The United States plans to spend more than $1 trillion to revitalize its antiquated nuclear arsenal

SOURCE: PRESS TV

The United States plans to spend more than $1 trillion to revitalize its antiquated nuclear arsenal over the next three decades, according to a new report.

The Obama administration has dedicated a “sprawling new plant” in Kansas City, Mo.--bigger than the Pentagon-- to modernize “the aging weapons that the United States can fire from missiles, bombers and submarines,” The New York Times reports.

The Kansas City National Security Campus is part of a “wave of atomic revitalization that includes plans for a new generation of weapon carriers,” the report said.

The new project, which will leave most of the US nuclear arsenal intact, is in stark contrast to President Barack Obama’s campaign promise in 2008 of “a nuclear-free world.”

Instead, because of “political deals and geopolitical crises,” the Obama administration is overseeing an extensive modernization of its atomic arsenal while implementing only modest arms reductions, the Times said.

Gary Samore, Obama’s top nuclear adviser in his first term, said that Russia’s actions in Ukraine were a major factor. “That has made any measure to reduce the stockpile unilaterally politically impossible.”

The United States and Russia last year agreed to reduce their tactical nuclear weapons, but the deal is unlikely to complete after the recent tensions between the two countries over the crisis in Ukraine.

Congressional hawks believe that the new plan will put the United States in a “stronger position if a new arms race breaks out” and hope the renovated nuclear plants could allow the US arsenal to “expand rapidly” under a different president, according to the report.