Harvey Gives Trump a Chance to Reclaim Power to Unify - New York times

Harvey Gives Trump a Chance to Reclaim Power to Unify

By GLENN THRUSHAUG. 29, 2017

Hurricane Harvey was the rarest of disasters to strike during the Trump presidency — a maelstrom not of Mr. Trump’s making, and one that offers him an opportunity to recapture some of the unifying power of his office he has squandered in recent weeks.

Now a tropical storm as it continues to inundate the Texas and Louisiana coasts, Harvey is foremost a human disaster, a stop-motion catastrophe that has already claimed at least 10 lives and destroyed thousands of structures. But hurricanes in the post-Katrina era are also political events, benchmarks by which a president’s abilities are measured.

Mr. Trump is behaving like a man whose future depends on getting this right.

The president will visit Corpus Christi on the Texas gulf coast on Tuesday, as Harvey regains strength and hurtles toward Louisiana. The visit, aides say, is intended to highlight his commitment to coordinating long- and short-term federal responses with local officials. During a White House news conference on Monday afternoon, Mr. Trump announced that he planned to make a second trip to the region, as early as Saturday. That one to Texas and to Louisiana.

In announcing his trips, he used the dulcet, reassuring and uplifting language of prior presidents. His rhetoric was strikingly different from his much-criticized pronouncements at a news conference this month when he equated the actions of leftist protesters in Charlottesville, Va., with the violent, torch-wielding alt-right activists who hurled anti-Semitic and racist epithets.

“We are one American family,” the president said Monday, reading from a statement as he stood next to President Sauli Niinisto of Finland. “We hurt together, we struggle together and, believe me, we endure together. We are one family.”

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A storm that is ravaging low-lying areas gives Mr. Trump a chance to reclaim the presidential high ground. But many of those in the president’s orbit are worried Mr. Trump will not be self-controlled enough to maximize the moment.

President Barack Obama comforting a Hurricane Sandy victim in October 2012 in Brigantine, N.J. Credit Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Senior officials, led by John F. Kelly, the chief of staff, have gingerly urged the president to stick to a script vetted through official channels. And Mr. Trump has toned down his presence on Twitter — mildly — relying more on the kind of official statements and news media availability used to by his predecessors. But no one, including Mr. Kelly, expects him to remain silent or on message if he comes under criticism over his response to the storm.

Local officials, for their part, do not care about Mr. Trump’s mood. They simply want him to pay attention to their plight.

“In a week or two, after something like this, people tend to forget about you,” said Joe McComb, the Republican mayor of Corpus Christi, which sustained less damage than nearby Rockport, Galveston and Houston. “Getting him down here is a way to make sure he’s making a commitment. He’ll see what happened for himself. He’s rough and gruff, but I think he’s got a good heart.”

During his news conference Monday, Mr. Trump repeatedly praised the joint response of federal officials, echoing his upbeat tweets over the weekend. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who has been in contact with the president, Vice President Mike Pence and other federal officials, gave the White House an “A-plus” for quickly declaring the state a disaster area and mobilizing federal resources.

Still, Harvey — a sluggish rainmaking behemoth that has already dumped as much as three feet of rain in some places — is unpredictable, and much of the worst damage might be wreaked over the next few days. And, as Hurricane Katrina proved 12 years ago in New Orleans, initial coordination between federal, state and local officials can quickly give way to acrimonious finger-pointing, with dire political consequences for all of those involved.

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who spent Monday in fast-flooding Houston, praised Mr. Trump’s initial response and his efforts to coordinate with local officials. But Mr. Cruz also cautioned against complacency while the rain was still falling.

The president promised Monday to push a major recovery package through Congress and predicted, with some justification, that it would garner widespread bipartisan support — even though his conservative Republican allies opposed a similar aid package for Northeast states after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

In August 2005 on Air Force One, President George W. Bush inspected the damage Hurricane Katrina caused New Orleans. Credit Susan Walsh/Associated Press

“A lot of these guys, including Ted Cruz, really turned their backs on us after Sandy,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, who serves on the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought to allay anxiety about the federal commitment, saying his agency planned to be in Texas “for years” after Harvey.

