A Quote by Alan Cranston

The explosion of a terrorist's single nuclear device in a major metropolitan center would trigger an unparalleled humanitarian and environmental disaster. An accidental military launch of multiple warheads could result in a worldwide nuclear holocaust. Medical researchers and military analysts forebode grim consequences.
On January 20, 2017, Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, and he will be given the nuclear codes and the power to launch the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which is comprised of some 7,000 nuclear weapons. A military officer will always be close to Trump, carrying the nuclear codes in a briefcase known as the "football."
Sooner or later there will be a nuclear 9/11 [by Islamic terrorists] in an American city or that of a US ally... A terrorist nuclear attack against an American city could take many forms. A worst case scenario would be the detonation of a nuclear device within a city. Depending upon the size and sophistication of the weapon, it could kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of people.
The real threat to U.S. military power is nuclear proliferation, because if every little country has nuclear weapons it becomes very tricky for the United States to engage in military action.
The budget for nuclear forces in the United States is on the order of $25 billion or so. That includes warheads, delivery systems, command and control; does not include environmental clean-up, which is another maybe $10 billion or so. So that's about 5% of the U.S. military budget.
As a military man who has given half a century of active service I say in all sincerity that the nuclear arms race has no military purpose. Wars cannot be fought with nuclear weapons. Their existence only adds to our perils because of the illusions they have generated. There are powerful voices around the world who still give credence to the old Roman precept - if you desire peace, prepare for war. This is absolute nuclear nonsense.
I not only saw the possibility of nuclear war, I feared it very much. If they started a military conflagration, it would automatically lead to nuclear warfare.
Teller contended, not implausibly, that hydrogen bombs keep the peace, or at least prevent thermonuclear war, because the consequences of warfare between nuclear powers are now too dangerous. We haven't had a nuclear war yet, have we? But all such arguments assume that the nuclear-armed nations are and always will be, without exception, rational actors, and that bouts of anger and revenge and madness will never overtake their leaders (or military and secret police officers in charge of nuclear weapons). In the century of Hitler and Stalin, this seems ingenuous.
The U.S. had about 10,000 nuclear warheads. It is estimated that the U.S. is heading towards having 6,000 nuclear warheads in the year 2012.
It is not unimaginable to have military options to respond to North Korean nuclear capability. What's unimaginable to me is allowing a capability that would allow a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colorado. That's unimaginable to me. So my job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesn't happen.
Since the end of the Cold War two main nuclear powers have begun to make big reductions in their nuclear arsenals. Each of them is dismantling about 2,000 nuclear warheads a year.
What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening to use nuclear weapons. And we can't get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons. The intransigence, it seems, is a function of the weapons themselves.
There has been a transition from a nuclear-annihilation scenario to an isolated-terrorist-nuclear-bomb scenario. But we're still locked into a mind-set that nuclear war would be so overwhelming that any kind of preparedness would be futile.
No doubt relinquishing our nuclear arsenal would irritate Washington but what would the U.S. rather have, the U.K. able to assist in military operations or an ill-equipped conventional force and a nuclear arsenal which will never come into play?
Russia has had very aggressive military exercises. They've practiced mock nuclear attacks on Warsaw. Russian bombers practiced attacking strategic military targets in Sweden. The military aggression gets everybody nervous.
The nuclear arms race has no military purpose. Wars cannot be fought with nuclear weapons. Their existence only adds to our perils.
One of the most serious [challenges] is increased military spending and the cost of maintaining and developing nuclear arsenals. Enormous resources are being consumed for these purposes, when they could be spent on the development of peoples, especially those who are poorest. For this reason I firmly hope that, during the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference to be held this May in New York, concrete decisions will be made towards progressive disarmament, with a view to freeing our planet from nuclear arms
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