APS March 07: Nukes, what are they good for?
At a session at the meeting this morning, a group of government officials and nuclear weapons experts discussed the state of US strategic forces.
Everyone in the room seemed to sense that the US didn’t know quite what to do with the 10,000 nukes in its stockpile. US Strategic Command no longer considers the weapons its primary priority, according to Lt. General Robert Kehler. “We go days at a time without being involved in the nuclear weapons business,” he says.
The White House and other politicians seem similarly detached. Eminent physicist and arms control expert Sidney Drell summed it up pretty well: “We need an answer to the question—what are nuclear weapons for?"