US Defense Secretary James Mattis has said that the purpose of Washington’s plan to deploy new low-yield nuclear weapons is to force Russia to respect agreements on limiting nukes.
At a hearing before the US House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Mattis said the US plan to add a new sea-launched cruise missile to the country’s nuclear arsenal was meant to serve as negotiating leverage to stop Russia from violating key arms control treaties.
“The idea is, once again, to keep our negotiators negotiating from a position of strength,” Mattis said at the hearing on the US administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), a new nuclear arms policy that aims to revamp US nuclear arsenal and develop new low-yield atomic weapons.
The report, published last week, proposed two new nuclear weapons that include a sea-launched cruise missile and a lower-yield version of an existing ballistic missile.
US Defense Secretary said the measure was adopted…