Dear CCI Readers,
We get all sorts of responses to emails that we send out to our CCI list. This one below is from an acknowledged Air Force “Missiler” of earlier years, Larry Rhoades. I thought you might enjoy his reflection on our $100 Billion for nuclear weapons and asked his permission to print his note, which he graciously gave.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
February 12, 2021
Larry Rhoades
I do hope each of you will take the time to read all of the below article, it is a bit long. However, as citizens of the US we all really need to know how our military plans to spend our tax dollars. I am a proponent of a strong military, but I do believe what this article informs us of is simply a wrong way to spend our tax dollars.
It concerns the building by the US Air Force of a new and much smaller but still long-range ICBM with a range of 6000 miles. Which, of course, could carry the same lethal payloads as our existing ICBM.
Because of my long-ago past experience as an Air Force missiler, I have come to know that any launch (intentionally or mistakenly) would without any doubt end life on planet earth as we know it today.
Our current land-based ICBM are basically all Mintman III and are located mainly in our north western states. At the time they were built, there seemed to be valid reasons. However, these missile sites are somewhat like me, old and may not be worth much in our defense. However, they are more meaningful to the local economies where they are located. Which of course, brings a lot of political pressure to keep them or replace them with this new missile system described in the below article.
I do believe those counties who have nuclear ICBMs know as much as we do, that being, if they happen to launch one, even by mistake, planet earth will no longer be habitably for human life. The response by the other side would massive. If when you see how much this new ICBM system will cost, then you will understand how much that same money could help all human life to live better.
One has to remember that launching a nuclear tipped missile is the same thing as pulling the trigger on a hunting rifle. The bullet leaves the gun barrel and it cannot be called back! A nuclear ICBM is the same, once launched; there is NO calling it back and somewhere on this earth it will explode at least one if not more nuclear weapons. Of course, our adversaries, will have already launched their own missile systems by then nor can those be called back.
While reading this, I would like for you to remember we now have satellites that can warn our military as soon as any adversary would launch a missile in our direction. Our ability to stop that missile is very questionable at best and if there are several of them coming our way, I’m pretty sure we could not stop all incoming missiles. However, our response could easily still be manned aircraft bombers and I do believe we have long range aircraft bombers that can reach about any target on earth. Oh yes, these can be called back.
My basic point is that there is only one limit to how much each country can spend on new weapons technology, that being until that country is broke and in ruin.
We have people starving to death all over the world, that could use these monies. New weapons systems always become obsolete. My vote would be to feed and educated the poor, rather than spend a $100 Billion dollars to upgrade, what I now think of as a useless weapons system (mainly ICBM technology).