HONOLULU \u2013 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s apparent skepticism of a wide-ranging nuclear weapons modernization plan, including a new cruise missile, puts the future of America’s nuclear posture in question.
“The last thing we need are sophisticated cruise missiles that are nuclear armed,” Clinton reportedly said, adding she “certainly would be inclined” to cancel the Long Range Standoff (LRSO) weapon program, which seeks to replace the US stockpile of nuclear cruise missiles with a modern weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is going to be a big issue,” the times quoted Clinton as saying. “It\u2019s not just the nuclear-tipped cruise missile. There\u2019s a lot of other money we\u2019re taking about to go into refurbishing and modernization.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the fight over nuclear modernization, the LRSO has become target number one in the nonproliferation community. Congressional democrats \u2013 including Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a close Clinton ally \u2013 have attempted to derail the program\u2019s funding, arguing that the weapon is an unclear cost given existing conventional weapons and other nuclear options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
But the Pentagon has steadfastly maintained it requires the LRSO in order to provide options for a future president. Speaking at least week\u2019s Air Force Association conference outside Washington, Gen. Robin Rand, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, defended the need for the LRSO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The deterrent value of it; the options that it gives the president,” Rand responded when asked why the weapon was needed. “The ability not to penetrate enemy airspace, not to fly directly to the target. I don\u2019t believe we should put 100 percent of our eggs all in one basket and solely rely on stealth, so this gives you a long-range strike capability.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carter defended the need to modernize more broadly in comments Monday at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, where he appeared in front of a B-52 loaded up with nuclear-capable cruise missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If we don\u2019t replace these systems, quite simply they will age even more, and become unsafe, unreliable, and ineffective. The fact is, most of our nuclear weapon delivery systems have already been extended decades beyond their original expected service lives,” Carter said. “So it\u2019s not a choice between replacing these platforms or keeping them \u2026 it\u2019s really a choice between replacing them or losing them. That would mean losing confidence in our ability to deter, which we can\u2019t afford in today\u2019s volatile security environment.”<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If elected, Clinton says she would look at cancelling the nuclear cruise missile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":82580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":23,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,8,11,19,23,48],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3378],"class_list":["post-39722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-congress","category-global","category-pentagon","category-space","category-the-americas"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"LV5CE6AESVEG7HSVYOB4DHM2BA","arc_canonical_url":"\/space\/2016\/09\/30\/clinton-criticism-could-mean-doom-for-lrso\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n