The old nuclear deterrent known as MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) could be out the window as U.S. nuclear weapons have gotten more precise in their targeting. And that prospect has the Russians worried.
America's B61-12 saw its latest non-nuclear test Tuesday, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, with a goal of a precision-guided nuclear weapon that would be in service by 2020.
"The advantage of the new modification of the B61-12, according to U.S. military experts themselves, lies in the fact that it will be, as they put it, 'more ethical' and 'more usable,'" Mikhail Ulyanov, who heads the Russian Foreign Ministry's Nonproliferation and Weapons Control Department, told the Itar-Tass News Agency.
Newsweek reported on the comments in English.
Ulyanov was speaking about comments made by former undersecretary of defense James Miller and former President Barack Obama's nuclear strategist General James E. Cartwright, who have suggested making nuclear weapons more precise might make them more "usable" since they would be less likely to harm civilians.
"From this we can conclude that the clearing of such bombs for service could objectively lead to lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear arms," Ulyanov told Tass. "This, we can imagine, is the main negative impact of the ongoing modernization."
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