GOODS NEWS: US DEVELOPING NEW NUKES

I think the Bush Doctrine is correct - the USA should maintain an absolute military advantage over over any and all potential adversaries. So I greet this news (FROM THE NYTIMES / William Broad) happily:

U.S. Redesigning Atomic Weapons

Worried that the nation's aging nuclear arsenal is increasingly fragile, American scientists have begun designing a new generation of nuclear arms meant to be sturdier and more reliable and to have longer lives, federal officials and private experts say.

The officials say the program could help shrink the arsenal and the high cost of its maintenance. But critics say it could needlessly resuscitate the complex of factories and laboratories that make nuclear weapons and could possibly ignite a new arms race.

So far, the quiet effort involves only $9 million for warhead designers at the nation's three nuclear weapon laboratories, Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia. Federal bomb experts at these heavily guarded facilities are now scrutinizing secret arms data gathered over a half century for clues about how to achieve the new reliability goals.

The relatively small initial program, involving fewer than 100 people, is expected to grow and produce finished designs in the next 5 to 10 years, culminating, if approval is sought and won, in prototype warheads. Most important, officials say, the effort marks a fundamental shift in design philosophy.

I think it is safe to say that the critics of the program will ALL be on the Left. As Zell Miller said so perfectly when he nominated GW Bush: the Left seems to think we can deter and kill bad guys with spitballs! It's a good article. RTWT.