Partly this is a matter of simple greed.
The new program will cost in the range of $1.7 trillion, with the possibility of much more. Modernizing the "triad" will require new missiles, ships, bombers and warheads, all of which will enrich virtually every segment of the US arms industry.
But this is about more than a rich payday. There is a section of the US military and political class that would like to use nuclear weapons on a limited scale. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review explicitly reverses the Obama administration's move away from nuclear weapons, reasserting their importance in US military doctrine.
That is what the recently deployed low yield warhead on the US's Trident submarine is all about. The W76-2 packs a five-kiloton punch, or about one-third the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, a far cry from the standard nuclear warheads with yields of 100 kilotons to 475 kilotons.
The US rationale is that a small warhead will deter the Russians from using their low yield nuclear warheads against NATO. The Trump administration says the Russians have a plan to do exactly that, figuring the US would hesitate to risk an all-out nuclear exchange by replying in kind. There is, in fact, little proof such a plan exists, and Moscow denies it.
According to the Trump administration, China and Russia are also violating the ban on nuclear test by setting off low yield, hard to detect, warheads. No evidence has been produced to show this, and no serious scientist supports the charge. Modern seismic weapons detection is so efficient it can detect warheads that fail to go critical, so-called duds.
Bear baiting -- and dragon drubbing in the case of China -- is a tried and true mechanism for opening the arms spigot.
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