Trump: U.S. must greatly strengthen nuclear capabilities

ABC 7 CHICAGO ^ | 22 DECEMBER 2016 | ALEXANDER MALLIN

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

President-elect Donald Trump tweeted Thursday that the U.S. "must greatly strengthen and expand" its nuclear capabilities without offering immediate context to what prompted the declaration.

Trump said the expansion and strengthening must happen "until such time as the world comes to its sense regarding nukes."

[butlerweave]

Obama probably destroyed or gave away the US’s weapons to his Muslim friends

[Williams]

Our nuclear deterrent has been greatly reduced and is aging.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Yesterday Vlad Putin said he would increase Russian Nuke capability...today Game set and match TRUMP called him and raised him...
This does not necessisarly mean an arms race...Trump and Putin are NEGOTIATING...welcome to the new reality...
amen!
Freegards
LEX

[ETL]

"Trump: U.S. must greatly strengthen nuclear capabilities"

As opposed to...

Obama Pledges Cuts in Missile Defense, Space, and Nuclear Weapons Programs

February 29, 2008 :: News
MissileThreat.com

A video has surfaced of Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama talking on his plans for strategic issues such as nuclear weapons and missile defense.

The full text from the video, as released, reads as follows:

Thanks so much for the Caucus4Priorities, for the great work you've been doing. As president, I will end misguided defense policies and stand with Caucus4Priorities in fighting special interests in Washington.

First, I'll stop spending $9 billion a month in Iraq. I'm the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning. And as president I will end it.[i.e. not win it]

Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending.

I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.

I will not weaponize space.

I will slow our development of future combat systems.

And I will institute an independent "Defense Priorities Board" to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.

Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.

You know where I stand. I've fought for open, ethical and accountable government my entire public life. I don't switch positions or make promises that can't be kept. I don't posture on defense policy and I don't take money from federal lobbyists for powerful defense contractors. As president, my sole priority for defense spending will be protecting the American people. Thanks so much.

Article: Obama Pledges Cuts in Missile Defense, Space, and Nuclear Weapons Programs:

http://web.archive.org/web/20090412030633/http://missilethreat.com/archives/id.7086/detail.asp

"MissileThreat.com is a project of The Claremont Institute devoted to understanding and promoting the requirements for the strategic defense of the United States."

[bkopto]

I recall reading in 2008 sometime that the US’s nuclear warheads were rapidly approaching end of life and that modernized nuclear weapons were needed to be built as replacements.

Obongodinga did nothing about this, AFAIK. Maybe Trump is referring to this issue.

[ETL]

Yesterday Vlad Putin said he would increase Russian Nuke capability...today Game set and match TRUMP called him and raised him...

Here's Trump's VP, Mike Pence, on the subject of KGB Putin and Obama, from the Oct 5th 2016 VP debate. ...

“When Donald Trump and I observe that, as I’ve said, in Syria, in Iran, in Ukraine, that the small and bullying leader of Russia has been stronger on the world stage than this administration, that’s stating painful facts. That’s not an endorsement of Vladimir Putin — that’s an indictment of the weak and feckless leadership of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.”

______________________________________________________________

Also from the debate...

QUIJANO (Moderator): I want to turn now to Syria. Two hundred fifty thousand people, 100,000 of them children, are under siege in Aleppo, Syria. Bunker buster bombs, cluster munitions, and incendiary weapons are being dropped on them by Russian and Syrian militaries. Does the U.S. have a responsibility to protect civilians and prevent mass casualties on this scale, Governor Pence?

PENCE: The United States of America needs to begin to exercise strong leadership to protect the vulnerable citizens and over 100,000 children in Aleppo. Hillary Clinton’s top priority when she became secretary of state was the Russian reset, the Russians reset. After the Russian reset, the Russians invaded Ukraine and took over Crimea.

And the small and bullying leader of Russia is now dictating terms to the United States to the point where all the United States of America — the greatest nation on Earth — just withdraws from talks about a cease-fire while Vladimir Putin puts a missile defense system in Syria while he marshals the forces and begins — look, we have got to begin to lean into this with strong, broad-shouldered American leadership.

