Having Your Bomb and Eating It Too

For the first time in two decades, the United States will produce a new design of the hydrogen bomb. The weapon is meant to ease insecurities caused by the aging of America’s nuclear arsenal but probably will be a mortal blow to the administration’s credibility as it attempts to deter other countries from building nuclear weapons.

Los Angeles Times:

The contract decision was made by the Nuclear Weapons Council, which consists of officials from the Defense Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the Energy Department. Plans were underway Thursday to announce the award this afternoon.

The nuclear administration will issue the contract and run the program.

The cost of the development is secret, though outside experts said it would cost billions of dollars — perhaps tens of billions — to develop the bomb, build factories to restart high-volume weapons production and then assemble the weapons.

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