Senator Tom Cotton (R, AR), wrote of the need for modernizing and expanding our nuclear weapons capability across three dimensions: numbers of warheads and systems to deliver them, the quality of those warheads and systems, and the range of threat—tactical, theater, and strategic—against which those warheads and systems are optimized.

He closed his piece, though, with the most important Statement of Need of his piece:

[T]o those who fear an arms race: The race has already begun. Russia and China have been running it for more than a decade while we sat on the sidelines. The question isn’t whether there will be competition in nuclear forces, but whether America will show up to compete.

To which I add: if we don’t compete, we cannot compete successfully. If we cannot compete successfully, we will find ourselves very quickly faced with nuclear blackmail or a nuclear war that we will certainly lose. In either of those cases, we will see ourselves completely subjugated to our enemies.