{"id":31316,"date":"2016-12-23T03:09:18","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T03:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/trump-putin-call-for-stronger-nuclear-arsenals\/"},"modified":"2016-12-23T03:08:59","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T03:08:59","slug":"trump-putin-call-for-stronger-nuclear-arsenals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/trump-putin-call-for-stronger-nuclear-arsenals\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump, Putin call for stronger nuclear arsenals"},"content":{"rendered":"

{US currently has an estimated arsenal of about 7,000 nuclear warheads, second only to Russia with a few hundred more.}<\/p>\n

Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are both calling for their countries to strengthen their nuclear arsenals.<\/p>\n

At an annual end-of-year meeting with defence chiefs on Thursday, Putin said Russia’s military can overpower any potential foe, but it should build up its nuclear capability.<\/p>\n

Putin – who has said Trump has confirmed to him he is willing to mend ties between the two countries – said bolstering the nuclear arsenal should be a chief objective for 2017.<\/p>\n

“We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense systems,” the Russian leader said.<\/p>\n

Trump, meanwhile, tweeted the United States must “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability”. He said the nation must do so until the rest of the world – as he put it – “comes to its senses” regarding nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Trump’s transition website says he will modernise the nation’s nuclear arsenal so it will remain an “effective deterrent”.<\/p>\n

The United States currently has an estimated arsenal of about 7,000 nuclear warheads, second only to Russia, which has a few hundred more.<\/p>\n

During the next decade, US ballistic missile submarines, bombers, and land-based missiles – the three legs of the nuclear triad – are expected to reach the end of their useful lives.<\/p>\n

Maintaining and modernising the arsenal is expected to cost at about $1 trillion over 30 years.<\/p>\n

The open talk of ramping up nuclear capabilities – reminiscent of Cold War pledges – marks a jarring departure from the stance of President Barack Obama, who in a famous speech in Prague in 2009 called for the elimination of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Laicie Heeley, a nuclear expert at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan anti-nuclear proliferation think-tank in Washington, told AFP news agency it was “reckless” for Trump to tweet on the topic without offering details.<\/p>\n

“To make such a loaded statement without context or follow-up is irresponsible at best,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We could be talking about a return to the Cold War here, when the threat of a nuclear catastrophe was very real. Russian rhetoric is already moving in that direction. It wouldn’t take a lot to bring us back there.”<\/p>\n

\"Shell,<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{US currently has an estimated arsenal of about 7,000 nuclear warheads, second only to Russia with a few hundred more.} Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are both calling for their countries to strengthen their nuclear arsenals. At an annual end-of-year meeting with defence chiefs on Thursday, Putin said Russia’s military can overpower any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31316"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31316"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}