Moving “Gestapo Greg” Bovino out of Minneapolis was a Trump administration costume change as the assaults on constitutional democracy and immigrants grind on in each of our communities. Meanwhile, multiple crises, from the climate emergency to nuclear weapons, increased poverty, and more, are ignored. In no position to compete with the frightening and inspiring headlines from Minneapolis or Trump’s renewed threats to Iran and Cuba, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reiterated its existential warning that humanity to 85 seconds to midnight, the closest ever to annihilation.

The disconnect between the government and the rest of us is not only related to ICE and Border Patrol murders and brutal deportations. Perhaps most dangerously, there is a massive gap between Trump and many in Washington on arms control and preventing nuclear war as well. A recent YouGov poll tells us that

72% of U.S. Americans want to retain US-Russian nuclear weapons deployment limits. 87% of voters want the US to respect limits on deployment caps. 81% support new arms control negotiations.

It is worth remembering is that nuclear arms control dates to the Kennedy administration and the McCloy-Zorin agreement negotiated at the height of the Cold War. That agreement served as the foundation for future arms control negotiations: the limited test ban, SALT I & 2, NPT, and the START Treaties. This is not an unalloyed tradition. Too often, negotiations led to unspoken agreements about the realm in which the next arms race would take place. But until now it has been worth the ride.

Today, three foundations of restraints on renewed and unlimited arms races – and thus human survival – lie in the balance:
1) the New START Treaty and
2) the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and
3) as a result, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is widely understood to be the cornerstone of arms control diplomacy.

We face the expiration of the New START Treaty on February 5.  It was negotiated during the Obama Administration and limits the US and Russia to the deployment of 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads each.

The terms of the Treaty mean that it cannot be renewed. And for the past year, with new technological developments, there hasn’t been time to negotiate a replacement treaty. However, even at this last minute, there is no prohibition on extending the essential limits of the Treaty. And, while there is no denying Russia’s brutal war of aggression in Ukraine, we need to acknowledge that this past September Putin proposed extending the Treaty’s essential elements, and Trump responded then that this would be a “good idea.” Since then, the response from the Trump administration has been silence.

Trump is not the only obstacle in Washington, D.C. Republican House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast and Europe Subcommittee Chairman Keith Sel argue that the “New START Treaty no longer advances meaningful nuclear arms control with the Russian Federation, nor contributes to the broader goal of international denuclearization.”

One factor in Nuclear Establishment thinking is that with China now at @600 strategic nuclear weapons on its way to nuclear parity, there is pressure in the U.S. to expand the US nuclear arsenal in order to fight or deter both China and Russia simultaneously. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which has served as the marching orders for Trump, called for massive increases in the U.S. arsenal to match and overwhelm the Russian and Chinese numbers. Such a U.S. buildup would unleash an untethered and very dangerous escalation of the nuclear arms race.

We can also learn from the Arms Control Association that in powerful Congressional circles, there is widespread belief that Trump’s Golden Dome Missile Defense system, an unworkable boondoggle for the military-industrial complex that could bankrupt the United States, is seen as replacing the need for arms control.

In the relatively near-term, we face the probability of the U.S., followed by Russia, increasing the number of deployed warheads by uploading the number of warheads to existing missiles. However, neither can do so immediately.

The dangers of failing to extend New START limits is rivaled by Trump’s threat to renew nuclear weapons testing. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which outlaws all explosive nuclear weapons tests, was negotiated during the Clinton Administration. Recognizing that Clinton and successive presidents have not had the necessary 67 votes in the senate needed to confirm the Treaty, the U.S. is not among the 187 nations that have already ratified the treaty. Nor has China. But, with the exception of North Korea, the US and the rest of the world’s nations have in fact honored the testing prohibition. Yet, in November, probably confused abut reports of Russia having tested a nuclear-powered missile, not a warhead, Trump pledged that United States would “test nuclear weapons like other countries do.” When asked about it, he doubled down on his testing threat.

The truth is that the Nevada Test site does not have technology in place to renew testing, preparations to do so could take up to three years. But, to fulfill his need to intimidate and dominate, Trump could simply order the detonation of a nuclear warhead.  If Trump’s threat is not walked back or clarified before this April’s NPT Review Conference, it would further undermine that third seminally important Treaty and fuel current pressures for countries from Sweden and Poland to South Korea and Japan who now fear the loss of the U.S. “extended deterrence’” nuclear umbrella may move to become nuclear weapons states.

We will need to watch what Trump proposes in his Pentagon spending bill to see if he and his team will actually move forward with testing.

Then there is the reality that abandoning New START limits and possible resumption of testing will accelerate the unravelling of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The NPT, went into effect in 1972, when their were fears that as many as 50 countries could develop nuclear weapons arsenals rests on 3 legs: 1) non-nuke countries forswearing becoming nuclear weapons states, but  2)their having the right to generate nuclear power for peaceful purposes (a flaw in the treaty,) and 3) the original nuclear powers pledging in Article VI to engage in good faith negotiations for the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

The P-5 – U.S. Britain, Russia, France and China – have resisted implementing their commitments or fulfilling agreements made in past NPT Review Conferences, especially the 13 agreements reached in 2010. It was this resistance that angered the majority of non-nuclear weapons states and led to negotiation of a countervailing force in the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Respect for and trust in the NPT is dangerously diminishing. The last two NPT Review Conferences ended in what were experienced as failures. In the tradition of three strikes and you are out, if this April and May’s RevCom also fails, as seems likely, we can anticipate that some nations – further motivated by Trump’s questionable commitments to U.S. allies – will gradually withdraw from the Treaty and develop their own nuclear arsenals.

All of this, augmented by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ call to action, increases the imperative of campaigning for extension of the New START limits and beyond.  In the next few days, people can join:

  • Back from the Brink’s January 29 Congressional Call in Day
  • Support the ad hoc coalition of the Arms Control Association, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Win Without War, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and others in pressing for New START extension with Congress. This must include Republicans, as we highlight the contradiction of Trump’s earlier commitments to denuclearization and respecting deployment limits with his inaction on New START extensions.
  • Should we lose the New START limits, it will be time to demand negotiations for a new treaty.

A final word: To reduce the nuclear danger, we must oust Trump. The Pulitzer Prize journalist Sy Hersh recently drew comparisons between Nixon’s last insane and drunken days when he faced Watergate impeachment with our increasingly isolated, desperate, and unhinged nuclear monarch. We have to be sure that Trump can’t take us all with him as he goes down.

Americans Across Party Lines Want the U.S. to Keep Nuclear Limits with Russia, New Poll Finds  NTI