Understanding Anti-Proliferation Efforts And The Department Of Energy

On Thursday, President-elect Donald Trump put out this tweet:

Trump did not signal what prompted his tweet, but the BBC reports that it came just hours after Russian President Vladmir Putin met with his military advisers. The BBC reports that Putin said Russia needs to "strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense systems."

Any expansion of either nation's nuclear arms would effectively reverse years of anti-proliferation efforts. It was as recently as February 2011 that the latest U.S.-Russia treaty to limit strategic nuclear weapons went into effect. That agreement is known as the New START Treaty.

We talk about what the implications of expanding nuclear arms might be and how it relates to the Department of Energy.

Earlier this month, Trump tapped former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head the Energy Department. Perry famously in 2011 forgot the name of the agency when naming the three federal agencies he wanted to abolish.

Kenneth Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists and former commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection from 2011 to 2014. He tweets @kenkimmell.

Gary Samore, executive director for research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, which tweets @belfercenter.