This is a brilliant story, reported in a way that you don’t often see anymore, on a subject that hasn’t gotten much press—the ongoing 1.7 trillion dollar effort to overhaul all three legs of our nuclear arsenal. The New York Times is one of the few news outlets left that could devote the time and resources that it has here, sending reporters to visit submarine shipyards, missile silos, and nuclear warhead manufacturing sites.

Was there ever a moment when we could have achieved nuclear disarmament, or at least gotten closer to it? If so, it has to be one of the greatest tragedies of the past generation that the chance was missed. The resources that we’re pouring into this project, added to those expended by all of the other nuclear powers—Russia, China, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and maybe someday Iran—could have built a different, better planet.

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