Yet uncertainty abounds. In addition to the as-yet-untold toll on people and property, there is the unpredictable element of Mr. Trump’s emotional weather, which can shatter the prevailing harmony in an instant, through a tweet or a taunt.

The news and stories that matter to Californians (and anyone else interested in the state), delivered weekday mornings.

“So far, he’s been aggressive and forward-leaning, which is encouraging,” said Jon Meacham, a presidential historian. “It’s possible he can get through a cycle, the politics and the substance of a disaster, for the first time in his eight months in office. But you know somebody is going to say something that bothers him, something critical that he sees on cable, and suddenly it becomes fake news, fake weather.”

So far, the storm has done little to diminish Mr. Trump’s propensity for muddying moments of presidential leadership by picking fights with the news media or his political opponents. On Monday, moments after gravely reading his tribute to national resolve and the spirit of emergency workers in Texas, Mr. Trump enthusiastically defended his decision to pardon Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., as Hurricane Harvey made landfall on Friday.

But this time is different, people around Mr. Trump insist.

The president, who prefers to skim rather than delve, has seldom been more engaged in the details of any issue as he is with Harvey, according to several people involved in disaster response.

Mr. Trump, one aide said, was fascinated by the long-term effect of water damage on structures in the Gulf Coast, peppering FEMA and National Security Council briefers with detailed questions about the flooding in Houston and Galveston. As the extent of the projected devastation became apparent over the weekend during a meeting at Camp David, he shook his head in disbelief and compared the situation to problems he experienced when managing his family’s apartment buildings in New York. “Water damage is the worst,” he told one staff member, “tough, tough, tough.”

Mapping the Devastation of Harvey In Houston

Pounding rains and rapidly rising floodwaters caused by Hurricane Harvey pummeled the city of Houston, a metropolitan area of 6.6 million.

Still, many of the most substantive conversations about the relief efforts — including interactions with elected officials — have been routed through Mr. Pence, who has played a similar role in pushing the president’s legislative agenda.

But a week ago, as they prepared for the storm to hit Texas, Mr. Trump and his aides were acutely aware of President George W. Bush’s slow response to Katrina, and the awful optics of a disengaged president flying high above the disaster to view the damage in a dry, cosseted presidential plane.

Despite a reputation for political sang-froid, Mr. Trump appeared genuinely moved by the early images of devastation in Texas — just as he was motivated by images of children killed in chemical weapons attacks in Syria before ordering airstrikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad in April, his aides said.

In Texas, as in the Mideast, Mr. Trump and his team saw an opportunity to exhibit decisiveness and to project strength.

In recent days, the president has frequently harked back to his decision a year ago to tour flood-ravaged sections of Baton Rouge, La. — a visit that he viewed as a turning point in his presidential campaign.

When reports of flooding in the Mississippi River city hit the news, the Trump campaign immediately dispatched Mr. Pence to tour the affected areas, in part because Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s Democratic rival, forewent a visit of her own. When Kellyanne Conway, then the newly appointed campaign manager, told Mr. Trump that his running mate was en route to Louisiana, he responded by asking aides, “Can I go too?” according to three campaign officials familiar with the exchange.

When Mr. Trump offered to donate thousands of bottles of water to the recovery effort, Ms. Conway made one suggestion, according to a former Trump associate: He had to strip the “Trump Ice” labels off first.

Transgender members in U.S. military may serve until study completed: Mattis - Reuters

#POLITICSAUGUST 30, 2017 / 10:17 AM

Transgender members in U.S. military may serve until study completed: Mattis

Reuters Staff

Eric Vidal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Tuesday current policy regarding transgender personnel serving in the military would remain in place until he advises President Donald Trump on how to implement his directive on a transgender ban.

Mattis said in a statement he would set up a panel of experts serving in the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to provide recommendations on implementing the ban.

He said he would advise the president after the panel reports it recommendations, and “in the interim, current policy with respect to currently serving members will remain in place.”

Trump signed a memorandum on Friday directing the U.S. military not to accept transgender men and women as recruits and halting the use of government funds for sex-reassignment surgeries for active personnel unless the process is already under way.

