The Quest for Nuclear Superiority Makes No Sense
Key takeaways
- Countries spend billions of dollars on defense every year, and some of that money inevitably gets squandered.
- Other nuclear-armed states are improving their forces too, albeit more modestly.
- And the underlying goal behind all this spending isn’t merely preserving each state’s second-strike capability, because that is comparatively easy for major powers to do.
Countries spend billions of dollars on defense every year, and some of that money inevitably gets squandered. Nobody likes “waste, fraud, and abuse,” but it’s impossible to eliminate it completely when you are spending vast sums on a wide array of military programs. More effective efforts to address this problem are desirable—i.e., it would be nice if the U.S. Defense Department could pass an audit every now and then—but the most obvious way to save money on defense is to simply not waste money pursuing unnecessary capabilities and impossible goals.
Case in point: Now that most of the major arms control treaties have expired or been abrogated, the United States, Russia, and China are going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize and expand their nuclear arsenals. Other nuclear-armed states are improving their forces too, albeit more modestly.
Countries spend billions of dollars on defense every year, and some of that money inevitably gets squandered. Nobody likes “waste, fraud, and abuse,” but it’s impossible to eliminate it completely when you are spending vast sums on a wide array of military programs. More effective efforts to address this problem are desirable—i.e., it would be nice if the U.S. Defense Department could pass an audit every now and then—but the most obvious way to save money on defense is to simply not waste money pursuing unnecessary capabilities and impossible goals.