Teach the Shorties: Deterrent Prevents War

US leaders took a “holiday” from educating the public about the continued stabilizing value of the nuclear deterrent after the Cold War, said Maj. Gen. Garrett Harencak, nuclear deterrent chief on the Air Staff. “The world in a lot of ways … might be even more dangerous now than it was during the Cold War,” with more than just Russia’s nuclear threat to contend with and a panoply of new threats to boot, he said during an AFA-sponsored speech in Washington, D.C., on June 17. “We have to go back and convince people who haven’t been taught about the enduring value of these things for the past 25 years,” said Harencak. The US military cannot expect the taxpayer to pay the price of modernizing the nuclear triad unless “people understand that this stuff is as relevant today as it was for our parents, and it will continue to be relevant for our grandchildren,” he added. “We in the military are trying to play catch-up on that,” he said. The Reserve Officers Association and National Defense Industrial Association also supported this event.