The White House’s plans to slash the size of the US nuclear arsenal are reportedly facing resistance from officials in the Pentagon and other US agencies out of concern that they may be too ambitious. The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that the internal debate centers around the outcomes of the nuclear posture review, the top-secret blueprint on future US nuclear policy. According to the newspaper, the Administration is pressing the case for reducing the role of nuclear weapons and their numbers, including a new arms deal with Russia, to strengthen international nonproliferation regimes. Accordingly, some of the changes it is considering are raising alarm bells, such as potentially altering the current nuclear triad and changing US declaratory policy on the use of nuclear weapons from purposeful ambiguity to something else. (For more, read Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal op-ed piece (may require free registration).)
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…