A White House official who briefed reporters about the memo on Friday declined to specify whether transgender men and women who are currently active in the military could continue to serve based on such criteria.

The memo called on Mattis to submit a plan to Trump by Feb. 21, on how to implement the changes.

Mattis said he expects to issue other guidance “including any necessary interim adjustments to procedures, to ensure the continued combat readiness of the force until our final policy on this subject is issued.”

Trump’s directive created uncertainty for thousands of transgender service members, many of whom came out after the Pentagon said in 2016 it would allow transgender people to serve openly.

The decision appealed to some in Trump’s conservative political base while drawing criticism from advocates of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.

Civil rights groups filed two new lawsuits on Monday challenging Trump’s ban.

North Korea launch increases focus on risky U.S. shootdown option - Reuters

NEWSAUGUST 30, 2017 / 12:35 PM /

North Korea launch increases focus on risky U.S. shootdown option

Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea’s firing of a ballistic missile over Japan could increase pressure on Washington to consider shooting down future test launches, although there is no guarantee of success and U.S. officials are wary of a dangerous escalation with Pyongyang.

More attention is likely to focus on the prospects for intercepting a missile in flight after North Korea on Tuesday conducted one of its boldest missile tests in years, one government official said.

Such a decision would not be taken lightly given tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

And while President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed that “all options are on the table”, there has been no sign of any quick policy shift in Washington toward direct U.S. military action.

But Pyongyang’s launch of an intermediate-range Hwasong-12 missile over Japan’s northern Hokkaido island underscored how Trump’s tough rhetoric, pursuit of sanctions and occasional shows of military force around the Korean peninsula have done little to deter North Korea’s leader.

“Kim Jong Un has chosen to thumb his nose at the Americans and Japanese by conducting this test,” said David Shear, former U.S. assistant secretary of defense for East Asia.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has already pledged that the military would shoot down any missile it deemed a danger to U.S. or allied territory.

What is unclear is whether Washington would be prepared to use its multi-layered missile defense systems to intercept a missile like the one that overflew Japan but never directly threatened its territory.

Doing so would essentially be a U.S. show of force rather than an act of self-defense.

“I would think that in government deliberations that would likely be one of the options out on the table,” Shear said.

Some analysts say there is a danger that North Korea would see it as an act of war and retaliate militarily with potentially devastating consequences for South Korea and Japan.

China, North Korea’s neighbor and main trading partner, would also likely oppose such a direct U.S. military response.

A missile is launched during a long and medium-range ballistic rocket launch drill in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on August 30, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS

Experts say there is no guarantee that U.S. missile defense systems, including Aegis ballistic missile defense ships in the region and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems based in Guam and South Korea, would hit their target, despite recent successful tests.

A failed attempt would be an embarrassment to the United States and could embolden North Korea, which this year has already conducted two tests of an intercontinental ballistic missile believed capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

The United States has spent $40 billion over 18 years on research and development into missile defense systems but they have never been put into operation under wartime conditions.

Mattis this month expressed confidence the U.S. military could intercept a missile fired by North Korea if it was headed to Guam, after North Korea said it was developing a plan to launch four intermediate range missiles to land near the U.S. territory.

If North Korea fired at the United States, the situation could quickly escalate to war, Mattis said.

Not everyone is convinced the U.S. military can defend against North Korea’s growing missile capability.

Some experts caution that U.S. missile defenses are now geared to shooting down one, or perhaps a small number, of incoming missiles. If North Korea’s technology and production keep advancing, U.S. defenses could be overwhelmed.

“If a shootdown fails, it would be embarrassing, though not terribly surprising,” said Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the 38 North think tank in Washington.

“Missile defense does not provide a shield that protects against missiles. Rather, it is like air defense; it is designed to minimize the damage an adversary can inflict,” he said.

One U.S. official said the military would be especially cautious about shooting down a North Korean missile that did not pose a direct threat because of the risk of civilian casualties if it were intercepted over Japan or South Korea, as well as difficulty in determining how Pyongyang might retaliate. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. military and intelligence officials warn North Korea could unleash a devastating barrage of missiles and artillery on Seoul and U.S. bases in South Korea in response to any military attack.

