Politico is reporting that Vice President Biden will be delivering a key address on the future of America’s nuclear arsenal this Wednesday. Here’s what to expect:

–It’s likely that Biden will channel Secretary Gates’ Oct 2008 speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In that address, the SECDEF spelled out precisely why America needed to modernize and maintain its nuclear arsenal. Gates did so in a most unusual forum, an institution dedicated to ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Obama faces a similar problem, in that he has to explain why he’s pumping $11 billion into nuclear upgrades two months after receiving a Nobel Peace Prize for advocating nuclear disarmament.