Increasing nuclear arsenals only makes the world less safe because it just means instead of being able to blow up the whole world and turn it into an asteroid belt 12 times, maybe now we can blow it up 24 times or 50 times or more. When will it end?
begin quote from:
US to increase arsenals to counter China and Russia
Pentagon asks for $686 billion as part of one of its largest military spending hikes ever
Pentagon asks for major budget increase amid threats from Russia, China and North Korea
Washington (CNN)Citing
increasing threats from China and Russia, the Pentagon is asking for a
major boost in military spending for 2019, requesting Congress approve a
budget of $686 billion -- one of the largest in US history.
At the same time the Trump administration's budget proposal included major cuts for international diplomacy and overseas aid.
Touting
the proposal on Monday, President Donald Trump said the US military
would be the strongest it has ever been, including "increasing arsenals
of virtually every weapon."
The
Defense Department's budget is $686 billion, an increase of $80 billion
from 2017 the Pentagon says is primarily aimed at countering Russia and
China.
"Great
power competition, not terrorism, has emerged as the central challenge
to US security and prosperity," Under Secretary Of Defense David L.
Norquist told reporters Monday following the unveiling of the budget
proposal.
"It
is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world
consistent with their authoritarian model-gaining veto authority over
other nations' economic, diplomatic, and security decisions," the budget
document says.
Beijing is "using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea."
China
"seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term," the document
says, but in the long term seeks to "achieve global preeminence" over
the US.
The document follows confirmed reports of continued Chinese island building in the South China Sea,
with facilities being constructed in the Spratly and Paracel islands
and Scarborough Shoal. Just last week the office website of the Chinese
People's Liberation Army (PLA) carried an article touting patrols of
Su-35 fighter jets over the area.
The
patrols of the long-range, twin-engine jets show the "PLA Air Force's
resolution to implement missions in the new era and firmly maintain
national sovereignty and security and maritime interests," the article
quotes Wang Mingzhi, a professor with the Chinese PLA Air Force Command
Academy, as saying.
The growth of China's air force -- on Friday, Beijing said its new J-20 steatlh fighters,
seen as a challenge to US F-22 and F-35 stealth jets, were now
combat-ready -- is consistent with broader efforts to enhance its
military capabilities. Last year, China added state-of-the-art warships to its fleet and and formally opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti.
The
document says "Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and
pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions
of its neighbors."
Moscow is also
trying to "shatter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization," the
post-World War II Western alliance that has been the bulwark of security
in Western Europe, the budget document states.
Russian military aircraft have been involved in several near collision incidents with US warplanes over the Black Sea and Syria in the past few months as Moscow challenges US influence.
And last summer Vladamir Putin ordered what analysts called an unprecedented display of Russia's military might,
with a day of naval parades from Vladivostok in the east to St.
Petersburg in the west, with additional shows in by Russian forces in
Syria and Crimea.
The budget plan
puts an emphasis on missile defense, with additions to systems that have
been identified as key to countering the threat posed by North Korea's
nuclear missile program.
It calls for the procurement of 37 Standard Block 1B missile for the Navy's Aegis missile defense ships and sites on shore.
In
the Pacific, the Aegis system is deployed on more than a dozen
guided-missile destroyers and cruisers that in theory could shoot down
missiles fired by North Korea.
Plans
for an additional 82 THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense)
interceptors are also in the budget. THAAD caused great controversy when
it was deployed to South Korea last year, including objections from
China that it was destabilizing as its radars in South Korea could see
into China.
The budget also calls
for an increase of 20 additional missiles to the Ground-based Midcourse
Defense system, which would intercept incoming warheads in space.
"Frankly
we have to do it because others are doing it," Trump said. "If they
stop, we'll stop, but they're not stopping. So if they're not going to
stop, we're going to be so far ahead of everybody else in nuclear like
you've never seen before."
In broad
numbers, the Trump budget wants to buy 10 Navy combat ships in the
fiscal year, add dozens of F-35 stealth fighters and
aircraft-carrier-capable F/A-18 combat jets.
The
budget continues development of the B-21 stealth bomber, seen as an
eventual replacement for the B-2s that now anchor the air portions of
the US nuclear triad, and it continues development of submarines to
update the seaborne nuclear ability.
The
increase in funding also addresses Defense Secretary James Mattis'
continued alarm over the degradation of the armed forces under the
threat of sequestration, something the Defense Department as a whole has
been warning about for years.
"I
am very confident that what the Congress has now done, and the President
is going to allocate to us in the budget is what we need to bring us
back to a position of primacy," Mattis told reporters traveling with him
to Rome on Sunday.
The proposal
would add 25,900 service members to the military and further grow the
force by 56,600 by 2023, allowing the Defense Department to fill in
units, and recruit pilots, maintainers and cybersecurity experts,
according to Norquist. Troops would also receive a 2.6% pay raise during
the 2019 calendar year, in what would be the largest salary increase
since 2010.
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