It begins by rebuilding our military. And the Russians and the Chinese have been making enormous investments in the military. We have the smallest Navy since 1916. We have the lowest number of troops since the end of the Second World War. We’ve got to work with Congress, and Donald Trump will, to rebuild our military and project American strength in the world.

But about Aleppo and about Syria, I truly do believe that what America ought to do right now is immediately establish safe zones, so that families and vulnerable families with children can move out of those areas, work with our Arab partners, real time, right now, to make that happen.

And secondly, I just have to tell you that the provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. And if Russia chooses to be involved and continue, I should say, to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime to prevent them from this humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Aleppo.

There’s a broad range of other things that we ought to do, as well. We ought to deploy a missile defense shield to the Czech Republic and Poland which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pulled back on out of not wanting to offend the Russians back in 2009.

QUIJANO: Governor, your two minutes are up.

PENCE: We’ve just got to have American strength on the world stage. When Donald Trump becomes president of the United States, the Russians and other countries in the world will know they’re dealing with a strong American president.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/us/politics/vice-president-transcript.html

[ETL]

Again, from the Oct 5, 2016 VP debate...

PENCE: What we’re dealing with is the — you know, there’s an old proverb that says the Russian bear never dies, it just hibernates.

And the truth of the matter is, the weak and feckless foreign policy of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has awakened an aggression in Russia that first appeared a few years ago with their move in Georgia, now their move into Crimea, now their move into the wider Middle East.

And all the while, all we do is fold our arms and say we’re not having talks anymore.

To answer your question, we just need American strength. We need to — we need to marshal the resources of our allies in the region, and in the immediate, we need to act and act now to get people out of harm’s way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/us/politics/vice-president-transcript.html

[RedWulf]

Obama’s been trying and failing to produce new nuclear weapons for a few years now. I guess teams full diversity hires can’t build nukes. I doubt Trump will have this problem but it might be very expensive problem to fix.

[ETL]

Obama’s been trying and failing to produce new nuclear weapons for a few years now.

What, "environmentally friendly" ones?

[HarleyD]

He’s been given national security briefings and he understands.

[Kickass Conservative]

Don’t forget, the first thing Obama did when he became POTUS was to halt all Research and Development of new Nuclear Systems capability. In other words, he halted any Modernization of our Nuclear Stockpile.

Remember Obama’s hot mic comment to the Russian President about letting Vlad know he would be more flexible after the 2012 Election? The flexibility he was talking about was reducing our Nuclear Capability even further.

He has an ideology that the rest of the World will follow our example of weakness and do the same. He’s a Maroon as well as a Traitor, period.

[RayChuang88]

Here's what Trump should do: phase out the entire stockpile of B61 gravity-drop nuclear weapons in favor of reviving an improved version of the AGM-131 SRAM II missile with a variant of the W89 warhead that can adjust the yield between 15 to 200 KT. With a range of around 248 miles, such a missile would make the B-2 and its successor a viable nuclear deterrent platform well into the 21st Century.

[ConsCA]

I’ve had this feeling for a couple of decades and we must be willing to do a first strike.

[ETL]

Remember Obama’s hot mic comment to the Russian President about letting Vlad know he would be more flexible after the 2012 Election? The flexibility he was talking about was reducing our Nuclear Capability even further.

From Investor's Business Daily, Jan 2012:

Obama To Betray Missile Defense Secrets To Moscow

Investor's Business Daily ^ | January 9, 2012 | IBD staff

Appeasement: From ObamaCare to recess appointments, honoring the Constitution has not been an administration hallmark. But when it comes to betraying secrets to mollify the Russians, it becomes a document the president hides behind.

It was bad enough that the 2012 defense authorization bill signed by President Obama set America on a downward spiral of military mediocrity.

He also issued a signing statement, something he once opposed, saying that language in the bill aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on the U.S. Standard Missile-3 - linchpin of our missile defense - might impinge on his constitutional foreign-policy authority.

Section 1227 of the defense law prohibits spending any funds that would be used to give Russian officials access to sensitive missile-defense technology as part of a cooperation agreement without first sending Congress a report identifying the specific secrets, how they'd be used and steps to protect the data from compromise.

The president is required to certify that any technology shared will not be passed on to third parties such as China, North Korea or Iran, that the Russians will not use transferred secrets to develop countermeasures and that the Russians are reciprocating in sharing missile-defense technology. ..."

