In this light, Miller was trying to shift the question from “Why produce these weapons?” to “Why not?” Gottemoeller’s objections were hardly radical. The previous March, in hearings before the House Armed Services Committee, General Hyten, the head of StratCom, was asked whether he needed new low-yield nuclear weapons to deal with the Russians’ “escalate to de-escalate” threat. Hyten replied that his arsenal, as it stood, had “a number of capabilities” that would provide the president with “a variety of options to respond to any number of threats.” He went further a few weeks later, at a
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