The White House and Senate Republicans continue to hash out prospects on costs and purposes involved in a new nuclear arms program, which would allow for an annual accumulation of 80 new warheads for the United States Military. The number far exceeds the number of missiles discarded and used in testing each year, but it still falls short of Bush's original envisioning of 125 new warheads per year.
Having promised to diminish the world's nuclear stockpile over the course of his administration, President Obama must now deal with a feeling of need in a worldwide arms race, as he continues to petition for the elimination of dangerous weapons of mass destruction.
Our "New Start" treaty with Russia relies on our ability to keep promises for controlling our own spending on, and building of, nuclear weapons. Plans for a $6 billion nuclear arms complex in Los Alamos does not seem to be consistent with that promise.
And who are we without our integrity?
The plan seems contingent on necessity, otherwise Obama would not make such a paradoxical move; but the invisible problem only seems to manifest itself in continuing international tensions. We are still uncomfortable with some countries that, in our eyes, are unstable and therefore unfit for controlling whether or not the powerful consequences of nuclear war are ever made into a visible reality.
But the number of U.S. missiles destroyed each year for testing does not require overcompensation for its loss to the stockpile, and the accumulation of WMDs in the United States can only rouse suspicion in countries for which U.S. armament is deemed a cause for concern.
But we are America. We will do whatever it takes to stay on top and in control of our surroundings, whether it means pumping up our military's muscle, or making sure that other countries, with whom we do not share treaties, cannot protect themselves with equal clout.
It seems that our current situation runs under the assumption that the countries allowed to build, store, and hypothetically use, nuclear arms will not use them. That is what allows us to police countries, like Iran, that plan to begin their own uranium enrichment programs for more efficient electricity; we fancy ourselves to be more able to handle the responsibility of such power.
But we see ourselves as correct because we are victims of our own subjectivity and our own fear of destruction. Our ideas of national defense are our enemy's counter notions of loading for attack, and vice versa.
So building more rockets, under the pretext that it is necessary in a new world era, seems to wear at the good-feeling ideology that worked toward nuclear arms removal. It seems to suggest that nuclear war is more of a reality than it has been for decades.
But if we yawn away that fear, and deny that there might be anything new to worry about, we would still wonder what our financially ailing country could have done with that whopping $6 billion toward new silos, as the money toward more nuclear weapons, laid down one dollar bill at a time, seems to put us at about the appropriate distance from achieving international diplomacy in an arms race.
