We Must Be Able to Deter Our Foes

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Last Friday, the Trump administration unveiled a plan for a comprehensive upgrade of America’s nuclear deterrent.  Partly, that’s necessary due to decades of benign and malign neglect.

The plan’s call for modernizing all legs of our strategic land-, sea- and air-based nuclear delivery systems and selected weapons is also justified by the rapid progress of Russian and Chinese threats we must deter.  For example, the Nation’s second-ranking military officer, General Paul Silva, recently declared: “[The United States has] lost our technical advantage in hypersonics,” with Russia and China expected soon to deploy these fast-flying and highly lethal missiles.

Predictably, the Chinese have derided such concerns as “wild guesses” about their capabilities. But, we’re reduced to guessing because they have built, among other things, 3,000 miles of hardened underground tunnels to conceal the whereabouts and numbers of nuclear weapons in their growing arsenal.

This is Frank Gaffney.