Nuke Abolition Losing Message on Election Day, House Armed Services Chair Tells Disarmament Advocates

摘要

The chair of the House Armed Services Committee had bitter medicine in a big spoon for disarmament advocatesWednesday: getting rid of nuclear weapons is a losing message that may have cost Democrats a chance to slow downprocurement of next-generation, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.“We’re losing this argument because we lost seats in the House,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told a webcast meeting ofthe Ploughshares Fund, a D.C.-based disarmament group Smith regularly joins for public forums. “‘We gotta get rid ofnuclear weapons’ is not a winning message. Deterrence is the argument. We have to reduce the number of nuclearweapons so that we can adequately deter our [adversaries] but not have unnecessary spending and unnecessary risk.”