A top security official says the work is on to modernize the United State's nuclear arsenal. National Security Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty says officials are taking precautions to protect employees from the coronavirus while moving ahead with their work at national laboratories.
A new report says the U.S. budget on nuclear weapons last year was 35.4 billion dollars. A figure that's on the up year after year. The increased budget is part of the Pentagon's effort to counter Russia in Eastern Europe. However, the technology is different from decades past. Nuclear expert Alexandra Bell, a former senior advisor at the State Department, says the United States hasn't detonated a nuclear bomb since 1992. Bell says with improved science and technology alongside supercomputers, you don’t need to detonate one.
“If you simulate the exposition, you can go back and look for the data we actually have about how our nuclear weapons work, and how they age is much more advanced now,” Bell, who’s now the Senior Policy Director with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said.
Bell said that means the nukes are smaller, safer, and more reliable. The policy the U.S. uses to describe its nuclear goals is called the Stockpile Stewardship Program. Bell told KTRH the last country to actually detonate a weapon for testing was North Korea.