Plans to upgrade the nation’s nuclear arsenal do not include any new weapon to blast hardened, underground targets, The Washington Free Beacon is reporting.
The website noted countries like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran deeply bury their weapons in hardened underground areas.
The Air Force’s B61 Mod 12 nuclear gravity bomb is not capable of going through the hundreds of feet of rock or contract protecting Russia’s Kasvinsky Mountain nuclear command center, according to the Beacon.
It is also not capable of cutting through to the command posts housing China’s nuclear forces and leaders in the Great Underground Wall complex.
And North Korea and Iran also have underground bunkers to hide their leaders and guard weapons systems.
But Air Force Maj. Meghan Liemburg-Archer, a spokeswoman for the Strategic Command, said the U.S. has plans on how to target hardened targets.
"We are routinely assessing capabilities to ensure the ability to effectively deter strategic attack, assure our allies, achieve our objectives should deterrence fail, and hedge against uncertain futures," Liemburg-Archer said.
However, Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon nuclear policymaker, noted: "The Mod 12 will have very little capability against hard and deeply buried targets."
A recent study by the Nuclear Threat Initiative claims the United States is needlessly shelling out $10 billion to upgrade out-of-date nuclear bombs throughout Europe.
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