Targeting of a North Korean missile in flight that did not endanger the United States or its allies could also raise legal questions. U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban Pyongyang’s ballistic missile programs do not explicitly authorize such actions.

Japan also faces questions over the legality of shooting down missiles in its airspace but not aimed at Japan. Under legislation passed in 2015, Tokyo can exercise a limited right of collective self-defense, or militarily aiding an ally under attack, if it judges the threat to Japan as “existential”.

Donald Trump scrapped Barack Obama's flood protection standards days before Hurricane Harvey - Independent

Donald Trump scrapped Barack Obama's flood protection standards days before Hurricane Harvey

Donald Trump signed an executive order just days before Hurricane Harvey that scrapped many of the flood protections introduced by Barack Obama.

Harvey has caused huge damage in Texas as 30 inches of rain in less than 48 hours resulted in massive flooding.

The current US President, however, has abolished a number of flood standards in an attempt to get infrastructure projects approved more quickly. The Federal Flood Risk Management Standard is among those to have been rolled back.

In 2015, Mr Obama introduced measures that made it harder to build roads, bridges and other infrastructure in areas that were susceptible to flooding. Plans for such projects would legally have to take into account the impact of climate change and be built to withstand future changes.

Hundreds rescued from epic floods as Houston braces for worse to come

While the new regulations had not yet come into effect, they have now been scrapped entirely after Mr Trump decided they were too likely to slow down plans for new infrastructure.

Announcing the decision earlier in August, the billionaire businessman said: “We're going to get infrastructure built quickly, inexpensively, relatively speaking, and the permitting process will go very, very quickly."

“It’s going to be a very streamlined process, and by the way, if it doesn’t meet environmental safeguards, we’re not going to approve it.”

However, some of those safeguards have now been removed. The order also introduces a two-year time limit for permission to be granted for major infrastructure projects, in which Mr Trump has pledged to invest $1 trillion.

The move was praised by business groups but strongly opposed by environmentalists.

Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists warned even before the executive order was issued that it would "put vital infrastructure that communities depend on at greater risk of flooding".

"It will lead to more costly and damaging consequences of these floods," she told The Independent, "And frankly, it's a waste of taxpayer dollars if money is invested in projects that will just get washed away."

She added: "Even as we're seeing flood risk growing in many places around the country – due to sea level rise, heavy rainfall, and other types of factors – it just flies in the face of common sense to turn back progress on greater flood prevention that communities depend on."

Hurricane Harvey has caused devastating flooding in Texas. At least five people have been reported dead and as many as 2,000 had to be rescued after the area received a year’s rainfall within the space a week.

“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before,” the US National Weather Service said on Twitter. “Catastrophic flooding is now underway and expected to continue for days.”

Returning to the topic of storm Harvey, Ms Cleetus said: "It would be a serious mistake to rebuild without taking account of future flood risks in the wake of terrible tragedies such as Texas is currently experiencing with Hurricane Harvey."

What would happen if a missile from North Korea actually hit Japan? - Independent

What would happen if a missile from North Korea actually hit Japan?

The US would have been forced to immediately attack North Korea had the missile Pyongyang fired over Japan hit its territory rather than landing in the sea off its coast, experts say.

Japan is a long-standing Nato partner which means a strike by a foreign power on its soil is deemed as an attack on all the countries in the alliance, meaning member nations are obliged to react.

Tokyo would have declared war against Pyongyang regardless of whether the "reckless act" by Kim Jong-un had not intended to directly target the island nation, analysts say.

Trump fires back warning to North Korea: 'all options are on table'

The United States, which has the biggest military presence of the member states in Asia, would have launched a counter-attack either with a nuclear missile or other strike.

And that would have plunged the world into all-out war, with fears that China could wade into the conflict and defend North Korea.

The threat of global warfare came when Pyongyang fired a missile, thought to be a new Hwasong-12, which torpedoed into waters off Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.

Kim Jong-un fired the intermediate-range weapon despite the threat by US president Donald Trump that North Korea would feel the “fire and fury” if it launched further missiles towards Japan.

