What Happened to the Dinosaurs, Daddy ?

America needs to replace a rotting arsenal of nuclear weapons and counteract an increasingly boisterous Russia, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Tuesday. For these reasons, it must consider the long-taboo prospect of building new nukes.

“Can we have a national conversation about building new nuclear weapons?” Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said in remarks at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. “That’s something we haven’t been able to even have a conversation about for a while, but I think we’re going to have to.”

“Russia obviously retains the right if needed to deploy its nuclear weapons anywhere on its national territory, including on the Crimean Peninsula,” Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the Russian Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, said in early June.Just last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his plans to boost the former Soviet power’s nuclear arsenal with 40 new missiles. The plan follows a string of provocative comments from top Russian officials who consider a nuclear weapon the most effective method of countering what they consider NATO’s provocative actions in Eastern Europe.

Thornberry said Tuesday this is more than enough justification for considering a new supply of offensive nukes.

None of this had to happen.  We had peace.  We had reason for hope.  We also had idiotic Russophobic politicians who treated Russia like shit after the end of the last cold war, and helped enable the rise of Putin.  Five decades somehow survived without destroying the world, and, having learned nothing from history, we immediately started sowing the seeds of the next war.  Sigh.