Trump’s War on Arms Control

By Melvin A. Goodman,

Trump’s war on arms control and disarmament ignores the destruction and devastation caused seventy-five years ago, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 Japanese and injuring another 100,000. The great fires that raged in each city consumed many of the bodies. If ever there was a visceral force for promoting a world free of nuclear arms, it should be the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In view of Donald Trump’s ignorance and indifference, it is no surprise that the White House made no mention on August 6th and August 9th of the horrific use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Trump has been busy, however, scrapping many of the arms control and disarmament treaties that he inherited from previous Administrations.

In July 2017, Trump’s nuclear ignorance so alarmed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they held a seminar in the Pentagon’s Tank to brief the President on the nuclear inventory. Tillerson’s infamous reference to Trump as a “f—ing moron” was in response to the President’s demands for increasing the size of the nuclear inventory tenfold. Several days later, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster referred to the President as an “idiot” and a “dope” with the mind of a “kindergartener.” (This challenged a military code that forbids an officer from criticizing the president of the United States.)

Trump Blows Up Treaties

Trump’s hostile and counterproductive acts have undermined the arms control regime that U.S. presidents have developed over the past seven decades. Every president from Eisenhower to Obama contributed to improving the verification and monitoring of strategic arms; reducing the numbers of strategic weapons; eliminating intermediate-range missiles, and/or trying to avoid accidental confrontation. During the presidential campaign in 2016, ten former nuclear control officers anticipated the worst and organized a letter stating that, if elected, Trump should not be given the nuclear codes.

Nuclear Treaty Fallout

These steps are having serious consequences. The combination of ending the INF Treaty and failing to renew the New START accord will lead to increased defense spending in Russia and China. In the Middle East, the abrogation of the Iran nuclear accord led Saudi Arabia and China to begin working together to build an industrial capacity to produce nuclear fuel. A current intelligence study points to the possibility of secret Saudi-Chinese efforts to process raw uranium into a form that can be enriched into weapons fuel. Last year, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Saudi Arabia and Jordan were cooperating to make yellowcake, a concentrated form of uranium ore that is central to enriching uranium into nuclear fuel.

Spend Till They Drop

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has placed the arms control account in the hands of Marshall Billingslea, who has no experience in the field but has been nominated to be the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control. He began his career as an aide to Senator Jesse Helms, the leading opponent of arms control throughout the 1990s, and his most recent government position has been that of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing. One of his most recent statements on arms races is most telling: “We know how to win these races, and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion.”

Billingslea supports the senseless U.S. modernization of its nuclear inventory and bloated defense spending in general, which is why the United States lacks funding for investment in public health and infrastructure. Billingslea encountered significant congressional opposition to confirmation in his previous positions because of his well-documented history of advocating the use of torture and other unlawful interrogation practices.

Next Steps

If the United States were serious about arms control and disarmament, the Trump Administration could respond to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interest in engaging the United States in discussions on a no-first-use of nuclear weapons; no militarization of outer space; and the creation of nuclear-free zones. At the same time, we should create an opening for serious discussions by stopping gratuitous reconnaissance flights over the Black Sea; rotating troops in Poland; and the construction of a regional missile defense in Poland and Romania.

Return to Mel’s Analyses