The revolutionary increase in the lethality of US nuclear forces

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has published a revelatory new article that describes how the United States nuclear forces modernization program has been mischaracterized to the general public as a reasonable effort to update the safety of US nuclear warheads. The authors, Hans M. Kristensen, Matthew G. McKinzie, and Theodore A. Postol, write that the reality of the US modernization program is instead an implementation of revolutionary new technologies that have serious implications for strategic stability and international perceptions of US nuclear intentions.

As the article states: “This increase in capability is astonishing—increasing the overall killing power of existing US ballistic missile forces by a factor of roughly three—and it creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.”

The development of this alarming new technology will cast a grim shadow over US-Russia relations, already under strain from growing Russian investments in its nuclear arsenal, and increases the chances of nuclear war with either Russia or China. Read the article at thebulletin.org.

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