Nuclear Arms Control

     

Thank you, Air Force men and women who have defended us from nuclear war with Minuteman missiles.  With the advent of agile weapons, threat alliances and ignored arms control treaties, we’ve moved to a more complex war-fighting environment. 

     Russia’s Putin no longer holds himself to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty’s 700 deployed ICBMs/SLBMs, 1,550 warheads and 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers, and already possessed the quick capability for numbers enticing enough to try overwhelming our 450 Minutemen-intended to absorb his first strike. When we walked away from the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, he asked “if we could count.” On behalf of eastern Montanans, I can count. 

     Putin’s building more submarines equipped with nuclear missiles. Russia’s and China’s “alliance without bounds, and side-deals with North Korea already generate plentiful conventional and chemical weapons against Ukraine. China’s new strategic rocket capability on Hainan Island will employ 10,000 Russians experts. Their combined weaponry has become faster and more agile than ours. We are in a new nuclear arms race. 

     I’m against Montana’s House District 2 continuing to serve as a nuclear attack sponge. I hope Secretary of Defense Austen will not fund the critically over-budget $130 billion Sentinel Program. We need a new and broader arms control treaty. Everyone loses a nuclear war.