nuclear stealth bombers sent to UK

On Sunday, two B-2 Spirit aircraft flew to the USEUCOM area of operations to train and integrate with US and allied military forces in the region in the course of a short-term deployment.

The B-2 Spirit is a multi-role stealth bomber which can deliver nuclear munitions and is capable of penetrating sophisticated defense systems and threatening heavily-defended targets.

"This deployment of strategic bombers provides an invaluable opportunity to strengthen and improve interoperability with our allies and partners," said Admiral Cecil Haney, the commander of US Strategic Command.

The USEUCOM is one of the nine Unified Combatant Commands of the US army, which covers an area of 54,000,000 square km and 51 countries, including Europe, Russia, Iceland, Greenland, and Israel.

"The training and integration of strategic forces demonstrates to our nation's leaders and our allies that we have the right mix of aircraft and expertise to respond to a variety of potential threats and situations,” Haney added.

According to a January report by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), the US is planning to spend over USD 1 trillion on its nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years.

The CNS report adds that after 2020, Washington plans to allocate as much as three percent of its annual military budget to its nuclear arsenal.

The funding is comparable to spending levels used for modernizing US nuclear arsenal under former president, Ronald Reagan, during the 1980s arms race with the former Soviet Union.

In December 2013, Congressional Budget Office predicted that the US would spend USD 355 billion over the next decade on its nuclear weapons complex.

The US has the largest stockpile of active nuclear warheads in the world and is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons against another nation.

Based on recent numbers from Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS), the US currently holds a stockpile of 4,650 nuclear warheads, 2,130 of which are operational. In addition, Washington has 2,700 retired nuclear warheads that are yet to be dismantled.

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