Rep. Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican and member of the House Armed Services Committee, released a letter on Monday criticizing California Democratic Senate Dianne Feinstein for calling for a reduction in the size of the U.S. nuclear fleet.
Feinstein had said in an op-ed in the Washington Post
last week that nuclear weapons were placing a burden on financial resources that could be used to combat Islamic extremists or to build a more secure cyber environment.
“We’re holding far more nuclear weapons than are necessary, and the cost is undermining other national security priorities,” she wrote. “It’s time we take a long look at how we can responsibly reduce our stockpile.”
Rogers, however, countered in his letter that maintaining our nuclear stockpile accounts for less than four percent of overall defense spending and less than one percent of the federal budget.
“As Russia continues to violate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, station nuclear weapons in territory stolen from Ukraine and rattle nuclear sabers at NATO, Ms. Feinstein’s call for unilateral U.S. disarmament defies common sense,” Rogers said. “Nuclear weapons are not undermining other national security priorities–they are undergirding them.”