Our Button is Bigger, But North Korea’s Nukes are More Modern

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un recently boasted that he has a nuclear button on his desk capable of unleashing an attack on the entire United States. President Trump rhetorically saw him, and raised him, saying: “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

The trouble is that the credibility of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is not determined by the size of its launch equipment.  Rather, it is a function of the modernity, reliability and usability of our strategic weapons – and the ships, planes and missiles fielded to deliver them.

Regrettably, as the President is about to learn from a study known as the Nuclear Posture Review, our nuclear arsenal is obsolescent. Think about it:  North Korea’s weapons – to say nothing of Russia’s and China’s –  are more modern and more recently tested than ours.