We are experiencing yet another paradigm shift on the global stage. On February 5, New START, the nuclear weapons treaty between ourselves and Russia, the two major nuclear powers in the world, expired. Rather than renegotiate, extend, or replace the only agreement limiting the development of nuclear arsenals of the two major powers, the current administration has decided instead to engage in Cold War-style threats and brinksmanship.
Students of history should be alarmed at the new tone coming out of the White House regarding nuclear warfare and weaponry. Treaties like SALT and START have created stability for the globe for more than half a century. But now, the Trump administration is talking about more forward deployment for nuclear weapons and resuming underground testing of new weapons. That may sound good to those saber rattlers who are aspiring General Buck Turgidsons from Dr. Strangelove, but to those of us who understand the potentially catastrophic consequences of nuclear war, it’s an alarming development. It’s possible that START was a victim of its own success. Perhaps because we haven’t had a nuclear warhead of Damocles hanging over our head for the past few decades, we’ve forgotten what the height of the Cold War felt like. Do we really aspire to have another unchecked arms race? Is that the best use of our resources as a nation or a species?
Because that’s exactly the message coming out of the White House currently. It’s the first administration since the early days of the Cold War to believe that more is better when it comes to nuclear weapons. In the immediate aftermath of New START expiring, the administration started studying re-equipping Ohio-class submarines with nuclear weapons as well as adding additional warheads to our intercontinental ballistic missiles. These are moves that would double our deployed arsenal. There is also the potential being considered of creating a “Trump class” nuclear-armed warship. That, to me, seems like the perfect symbol of the current administration. A vanity project that disregards the potential consequences.
The rationale for letting New START expire was that it didn’t address China’s growing arsenal, which is a reasonable concern. But the answer isn’t ripping up our agreements with Russia, it’s creating new agreements that include China. Beijing, for its part, has shown no interest in limiting the development of its arsenal, claiming that it only has a fraction of the capabilities that America has. Allowing New START to expire will not have the intended outcome of bringing China to the table, rather it will encourage China to develop their arsenal faster.
In addition to removing the limits on the American and Russian arsenals, Trump’s disdain for our European allies have made them believe that they can’t count on us as they have for the entirety of the post-war era. That means that many European nations are also looking into developing their own arsenals as well as turning to France, which already has its own nuclear capabilities. Regardless of whether arsenals are being grown by friend or foe, any development of nuclear arsenals imperil us as a species.
Perhaps the most alarming development is that the administration is considering resuming underground testing. Using unsubstantiated claims that Russia and China are already testing, the State Department recently said that the United States must “restore responsible behavior” regarding testing. The resumption of testing would mean that for the first time since 1992, nuclear weapons would be detonated within the United States. It’s unclear to me why we need to resume the practice when we have the data from over 1,000 previous tests (as many as all other nations combined). It has not been made clear what we could gather from new tests that we didn’t get from those previous tests. America must lead the way, as we have for the better part of the past few decades, by example. If we resume testing, then certainly so will Russia and China. We will create the very scenario we are currently trying to stop. We cannot afford to resume testing now.
The president should make that clear, that we will not be doing any new testing, reaffirming the global norms. He should also work with Russia to agree to a one-year extension, or rather resumption, of the New START limitations while they work on a new treaty. He should also walk back his rhetorical brinksmanship and reaffirm our commitment to nuclear peace. I am not so naïve as to believe that the president will ever change who he is, hot-tempered and impetuous, but the future of the human race depends on cooler heads prevailing. It is imperative that they do so here.