Pentagon chief visits nuke base to highlight weapon spending

MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. (AP) — Defense Secretary Mark Esper used his first-ever visit to a nuclear missile field in frigid North Dakota to tout the Trump administration's multibillion-dollar plan for a top-to-bottom modernization of the nuclear arsenal. The costly project is necessary, he said, to keep up with Russia and outpace China. “Russia and China are both modernizing and expanding their nuclear arsenals,” Esper told reporters, speaking alongside a behemoth B-52 bomber, which, along with Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles and Navy ballistic missile submarines, represent the three “legs” of the U.S. nuclear triad. “All three legs of the triad need to be modernized, and...