Second Cold War Will Have No Winners, Except Arms Makers

By JASON SIBERT

Now that our country is in a second Cold War with the Russia/China orbit, our security depends on a realization of a fact — an unconstrained arms race has no real winners.

Writer Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association suggested that “leaders in Beijing, Moscow, and Washington need to engage in nuclear risk reduction talks, negotiate sensible and verifiable reductions of their arsenals, and refrain from building new destabilizing types of weapons rather than proceed down the dangerous path of unconstrained nuclear competition,” in his story “We Must Reject Calls for a US Nuclear Buildup.”

The final report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States suggested that, in response to Russia’s nuclear and military behavior and the expected growth of China’s nuclear arsenal, the U.S. arsenal should be an arsenal capable of balancing both Russia and China. The bipartisan commission, which consists of 12 national security insiders, advised that the United States “must be ready to deter and defeat” both adversaries in simultaneous wars, enhance its missile defense capabilities, and significantly bolster its nuclear weapons capabilities, including with new theater-range weapons.

Kimball rightly said that if there is a military conflict between nuclear-armed states, deterrence will have failed, and there will be no “winners.” Once nuclear weapons are used in a war between adversaries, there is no guarantee that a nuclear war could be contained. Any decision to increase the number of deployed US strategic nuclear weapons higher than the levels of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty might trigger a dangerous power balancing cycle. As Kimball stated, “It would not enhance deterrence in the face of China’s growing nuclear capabilities or Russia’s existing capabilities. In response, China could deploy more nuclear weapons on an even wider array of delivery systems, and Russia would seek to match any increases in the U.S. nuclear force.”

The U.S. nuclear arsenal includes roughly 1,800 deliverable strategic warheads, 150 substrategic warheads, and thousands of warheads in reserve. It goes beyond what is necessary to hold our adversaries in check. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that “the United States does not need to increase our nuclear forces to outnumber the combined total of our competitors to effectively deter them.”

Increasing the number of nuclear weapons or adding new types of nuclear weapons to the U.S. arsenal would also be very expensive - a Congressional Budget Office report in July estimated that the existing U.S. nuclear modernization program would cost a staggering $756 billion from 2023 to 2032. The commission’s recommendations, if pursued, would require hundreds of billions of dollars more.

The commission’s report generally supported US efforts to engage China and Russia in nuclear arms control, but it doesn’t pay enough attention to the importance of strong US leadership on arms control, as it’s a critical element of an effective national security strategy, said Kimball. The Biden administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review states that “mutual, verifiable nuclear arms control offers the most effective, durable, and responsible path to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our strategy and prevent their use in preventing an unconstrained nuclear arms race.”

According to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, the United States is ready to engage in nuclear arms control diplomacy with Russia and other nuclear-armed members of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. He emphasized that “rather than waiting to resolve all of our bilateral differences, the United States is ready to engage Russia now to manage nuclear risks and develop a post-2026 arms control framework.”

Kimball stated a desired plan for the Cold War currently raging: “New bilateral nuclear arms control limits with Russia may be difficult to achieve as long as Russia’s war on Ukraine rages. Even so, the United States could seek an executive agreement, or a reciprocal unilateral arrangement verified with national technical means of intelligence that commits Russia and the United States to respect New START’s central limits on strategic arsenals until a more permanent, comprehensive nuclear arms control arrangement is concluded.”

Let’s hope the Cold War between the US orbit and the Chinese/Russian orbit can be contained and that the conflict can be kept out of the nuclear realm via arms control.

Jason Sibert of St. Louis, Mo., is the Lead Writer of the Peace Economy Project.

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2024

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