Hard nuclear choice awaits Harris or Trump as president

Next president faces tough deadline on nuclear weapons

Written by Daniel Vergano

Amid the many dangers facing the world, questions about the direction of U.S. nuclear policy and control of the nuclear button will receive surprisingly little attention in the 2024 election, nuclear policy experts say. “Overall, this story is missing at a time when the commander-in-chief could be destabilizing, and Russia is making nuclear threats,” said national security expert Sharon Weiner. “This is why there is no more discussion about nuclear weapons in a world that is constantly repeating itself.” Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University.

But they are using past actions to predict what to expect from the new administration’s nuclear weapons policy, even without a clear plan from the campaigns of former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris. Claim to be able to glean insights. “We have some data on which to base our predictions on the past actions of the Trump and Biden administrations,” said Darryl G., executive director of the Arms Control Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting support for effective arms control.・Mr. Kimball says.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit think tank focused on global security, nine countries around the world have about 12,000 nuclear weapons, the majority of which are owned by the United States and Russia. It is said that there is. No matter who wins the election, the next president will face difficult choices regarding U.S. nuclear weapons and tough treaty deadlines. The nuclear arsenal includes approximately 5,000 weapons, of which 1,700 are deployed for military purposes. In 2023, Russia, enraged by Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, ordered new inspections under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which limits the number of conflict-ready nuclear warheads that Russia and the United States can deploy to no more than 1,550. It stopped. To prevent the possibility of a new arms race, a new START treaty with Russia must be concluded in 2026, and an international agreement with Iran to limit Iran’s nuclear program expires in 2025. The Iranian regime could then abandon the agreement and acquire nuclear weapons. . China could double its current military strength of 500 weapons by 2030, according to a Pentagon report, prompting calls from defense hawks to take action.

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If Harris wins, she will actively promote nuclear diplomacy, extending the START arms control agreement with Russia in 2021 and continuing the US $2 trillion modernization of nuclear weapons. It will continue President Joe Biden’s policies. The decade-long effort, which began under then-President Barack Obama, is now plagued by rising costs and faces questions about its necessity outside of its supporters in Congress. (In particular, Congress funded a sea-launched nuclear cruise missile program that was rejected by the Biden administration; the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation called the program “undesirable, expensive, and redundant.”) Harris said It will also inherit the secret strategic nuclear program. Biden’s comments were reportedly aimed at countering China’s military buildup and coordinated nuclear attacks from China, Russia and North Korea.

The Biden administration has sought to engage with Russia over the expiring START treaty, while in 2020 President Trump instead sought a tripartite agreement with Russia and China in the face of an expiration. (His arms envoy then threatened to spend the two countries “into oblivion” in a new arms race when that effort failed.) Iran’s new leadership offered to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief. This raises the possibility that a new agreement will be reached. But tensions between Iran and Israel and military aid to Russia are complicating the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts to reach a deal. Kimball said President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the previous deal, which expired in 2018, but a new deal seemed unlikely.

Questions about how the United States will handle future nuclear negotiations have also loomed large over the temperament of former President Donald Trump, who threatened to unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea while in office in 2017. This is reflected in past decisions to end nuclear war. This is his approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who resorted to nuclear brinkmanship with the nuclear deal with Iran and the invasion of Ukraine. Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons expert at the Middlebury Institute, wrote a mystery novel in 2018. 2020 Commission Report on North Korea’s Nuclear Attack on the United Statesrevealed the dire possibility of nuclear war caused by Trump’s unrealistic expectations and lack of understanding of nuclear issues. These concerns remain deeply rooted in nuclear policy circles even today. “Donald Trump’s old friend Kim Jong Un is still on the scene and more armed than ever,” Kimball said. “From a temperament standpoint, you have to ask, ‘How would Mr. Trump today handle a crisis that could lead to real nuclear escalation?'”

There have been few references to nuclear war in the campaign so far, but in a debate with Harris in September, President Trump said that if President Putin drops nuclear weapons on Ukraine, it could lead to “World War III.” He mentioned that he had threatened to do so, but did not elaborate on how he would handle the situation. .

Mr. Trump has often praised his ability to work directly with foreign leaders in his campaign speeches on geopolitics, emphasizing, for example, his good relations with President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in efforts to end the war. But after courting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, ostensibly to encourage the country to denuclearize, a 2019 summit failed. Since then, North Korea has increased its nuclear arsenal to more than 50 while also testing new missiles.

The “Project 2025” blueprint for the second Trump administration, written by former Trump officials, would pursue a more aggressive expansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal than is currently underway. (President Trump has disavowed Project 2025, but few believe his disapproval.) Notably, underground explosions violate the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Nevertheless, the plan calls for nuclear weapons testing at a national security facility in Nevada. The United States has signed but not ratified it and has not tested it since 1992. North Korea is not a signatory to the CTBT and last conducted a test in 2017.

Weiner says that, in the big picture, the differences between campaigns on nuclear policy are more a matter of degree, with little emphasis on the role that U.S. modernization has played in nuclear buildups in other regions, or even the necessity of their costs. is not questioned in the public consciousness. In the political debate, she says, “there seems to be a consensus that the appropriate response to Russia and China is not only to modernize their nuclear arsenals, but to at least consider building more and different nuclear weapons.” “I think the big story that hasn’t been reported is that nuclear policy is likely to be the most important area after the election.” do not have It will change. ”