Trump's Nuclear Boast Is Obama's Modernization Plan

There's no good place to start a nuclear arms race -- and Twitter is an especially bad venue. So it's unfortunate that President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday tweeted his desire for the U.S. to "greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability," then followed up on Friday morning by saying, "Let it be an arms race."

It's hard to know exactly what Trump means -- such are the limitations of communication via 140 characters or off-the-air phone calls to morning-TV hosts -- but it's possible he is simply referring to the need to continue the U.S.'s nuclear modernization program. In the 2016 federal budget, President Barack Obama laid the groundwork for a $1 trillion overhaul of the nation's nuclear arsenal: warheads, missiles, bombers, submarines, targeting systems and the Department of Energy's huge research and development system.