Trump, Putin vow to expand respective nuclear capabilities

After Russian President Vladimir Putin's call for Russia to reinforce its own nuke capabilities, the open talk of ramping up nuclear capabilities by President-elect Donald Trump marks a sharp shift in U.S. national security policy and a jarring departure from the stance of President Barack Obama.

Trump on Thursday wrote on Twitter that the U.S. must massively bolster its nuclear capabilities, without providing details or context, a day after meeting a group of Pentagon top brass, and shortly after Putin called for Russia to reinforce its own nuclear capabilities.

"The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes," Trump tweeted.

Trump has not made clear whether he considers modernizing the decades-old American nuclear arsenal to a more modern standard or adding to more warheads to the arsenal. According to a report made in May of 2016 from the United States Government Accountability Office, the U.S. is still running its nuclear arsenal systems on computers and software that was made in the 1970s. These computers still use floppy disks the size of 78 rpm vinyl records. This sounds extremely dangerous at first, however in this era of constant cyber warfare these nuclear arsenals and systems that could bring about the end of civilization as we know it if used to their full potential as these systems are literally un-hackable.

Trump's remark came after Putin told military top brass, "we need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces," while boasting about the Russian army's performance in its Syria campaign.

Russia's focus should be on "missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense systems," the Kremlin strongman added.



Putin on Friday said there was "nothing unusual" about U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's call to boost America's nuclear capability.

"As concerns the new president-elect of the United States Mr. Trump, there is nothing new here. During his election campaign he spoke about the necessity of strengthening the nuclear component of the United States, to strengthen the armed forces. There is nothing unusual here," Putin said at his annual press conference.

During the cold war the U.S. and the Soviet Union were engaged in an arms race in both conventional but more importantly nuclear. The extent of the Russian Federation's upgrades to its own nuclear systems is unknown; however Putin has said upgrades to their systems would be imperative in 2017.

President Barack Obama has made nuclear nonproliferation a centerpiece of his agenda, calling in 2009 for the U.S. to lead efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons — a goal he acknowledged would not be accomplished quickly or easily.

U.S. State Department spokesman, John Kirby, in the Dec. 22 daily press briefing of the USDS said: "Nobody's walked away from the fact that you need a credible deterrent for the United States, including a credible nuclear deterrent. As a matter of fact, we have and continue to review plans for appropriate modernization of that nuclear deterrent. So it is absolutely a vital pillar in our national security strategy."

The Obama Administration has followed three main strategies to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons in the last 8 years. First reducing by the stockpile and launchers through New START; second, by diminishing the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security strategy; and third, securing the Iran deal which the U.S. says will render Iran unable of ever making its own nuclear weapons.

The U.S. and Russia hold the vast majority of the world's nuclear weapons. In 2010, the two countries signed the New START treaty capping the number of nuclear warheads and missile launchers each country can possess. The agreement is in effect until 2021 and can be extended for another five years.