{"id":1771204,"date":"2022-12-10T06:30:49","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T11:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1771204"},"modified":"2022-12-10T11:04:16","modified_gmt":"2022-12-10T16:04:16","slug":"u-s-defense-secretary-says-russia-is-expanding-its-nuclear-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/u-s-defense-secretary-says-russia-is-expanding-its-nuclear-arsenal\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Defense Secretary Says Russia Is Expanding Its Nuclear Arsenal"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fu-s-defense-secretary-says-russia-is-expanding-its-nuclear-arsenal%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1771204&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div id=\"\">\n<h2 class=\"visually-hidden\">Article content<\/h2>\n<p>OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE \u2014 Russia is expanding and modernizing its nuclear arsenal, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Friday at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin, faced with setbacks in Ukraine, has repeatedly suggested he could use nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n<p>Austin\u2019s comments are in line with a recent Pentagon policy document on nuclear arms.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<h2 class=\"visually-hidden\">Article content<\/h2>\n<p>Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world, with close to 6,000 warheads, according to experts. Together, Russia and the United States together hold around 90% of the world\u2019s nuclear warheads \u2013 enough to destroy the planet many times over.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<h2 class=\"visually-hidden\">Article content<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cRussia is also modernizing and expanding its nuclear arsenal,\u201d Austin said at a ceremony for the incoming commander of U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the United States nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd as the Kremlin continues its cruel and unprovoked war of choice against Ukraine, the whole world has seen Putin engage in deeply irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling,\u201d Austin said.<\/p>\n<p>Russia has said that it will pay special attention to building infrastructure for its nuclear forces in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier on Friday, Putin vowed at a news conference that any country that dared attack Russia with nuclear weapons would be wiped from the face of the earth.<\/p>\n<p>Putin said Russia had no mandate to launch a preventative first nuclear strike but that Russia\u2019s advanced hypersonic weapons would ensure Russia could respond forcefully if it ever came under attack.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<h2 class=\"visually-hidden\">Article content<\/h2>\n<p>Putin on Sept. 21 warned the West he was not bluffing when he said he would be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia. On Sept. 30, he said the United States had created a precedent by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.<\/p>\n<p>Russian officials say the West has repeatedly misinterpreted Kremlin statements.<\/p>\n<p>The United States has warned Russia over the consequences of any use of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n<p>Russia and United States had been due to hold talks in recent weeks on their existing NEW START treaty, which limits the number of warheads each can deploy.<\/p>\n<p>But Moscow pulled out on the eve of the meeting, accusing the United States of toxic anti-Russian behavior and trying to manipulate the treaty to its advantage. (Reporting by Idrees Ali; additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Howard Goller)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article content OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE \u2014 Russia is expanding and modernizing its nuclear arsenal, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Friday at a time when Russian President<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1894626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[7632,5458,3998,7633,4639,3819,4280,3779,7238],"class_list":["post-1771204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-arsenal","tag-bongino","tag-defense","tag-expanding","tag-nuclear","tag-report","tag-russia","tag-secretary","tag-u-s"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1771204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1894626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1771204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1771204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1771204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}