Obama, Pentagon pull in different directions on no nukes goal

WASHINGTON (AFP) — President Barack Obama has set a goal of a "world without nuclear weapons" but the Pentagon is leaning in a seemingly contradictory direction: a modernized nuclear arsenal.

The new administration has signaled its intent to swiftly engage Russia in negotiations on deeper cuts in their respective arsenals, with the ultimate aim of reducing them to zero.

But US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been leading another kind of charge, arguing in the final months of the previous administration that deeper cuts must be underpinned by production of a new warhead to replace an ageing nuclear stockpile.

"To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program," he said in an October 28 speech.

Gates' speech at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, says Jan Kristensen, an analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, was "an attempt to set a bottom line."

In Kristensen's view, the secretary's message was:

"You can cut the numbers, but ... // 75% Remaining