Nuclear Weapons Update

Editor’s Note: On Friday, FOX News mentioned President Donald Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, seeking a new deal with Tehran to restrain its rapidly advancing nuclear program and replace the agreement he withdrew America from in his first term in office. Iranian state media immediately picked up on Trump’s acknowledgment, though there was no confirmation from Khamenei’s office that any letter had been received. This seems largely a head fake. The real issue is the nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia.

When the president mused about all the money the United States was spending on refurbishing our nuclear weapons complex, he can’t be taken seriously. This is what he said:

There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many. You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.

What motivates this comment? Tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. I plan to view it with a skeptical eye until the discussion gets beyond the type of public brainstorming the president is known for. This is what he meant:

The U.S. House is having trouble coming up with enough savings to fund my $4.5 Trillion in tax cuts, so maybe we could use some of the nuclear complex monies.

Cognizant there is a national security issue around the use of nuclear weapons, the president’s team developed a policy. Invoking the failed Reagan missile defense policy, the administration proposes we try it again under the aegis of an “Iron Dome for America.” As Stephen J. Cimbala and Lawrence J. Korb point out in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the plan has serious technology and policy problems. What needs to happen is renewal of discussions between Russia and the United States concerning arms control. If nuclear arms are eliminated, there would be no need for a missile defense system by any name.

Daryl G. Kimball of the Arms Control Association said, “a dialogue between Moscow and Washington could lead to negotiations to maintain or lower current limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals before the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expires in February 2026.” If the president is serious about reducing the number of nuclear weapons, this is a reasonable approach. I don’t think reason can be applied to the current administration when they lust after tax cuts for the wealthy.

While public oxygen is taken up by the uninformed chopping away at the federal government by Team DOGE, the country could be working on arms control. In a recent substack, Joe Cirincione opined that to keep Europe safe, two things were needed:

For over seven decades, there have been two basic frameworks that have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in Europe. One is NATO, founded in 1949, that provided positive security assurance to Europe. America assured European NATO members that if they were attacked, the United States would defend them, including with our nuclear weapons. So, these countries did not need to get their own nuclear weapons. America would protect them.

That extended deterrence, as it is called, was not, by itself, enough to stop countries from considering their own nuclear arsenals. The United Kingdom got nuclear weapons in 1952 and France in 1960 despite the security assurances. Another framework was needed: the arms control and disarmament commitments embodied in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), negotiated in 1968 and ratified by the Senate under Richard Nixon in 1970.

We all know how the president feels about NATO. He doesn’t care for treaties any better. As we have seen, he appears to be forsaking Europe for his new relationship with Vladimir Putin.

So what is the administration doing to control nuclear weapons? Short answer: Nothing. He should be doing more, and elected officials need to hear from us on this topic. The U.S. Capitol Switchboard is (202) 224-3121.