Trump’s new nuclear strategy attempt to please military-industrial complex: Dr. Paul

The US Air Force decision to rebuild and update old B-52 nuclear bombers is, according to former US Congressman and political analyst Ron Paul, both in line with President Donald Trump’s promise to make the military great again and an effort to please the military-industrial complex.

Dr. Paul made the remarks on Monday while commenting on a report which says the US Air Force is preparing to place its fleet of B-52 bombers rigged with nuclear weapons on 24-hour alert for the first time since 1991.   

Dr. Paul, a three-time American presidential candidate and the founder of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, said Americans taxpayers “would be supporting the military-industrial complex called the military,” for this project.  

A senior US Air Force official told security news website Defense One on Sunday that American military leaders are reacting to new threat levels.

Over the weekend, General David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, announced that the US would be going back to the future.

"The world is a dangerous place and we've got folks that are talking openly about use of nuclear weapons," Goldfein said, referring to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un who has threatened to attack the US with nuclear weapons if it continues its aggressive policy against his country. 

Dr. Paul said, “The story today is about an airplane that I once flew in, and they are reviving it – sixty years old but they can’t find anything better. They have been working for decades but to replace the B-52.”

“B-52 is the one they have to have because everything they tried to have a replacement it didn’t work. You know, it’s sort of like F35,” he added.

“Why are we doing this? Are we being threatened? Is there a reason that we need a bomber that was developed in 1950s?  I mean it just seem really weird,” the analyst said.

“But I think it conforms with the president’s speeches that he made as a candidate: ‘Rebuild!’ But this is exactly not rebuilding, it’s actually – well, it is rebuilding old airplanes and updating them and making them so-called modernized which is an impossibility,” Dr. Paul said.

Dr. Paul’s co-host, Daniel McAdams, said, “Really, it is back to the future. We had not had these planes on a moment’s notice since 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up and the Cold War ended. So now we are going back to the future.”

In his remarks, General Goldfein noted that it is “no longer a bipolar world where it’s just us and the Soviet Union. We’ve got other players out there who have nuclear capability. It’s never been more important to make sure that we get this mission right.”

Refurbishments are reportedly being made to Barksdale Air Force base in Louisiana, home of the 2d Bomb Wing and Air Force Global Strike Command, which manages US nuclear forces. So the B-52s would be ready to “take off at a moment’s notice.”

“I’m just wondering where is the dramatic change?” Dr. Paul asked.

“You know, the only dramatic change and the most important dramatic change that I have noticed in my lifetime was the disintegration of the Soviet Union,” he stated.

“And this raises the question that how much danger is out there?  And how appropriate it has to be determined that we continue with the triad that’s more or less they are dealing with, not that we don’t have other weapons to defend ourselves if we were attacked. So it’s sort of the old idea of triad,” he noted.

A nuclear triad refers to the nuclear weapons delivery of a strategic nuclear arsenal which consists of three components: land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), strategic bombers, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The US military has been actively testing the triad by simulating nuclear attacks both inside and outside the country.