North Korea warns US of 'catastrophic consequences' after missile test

Where is Hokkaido? The Japanese island most at risk from North Korea

“It’s extremely serious. Most wars happen by accident, not by design, and if these missiles had landed on Japan there would have undoubtedly been war this morning,” Professor Anthony Glees, a security expert with the University of Buckingham, told The Independent.

“I think Japan would have been forced to declare war on North Korea. It would have been seen as an attack on Japan.

“Japan is a Nato partner. Retaliation is obligatory, it is not a choice. We know the US is a guarantor of Japan’s security. Even if they retaliated with conventional weapons against North Korea, it would then escalate straight away.

“It was a totally, reckless, dangerous act by North Korea. The whole world is lucky that these weapons did not kill anybody in Japan.”

Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for American Progress, told CNN that North Korea launched the missile to reinforce the message that Pyongyang can deter any US-led regime change.

“They cross line after line in an effort to say this is the new reality and you should accept it and go easy on us,” Mr Mount said. “I think that's a pretty unambiguous signal that they're no longer going to be restrained by the United States.”

The Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe denounced the launch as an “unprecedented and grave threat” to the country’s security. In a 40-minute phone call with Mr Trump, the pair agreed to call for an emergency meeting of the UN security council to discuss the situation.

Mr Trump said the US was “100% with Japan” and repeated his strong commitment to the defence of Japan, Mr Abe said shortly after the call.

“The outrageous act of firing a missile over our country is an unprecedented, serious and grave threat and greatly damages regional peace and security,” Mr Abe told reporters in Tokyo, adding that his government had protested to Pyongyang through the Japanese embassy in Beijing.

The missile was the third fired by North Korea to have passed over Japanese territory. The first was in 1998 and the second in 2009, although Pyongyang claims they were satellites.

Trump Forges Ahead on Costly Nuclear Overhaul - New York times

Trump Forges Ahead on Costly Nuclear Overhaul

By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROADAUG. 27, 2017

During his speech last week about Afghanistan, President Trump slipped in a line that had little to do with fighting the Taliban: “Vast amounts” are being spent on “our nuclear arsenal and missile defense,” he said, as the administration builds up the military.

The president is doing exactly that. Last week, the Air Force announced major new contracts for an overhaul of the American nuclear force: $1.8 billion for initial development of a highly stealthy nuclear cruise missile, and nearly $700 million to begin replacing the 40-year-old Minuteman missiles in silos across the United States.

While both programs were developed during the Obama years, the Trump administration has seized on them, with only passing nods to the debate about whether either is necessary or wise. They are the first steps in a broader remaking of the nuclear arsenal — and the bombers, submarines and missiles that deliver the weapons — that the government estimated during Mr. Obama’s tenure would ultimately cost $1 trillion or more.

Even as his administration nurtured the programs, Mr. Obama argued that by making nuclear weapons safer and more reliable, their numbers could be reduced, setting the world on a path to one day eliminating them. Some of Mr. Obama’s national security aides, believing that Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election, expected deep cutbacks in the $1 trillion plan.

Mr. Trump has not spoken of any such reduction, in the number of weapons or the scope of the overhaul, and his warning to North Korea a few weeks ago that he would meet any challenge with “fire and fury” suggested that he may not subscribe to the view of most past presidents that the United States would never use such weapons in a first strike.

“We’re at a dead end for arms control,” said Gary Samore, who was a top nuclear adviser to Mr. Obama.

While Mr. Trump is moving full speed ahead on the nuclear overhaul — even before a review of American nuclear strategy, due at the end of the year, is completed — critics are warning of the risk of a new arms race and billions of dollars squandered.

The critics of the cruise missile, led by a former defense secretary, William J. Perry, have argued that the new weapon will be so accurate and so stealthy that it will be destabilizing, forcing the Russians and the Chinese to accelerate their own programs. And the rebuilding of the ground-based missile fleet essentially commits the United States to keeping the most vulnerable leg of its “nuclear triad” — a mix of submarine-launched, bomber-launched and ground-launched weapons. Some arms control experts have argued that the ground force should be eliminated.

A new nuclear cruise missile would extend the life of America’s aging fleet of B-2 bombers. Credit Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress in June that he was open to reconsidering the need for both systems. But in remarks to sailors in Washington State almost three weeks ago, he hinted at where a nuclear review was going to come out.

