Stop Trump and Bolton from Dismantling the Global Nuclear Arms Control Regime
Win Without War
(August 18, 2019) — Reports are coming in that a MAJOR NUCLEAR ACCIDENT in Russia last week — killing at least seven people and raising alarming radiation levels — was the result of a new type of nuclear-propelled cruise missile.
The accident near the Nenoksa Missile Test Site is being compared with CHERNOBYL. That is absolutely terrifying and it is critically important the US does NOT escalate the nuclear arms race even one step further.
But ESCALATING is exactly what Trump and Bolton are doing.
Days ago, Trump formally withdrew the US from a landmark treaty prohibiting some of the most dangerous warheads, and now John Bolton is threatening to leave the LAST REMAINING nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia, known as New START.
In action after action, Trump has made US nuclear weapons policy the most dangerous in a generation. Consider:
- He just pulled the US out of the hugely important Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty that, since 1987, blocked the use of land-based intermediate-range missiles which — because of their extremely short flight time — could ignite an all-out nuclear war in just minutes. And already the new Defense Secretary has proposed deploying these banned missiles to Europe and Asia.
- If that isn’t terrifyingly risky enough, Trump has made one of his signature defense priorities building Gateway Nukes — nuclear weapons DESIGNED TO BE USED in conventional wars, a horrific premise of self-fulfilling logic if it convinces the President it’s ok to use them.
- AND there are reports that Trump’s ex-White House colleagues are seeking to profit by pressuring him to ditch a critical nuclear non-proliferation rule in order to sell US nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia — with absolutely no guarantee that technology won’t be used to build nuclear weapons.
Yet despite the growing threat, the world has a terrifying false sense of security right now about the risks of nuclear proliferation.
Thank you for working for peace. Stephen and the Win Without War team.
VICTORY: House Stops Trump’e New Nuke
It is the first House vote to stop a new nuclear weapon in over a decade
Tom Collins / The Ploughshares Fund
(July 12, 2019) — Ploughshares Fund and its partners won a huge victory on July 12 when the House of Representatives voted to halt deployment of President Trump’s new, more usable, “low-yield” nuclear weapon—the first House vote to stop a new nuclear weapon in over a decade. With 95 percent of Democrats voting as a united front, this sends a powerful message to candidates for the White House in 2020—your base does not want new nukes.
This was a tremendous victory against a determined Trump administration and Republican House caucus. The administration had proposed this new weapon as part of the February 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, with full support of the Pentagon and then Secretary of Defense James Mattis. The GOP-controlled Congress approved the warhead last year, and it was on a fast track for deployment in 2020.
But the July vote put the brakes on these ill-conceived plans, a success that would not have been possible before the 2018 elections that brought the Democrats to power in the House. That gave one of our key allies, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash), a powerful new perch as the chair of the House Armed Services Committee.
“It makes no sense for us to build low-yield nuclear weapons,” Smith said at the Ploughshares policy conference in November. “It brings us no advantage and it is dangerously escalating. It just begins a new nuclear arms race with people just building nuclear weapons all across the board in a way that I think places us at greater danger.”
But even before the election, Ploughshares Fund and our allies were building opposition to the low-yield weapon. For example, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry and I teamed up last spring to write an op-ed that found “no need for such weapons, and building them would make us less safe. These so-called “low-yield” nuclear weapons are a gateway to a nuclear catastrophe.”
Ploughshares Fund then worked with theUnion of Concerned Scientists to produce a letter to Congress opposing the new weapon. The letter, signed by more than 30 experts (including Bill Perry, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Gov. Jerry Brown, former chairman of Strategic Command Gen. James Cartwright, former Sen. Richard Lugar, and Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor and Ploughshares Board Member), was delivered to all Members of Congress.
We also worked with other key allies, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), to support stand-alone legislation to prohibit the new warhead. In September 2018, Reps. Lieu, Smith, Sen. Markey and others introduced the Hold the LYNE (Low-Yield Nuclear Explosive) Act, which became an effective focus of opposition to the program.
We followed up the letter and legislation with face-to-face meetings with key Members. In January, Ploughshares teamed up with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to bring Bill Perry and Jerry Brown to Washington DC for meetings with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and others.
As the voting neared, Ploughshares Fund brought together the best advocates in our community to focus our efforts. Erica Fein at Win Without War and Stephen Young at Union of Concerned Scientists led weekly calls to coordinate meetings with Members on the Hill and to count votes. We knew it would be close, and that every vote mattered.
Many of our partners pitched in, includingCouncil for a Livable World, Global Zero, Beyond the Bomb, Women’s Action for New Directions, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Arms Control Association, and others.
With discipline and drive, we won major votes on the House Appropriations Committee, the HASC strategic forces subcommittee, and finally on the House floor. We beat back multiple efforts by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) to allow the warhead to be fielded. We had the arguments on our side, friends in the right places, and the political power to succeed.
But the fight is not over. The Senate Defense bill includes full funding for this dangerous weapon. Now we go to conference, where the two bills need to be brought into agreement. As ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed will play a key role here. And, if we make it that far, the bill still needs to be signed by President Trump, who should be reluctant to veto a Defense bill that gives him most of what he wants. Stay tuned.
Regardless of what happens next, House Democrats have made it crystal clear how they feel about Trump and new nuclear weapons. Presidential candidates for 2020, are you listening?
A victory, but the fight is not over. Stop the #NewArmsRace.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
