This is what transparency looks like

[Project Grudge]

US Has 5,113 Nuclear Warheads, Pentagon Reveals


This isn't getting the headlines, but this is a big statement. I read that there were long internal debates within the White House on whether to release this information or not. However, I'm happy it was published. This is the kind of thing the Bush administration would never release; although, the impact of this being public probably isn't all that big as most experts had estimates on the stockpile.

I'm just glad to see transparency-- it's refreshing.

[Chulanowa]

1. Next question is... Why?

Just what the fuck does any country need with over five thousand nukes? Honestly, numbers like that have drifted from "scary" to "satire." How much is too much? What are we doing with all of them? Are we just holding onto them in case someday motherfucking Jupiter launches an attack and we need to blow it to smithereens?

[Hippo_Tron]

2. IMO, the idea is to make it so that no other nation could ever hope to catch up to us

So therefore they won't even try. That's the philosophy that a bunch of neocons had about the military in general. They believed we should keep military spending at Cold War levels so that our military would be so powerful, no state could ever hope to rival us. Of course they were laughed out of the room at the time. But years later, the George W Bush administration adopted that exact philosophy.

The philosophy of, course makes, little sense given that our biggest threats don't come from states that may rival us in military power but from non-state actors (i.e. terrorists) who can hurt us without even having an organized military.

[Arkana]

5. Wanna know something even wackier?

That's like 25% of the number we had in the Reagan days.

[Clio the Leo]

3. It's a BFS....

... q Big F'ing Statement. ;)

[Arkana]

4. I don't understand why we need even half that number.

Four or five of them would be almost enough to destroy the entire world. Why do we need that power several times over?