Several days after its absurd endorsement of renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War and calling for a more aggressive posture against Russia’s war with Ukraine, the Washington Post stated that signing a follow-on to the New START Treaty was “reckless.” New START is actually the last remaining nuclear arms-control treaty between the United State and Russia and it is due to expire in February 2026. New START is the only stepping stone to pursuing deeper cuts in the U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals as well as to pursuing serious arms control negotiations with China, which is currently growing its strategy arsenal at a record pace.

Robert Peters, a senior fellow at the right-wing Heritage Foundation, falsely states in a Post oped (A new New START would only help adversaries”) that the growth of the Chinese arsenal portends that the United States will no longer have operationally deployed warheads to “cover—and therefore deter—both Russia and China simultaneously.” Peters ignores two major facets of our nuclear inventory—our strategic submarines and our strategic nuclear bombers. He argues that only a “more robust and credible nuclear deterrent” could “incentivize broth Russia and China to come to the negotiation table…to negotiate a more meaningful and effective agreement.” It is more likely that continued expansion of the U.S. strategic arsenal would only lead to expansion of the Russian and Chinese arsenals as well.

One of the best-kept defense secrets of the past seven decades hs been........

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