Pentagon Plans High-Speed Alternative to Nukes

The White House is forging ahead with plans to develop a conventional weapon capable of striking anywhere on the planet with massive force in under an hour. The Prompt Global Strike plan stalled under the Bush administration, but President Obama has suggested it can be used to reduce America's nuclear arsenal while maintaining an effective deterrent, the New York Times reports.

The Pentagon aims to have an early version of the system, which would involve warheads attached to missiles traveling at several times the speed of sound, ready by 2014 or 2015. The administration, responding to Russian fears about the new technology at disarmament talks earlier this month, agreed to decommission one nuclear weapon for every one of these new weapons the Pentagon deploys.
(More nuclear disarmament stories.)