Washington, August 17: A former Russian defense official says that the United States’ insistence on military supremacy has deterred world nations from scrapping their nuclear arsenals.
“The Americans should get rid of their…predominance in conventionally-equipped cruise missiles and global dominance in aircraft forces,” former first deputy defense minister, Andrey Kokoshin, told Russia Today on Monday.
“If not, then nobody will get rid of their nuclear weapons,” he added.
The United States Air Force is the largest and most technologically advanced in the world with 5,573 manned aircraft.
The country was also the first to acquire nuclear weapons and the only one to have used them for offensive purposes. It’s current stockpile of nuclear warheads numbers around 5,500.
Despite the fact that both Washington and Moscow have voiced an interest in laying former rivalries to rest and reducing nuclear weapons, their efforts have thus far failed to produce a tangible result.
Last week, US Secretary of the Air Force, Michael B. Donley, said the standoff between the two countries along with a current reappraisal of nuclear strategy had caused Washington to prioritize its nuclear firepower bringing it under a single directorship called the “Global Strike Command”.
Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, General Alexander Zelin, said his service was preparing to meet the threats posed by the Command.
According to Kokoshin, it would be well within the power of world nations to respond to alleged US plans for a mighty aerospace offense system by 2030.
“It is less costly, of course, to have countermeasures. That’s why I think that if they proceed with such development, we will find a way to cope with this threat,“ he concluded.
—–Agencies