Nuclear Weapons

As most of you know, I spent my entire career in the defense industry. For all intents and purposes, I am a charter member of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about. Most of that time was spent on the leading edge, trying to envision threats to the United States and doing research on and development of defenses against them.

After about ten years, I came to the conclusion that the most serious threat against the United States was accidental or unintentional nuclear war with the Soviet Union. I focused the remainder of my career on means to reduce the chance of that. After the Soviet Union ended, I was relieved to see that one of the highest priority programs in the Department of Defense was helping the Russians upgrade the control of their nuclear weapons and weapons technology.

With the economic collapse of the Soviet Union and considering the tens of thousands of weapons in their inventory there is good reason to be concerned about one or more weapons being stolen by or sold to terrorists or to rogue nations. I personally think this is our greatest threat.

Recently I have been reading that, under the present administration, assisting the Russians in controlling and protecting their nuclear weapons has lost priority and is languishing. Nothing the government is doing or not doing could concern me more.