The United States needs to increase funding to its nuclear program

First you cannot dismiss out of hand the cost argument. We need to get the funding from somewhere and you made no provision as to how. Every cost is an opportunity cost and thus the arguments make sense. Second, in reference to the cyber warfare point it does actually have relevance to the debate. Lets not forget it was a cyber attack on Iran that set there nuclear program back substantial amounts of time. Not only does it boast our defenses to a more probable attack but also our offenses. Thirdly, you completely disregard the validity of the deterrent effect. Lets not forget that no one has attacked the UK or France and their arsenals are far inferior to ours. It is also a mix of support from China and the deterrent effect of nukes that has prevented US from going against North Korea. They only have a handful but that is all we needed not to fight. India and Pakistan despise one another but have not gone to war because of the deterrent effect. Also, you did not address all my points. The risk of us needing to use nukes is so negligible that it is completely useless to increase funding. There are far riskier things that need our attention. Now to your points. As far as staff goes I still don't think this is relevant. They are military men they do not need luxury and upgrading their training does not require additional funds. However, as to the equipment much of this actually could serve as a detriment and not as a positive if we upgrade. The more technological our equipment becomes the more risks for hacking. Because, we have floppy disks the chance of our nukes being hacked like Iran is minimal. As to the dated and rusted this I feel really is not a different argument than the first point. As to your third point, no, it is factually incorrect to say that China has surpassed us. I only share one link but much of the rest of the sites show the same. You have to assume a Chinese nuke is more than a thousand times better then the average American nuke to legitimately say they have surpassed us. Also let us not forget that do to proliferation treaties that all nation are supposed to be reducing their stockpile. If China rapidly starts increasing it we have diplomatic ways to deal with them. I mean we are not nuking Iran to top their nuclear program we are getting it through diplomacy and it is working rather well. http://www.ploughshares.org... In general it is just not that big of a deal. The risk is low and much of the benefit comes from merely having them. Most of the use of nukes comes solely from deterrents which if North Korea has it with a stock far inferior to ours I feel its fine. Let's even assume that their first and second point are valid. Why does this not also apply to all the rest of our infrastructure? Even if you do not believe it is better to invest in security issues like the military shouldn't we make sure that our bridges don't collapse because of our own folly and not another nations? In conclusion, the cost exceeds the benefits. Let us even assume that opportunity cost is not a valid cost. Let's just assume that it is purely a monetary cost to the debate. The benefit derived from upgrading is virtually zero. It does not make us any safer because we have diplomatic means and deterrents that protect us against war. Russia and China are not stupid they are not going to attack us thus making the need for nukes minimal. Let's even assume my opponent is right in their first two points this doesn't mean we get any benefit by upgrading. Also, I hate to end on a nit pick but we don't "need" to do anything so just by the nature of the wording I am correct. We could get rid of our entire stock. I mean South Africa did and they are still safe. However, feel free to judge based of should instead of needs to.