Washington, November 22: Despite promises of change, US President Barack Obama has followed his predecessor, George W. Bush, in increasing the country’s defense budget, says an expert.
Obama recently announced that the United States is going to invest USD 85 billion on modernizing its nuclear weapons.
“I think there is one thing we know from the Obama administration… there is not much sunlight between it and its predecessor, the Bush administration, when it comes to defense spending,” Washington-based national security analyst Wayne Madsen told Press TV on Sunday.
“The defense budget is going up at the same time [as] the administration is considering massive cuts on social spending, on social security, Medicare, unemployment insurance,” the expert added.
Earlier, Obama had announced that Washington would keep its nuclear weapons as a deterrent to any nuclear threats.
This is while, in April 2010, the US and Russia signed a nuclear arms treaty, called the ‘New START'(Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,) according to which the number of each of the two countries’ nuclear warheads should be limited to 1,550, down from the current level of 2,200, a 30-percent cut.
The new pact also calls for setting up a process in order to carry out inspections of each side’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.
The treaty requires 67 votes for passage in the US Senate, but Republican senators have shown a lack of interest in voting on the treaty before the new Congress gathers in January, because they are currently shy of majority in the Senate as compared to the Democrats, who hold 50 seats.
——–Agencies