"In his signing statement, Obama said he would treat these legal restrictions as 'non-binding' and that 'my administration will also interpret and implement section 1244 (sic) in a manner that does not interfere with the president's constitutional authority to conduct foreign affairs and avoids the undue disclosure of sensitive diplomatic communications.'

Betraying our secrets is easy for a president who betrayed allies Poland and the Czech Republic to placate Moscow.

Poland was to host ground-based interceptors such as those we've deployed in California and Alaska, with missile-tracking radar deployed in the Czech Republic.

Obama pulled the plug when Moscow objected. Never mind, he said, we have a better approach: a four-phase plan that calls for using three versions of the Navy's Standard SM-3 interceptor missile that forms the backbone of its Aegis missile-defense system.

The fourth phase consists of a missile still on the drawing board scheduled for deployment by 2020, a version of the SM-3 called the Block IIB. It would intercept hostile missiles in the "early intercept" phase before an enemy missile could release its warheads and decoys. The Russians want the SM-3's secrets, and Obama appears to be willing to turn them over.

The president wants to save the New Start Treaty, which the Russians have threatened to abandon if we try to fully implement President Reagan's dream of defeating a nuclear missile attack.

Russia has unilaterally asserted that any qualitative or quantitative improvement in U.S. missile defenses would be grounds for withdrawal from the treaty.

Read More At Investor's Business Daily:
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/010912-597158-obama-gives-russia-missile-defense-secrets.htm#ixzz3jXmMbVwY
___________________________________________________

March 2012...

"Obama was talking with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev when neither of them realized that their conversation was being picked up by microphones. Here is what they said:

Obama: "On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it's important for him to give me space."

Medvedev: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you ..."

Obama: "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."

Medvedev: "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir."

"This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility." That statement tells us much about the president's mindset.

The specific mention of missile defense is worrisome enough. Mr. Obama has retreated from the missile defense plan that was negotiated with European allies during the George W. Bush administration.

Apparently, he is signaling Moscow that he intends to retreat further. The clear implication from the president's comments is that he cannot tell the American people before the election what he plans to do after the election.

In addition, there is the phrase "on all these issues," implying more is at stake than just missile defense."

Article: Obama plans double cross on missile defense
When it comes to keeping America safe, we shouldn't be too flexible:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/29/obama-plans-double-cross-on-missile-defense/print/
__________________________________________________________

[RC one]

We need to greatly strengthen a number of our military capabilities-nuclear capabilities too for sure. Russia and China need to know beyond any and all doubt that they won’t survive either.

[AndyJackson]

Trump and Putin are NEGOTIATING...

It's amazing how few people get that. Like Trump telling the Chinese to keep the drone they stole. Next thing the Chinese give it back. They don't want to negotiate with Trump while holding on to the drone. It's an albatross.

[Mariner]

While a big expansion of the strategic deterrent may or may not be warranted, certainly modernization of the delivery systems is.

All of them are old a decrepit.

Reliable, sudden delivery is paramount. As is the the command infrastructure. Somebody has to get the message to the boomers at sea RELIABLY, 100+ percent of the time, as well as the other two legs of the triad.

Any nation that knows, with certainty, that we can put 1500 warheads where we want them, when we want to, in spite of their best efforts, will not challenge us.

And 100kt is plenty.

[goldstategop]

Russia and China acquired nuclear arsenals in the wake of devastating war time losses. So did the British and French.

It introduced a stabilizing element in world politics. Nuclear weapons have made wars less likely.

We need to maintain an up to date nuclear deterrent to discourage potential future adversaries.

The reality is we still live in a very dangerous world.

[Wildbill22]

Here’s what Trump should do: phase out the entire stockpile of B61 gravity-drop nuclear weapons in favor of reviving an improved version of the AGM-131 SRAM II missile with a variant of the W89 warhead that can adjust the yield between 15 to 200 KT. With a range of around 248 miles, such a missile would make the B-2 and its successor a viable nuclear deterrent platform well into the 21st Century.

---

Now you are talking! The Russians never retired their version of the SRAM as we did, and don’t forget the tactical version. Stealth or not, gravity bombs are inadequate in today’s air Defence environment.