Make Arms Control Great Again

By JASON SIBERT

In a world where technology allows mass destruction with the push of a button, arms control has become essential for the future of our country and our planet.

From the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 to the New Start Treaty of 2011, the United States and Russia (in its Soviet and post-Soviet forms) significantly reduced the size of the world’s nuclear arsenals. In 1975, Diplomat Paul Warnke, in a time when the US and Soviet Russia were amassing new nuclear arms, said that “we can be the first off of the treadmill. That is the only victory the arms race has to offer.”

President Donald Trump has little belief in the value of arms control. He’s withdrawn from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran deal), and when if comes to U.S.-Russia arms control deals, both New Start and 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty are in danger. Trump seems to believe that if he builds up our country’s nuclear arsenal, other countries will back down. He told reporters on Oct. 22 that “until people come to their senses, we will build it up.”

The House of Representatives changed hands this January. Members of both parties, and key US allies, should encourage our government to reduce the size and cost of its nuclear arsenal. Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl G. Kimball recently stated that a Pentagon review determined that the US deployed nuclear force is one-third larger than necessary to deter a nuclear attack. This means our country can reduce the number of deployed strategic from 1,400 today to 1,000 or fewer and challenge Russia to do the same. One-thousand deployed nuclear warheads provide enough firepower to deter any nuclear-armed adversary, Kimball stated. One of our country’s nuclear-armed submarines, each with an explosive power of 100 kilotons or more, could devastate a large country and kill tens of millions of people. Despite the talk in the political arena about our country not having enough nuclear firepower, we have plenty of it!

Kimball’s vision for our current problems includes an extension of New Start until 2026 and engaging in talks with Moscow on a new agreement on new limits on all types of strategic offensive and defensive, nuclear and non-nuclear weapons systems that could affect strategic stability. He feels that such a strategy would make Russia rethink its own new weapons projects and maybe reduce its nuclear arsenal. Such reductions from Russia and the U.S., which control 95 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal, would increase pressure on China to downsize its own nuclear arms buildup. This course of action would keep us from engaging in a $1.2 trillion, 30-year plan to replace and upgrade its nuclear weapons delivery systems and warheads.

Nuclear weapons are a destructive technology that make the cost of war high by historical standards, and it takes thinkers like Kimball and informed public servants to control them. Unfortunately, the current populist pollical movements and nuclear arms are a part of a toxic brew. Right-wing populist like President Trump in our country, Marine LePen in France, Nigel Farage in the United Kingdom, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungry believe in a form of nationalism that distrusts international elites. Other countries are defined as a part of the international elite that seeks to undermine whatever country the right-wing populist in question represents. So are Muslims, immigrants, and international institutions like the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

International relations theorist Hedley Bull talked about a “society of states” that cooperate with each other to establish international law. States come together and make law on issues that are in the self-interest of the states making the laws. Although geo-political tensions between the United States, China, and Russia are fraying the international community, the leaders of each country must understand how costly the nuclear arms race is and how destructive a nuclear war would be. Since right-wing populists’ distrust other countries and international institutions, they have little belief in a “society of states.”

Leaders like Trump, LePen, and Orban need to be confronted by an alternative vision grounded in the past, but fit for the future. A Nixon-like policy of détente, relived in the Reagan-Gorbachev relationship of the 1980’s, between our country, China, and Russia would benefit our country and our world by establishing laws controlling nuclear weapons. This would push the contest between democratic forms of government and authoritarian democracy — represented by authoritarian leaders — in the non-military sphere and therefore control military budgets around the world.

Jason Sibert worked for the Suburban Journals in the St. Louis area for over a decade and is currently executive director of the Peace Economy Project in St. Louis, Mo. Email jasonsibert@hotmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2019

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