Blogger Max Bergmann of Think Progress [1] is monitoring the emerging Republican stance on nuclear security. GOP Senators sent a letter to the President [2] last week indicating that they could only support a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with the Russians if the President agreed to build new unnecessary nuclear weapons [3]. Their argument, that the U.S. nuclear stockpile is aging and in need of modernization, has been refuted in many reports, including a Congressionally-commissioned study [4] by independent scientists who concluded that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is in fact in fine shape. In the Ploughshares-funded Bulletin of Atomic Scientists [5], Kingston Reif of the Center for Arms Control and International Security [6] addresses the "modernization myth."
Links
[1] http://thinkprogress.org/about/
[2] http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/17/inside-the-ring-54103825/?page=2
[3] http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/11/19/nuke-study-hits-kyl/
[4] http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/jasonreportpressrelease
[5] http://www.thebulletin.org
[6] http://www.armscontrolcenter.org
[7] http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/12/18/gop-letter-calls-for-new-nukes/