“Fears of a hollow military” (Editorial, Oct. 1) posed the right question: How to best utilize the Pentagon’s $271 billion budget “when there is no `evil empire’ archenemy anymore?”
Even though the “archenemy” is gone, we Americans can’t seem to let go of our attachment to nuclear weapons. American taxpayers are still pouring roughly $30 billion a year into these weapon systems even though just last year a study by the National Academy of Sciences noted that a nuclear deterrence force of 300 missiles would be more than enough.
A recent poll indicated that 87 percent of the public favored an international treaty eliminating nuclear weapons. Yet it seems that neither generals nor congressmen–nor, apparently, editorial writers–can bring themselves to discuss nuclear abolition.
