The Trump administration’s budget request for 2021 has its priorities backward. Rather than expand the nuclear weapons budget at the expense of everything else, the United States could meet its goals with a much leaner nuclear force, leaving more money for the programs that will actually make the country safer.
Given that the US defense secretary has been arguing for the Pentagon to focus more resources on challenges from strategic competitors such as China and Russia, one would have expected that ships and combat aircraft programs would have received increased funding in the Trump administration’s latest request. But, in that request, not only did these programs not grow, they were actually cut back both from their projected increases and below fiscal 2020 levels.
The above excerpt was originally published in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Click here to view the full article.