Committee on National Legislation, Secretary Gates said that the U.S. should ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.  As grantee William Hartung writes on TPM Cafe, "given that Gates has been mentioned as a possible Secretary of Defense in an Obama or a McCain administration, his opinions still matter -- although one would hope that his status quo position on nuclear weapons would disqualify him from receiving such an appointment.

This is especially true given that eliminating the threat of nuclear weapons should be the top priority of the next administration, as Joseph Cirincione, the President of the Ploughshares Fund, suggested in a recent interview.  Disputing Secretary Gates' claim that the stockpile is deteriorating, Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, commented, “it makes no national security sense to trade in what we know are reliable nuclear weapons for speculative new ones. It certainly makes no financial sense to rebuild the stockpile in today’s deteriorating economic climate when it is not needed. And finally, it makes no sense from a perspective of global leadership toward eliminating the one class of weapons of mass destruction which are the gravest strategic threat against us, and that is nuclear weapons.”