America will regret DOGE’s cuts to our nuclear security

A recent WIRED report states that the Pentagon is eyeing large-scale cuts to its Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program. This historically bipartisan national security bulwark has quietly prevented nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon risks that would imperil U.S. national security for three decades. Despite its hefty mission, this program costs the average American only around one dollar annually.

Established with strong bipartisan leadership from Senator Richard Lugar (R) and Senator Sam Nunn (D) in 1991 to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their associated infrastructure in the former Soviet Union, the CTR security initiative has evolved and proven its outsized value repeatedly. 

Millennials may remember the destruction of the most dangerous portions of Libya and Syria’s chemical weapons arsenals, which was a product of CTR’s doing. Meanwhile, a younger demographic may recall when a CTR-supported laboratory in Thailand detected COVID-19 for the first time outside of China, a perfect example of how the program’s biological defense network provides critical early warning of threats that could otherwise reach undetected American shores. 

Read more at The National Interest