Plan to spend $10bn on updating nuclear bombs goes against 2010 pledge not to deploy new weapons, say critics

By Julian Borger, guardian.co.uk, 21 April, 2013

[....] Joseph Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshares Fund, an arms control pressure group, said the B61 modernisation plans were largely driven by domestic political considerations but risked sending mixed messages to Russia at a time when Washington and Moscow needed to strike a deal.

"I'm convinced the president wants to the continue his efforts to reform US nuclear policy," Cirincione said. "But the administration had a schizoid approach on this issue. They believe they have to buy off legislators with billions of dollars in expenditure in their states in order to get votes for arms control measures later.

"The billions of dollars we are lavishing on the B61 is criminal. This is billions of dollars spent on a weapon whose mission evaporated at the end of the cold war. It's clearly aimed at buying senators' votes."