Pentagon has no plans to boost size of nuclear arsenal

The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, taken from an airplane in January 2008 (Photo By David B. Gleason from Chicago, IL – The Pentagon, CC BY-SA 2.0)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has no current plans to increase the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

In fact, it can barely sustain the existing force, which is decades old and is in some respects almost decrepit.

The arsenal is far from being in the “perfect shape” that President Donald Trump said Wednesday he wants to see under his watch.

That is why the government is planning to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a top-to-bottom “modernization,” or replacement of the three major categories of nuclear weapons – as well as their command and control systems – in coming decades.

Trump denied that he has called for a big increase in nuclear weapons. He said he thinks the U.S. already has enough.