“I think we’re going to keep all three legs of the deterrent,” he told the sailors.

The contracts, and Mr. Mattis’s hints about the ultimate nuclear strategy, suggest that Mr. Obama’s agreement in 2010 to spend $80 billion to “modernize” the nuclear arsenal — the price he paid for getting the Senate to ratify the New Start arms control agreement with Russia — will have paved the way for expansions of the nuclear arsenal under Mr. Trump.

“It’s been clear for years now that the Russians are only willing to reduce numbers if we put limits on missile defense, and with the North Korean threat, we can’t do that,” said Mr. Samore, who is now at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “I think we are pretty much doomed to modernize the triad.”

At issue in the debate over the cruise missile and the rebuilding of the land-based fleet is an argument over nuclear deterrence — the kind of debate that gripped American national security experts in the 1950s and ’60s, and again during the Reagan era.

Cruise missiles are low-flying weapons with stubby wings. Dropped from a bomber, they hug the ground to avoid enemy radars and air defenses. Their computerized brains compare internal maps of the terrain with what their sensors report.

The Air Force’s issuing last week of the contract for the advanced nuclear-tipped missile — to Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Missile Systems — starts a 12-year effort to replace an older model. The updated weapon is to eventually fly on a yet-undeveloped nuclear bomber.

The plan is to produce 1,000 of the new missiles, which are stealthier and more precise than the ones they will replace, and to place revitalized nuclear warheads on half of them. The other half would be kept for flight tests and for spares. The total cost of the program is estimated to be $25 billion.

“This weapon will modernize the air-based leg of the nuclear triad,” the Air Force secretary, Heather Wilson, said in a statement. “Deterrence works if our adversaries know that we can hold at risk things they value. This weapon will enhance our ability to do so.”

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The most vivid argument in favor of the new weapon came in testimony to the Senate from Franklin C. Miller, a longtime Pentagon official who helped design President George W. Bush’s nuclear strategy and is a consultant at the Pentagon under Mr. Mattis. The new weapon, he said last summer, would extend the life of America’s aging fleet of B-52 and B-2 bombers, as Russian and Chinese “air defenses evolve to a point where” the planes are “are uable to penetrate to their targets.”

Critics argue that the cruise missile’s high precision and reduced impact on nearby civilians could tempt a future president to contemplate “limited nuclear war.” Worse, they say, is that adversaries might overreact to the launching of the cruise missiles because they come in nuclear as well as nonnuclear varieties.

Mr. Miller dismisses that fear, saying the new weapon is no more destabilizing than the one it replaces.

Some former members of the Obama administration are among the most prominent critics of the weapon, even though Mr. Obama’s Pentagon pressed for it. Andrew C. Weber, who was an assistant defense secretary and the director of the Nuclear Weapons Council, an interagency body that oversees the nation’s arsenal, argued that the weapon was unneeded, unaffordable and provocative.

He said it was “shocking” that the Trump administration was signing contracts to build these weapons before it completed its own strategic review on nuclear arms. And he called the new cruise missile “a destabilizing system designed for nuclear war fighting,” rather than for deterrence.

The other contracts the Pentagon announced last week are for replacements for the 400 aging Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles housed in underground silos. The winners of $677 million in contracts — Boeing and Northrop Grumman — will develop plans for a replacement force.

During Mr. Obama’s second term, the ground-based force came under withering criticism over the training of its crews — who work long, boring hours underground — and the decrepit state of the silos and weapons. Some of the systems still used eight-inch floppy disks. Internal Pentagon reports expressed worries about the vulnerability of the ground-based systems to cyberattack.

Mr. Perry, who was defense secretary under President Bill Clinton, has argued that the United States can safely phase out its land-based force, calling the missiles a costly relic of the Cold War.

But the Trump administration appears determined to hold on to the ground-based system, and to invest heavily in it. The cost of replacing the Minuteman missiles and remaking the command-and-control system is estimated at roughly $100 billion.

A version of this article appears in print on August 28, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. to Overhaul Nuclear Arsenal Despite the Risk. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe