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Putin Says 'First Batch' of Russian Nuclear Warheads Deployed in Belarus
"No matter what the political climate, Russia must work with the United States to control the risk that nuclear weapons will be used—and to eliminate them," says Global Zero. "Anything less means disaster for everyone."
Jun 16, 2023
Nearly 16 months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow has begun deploying "tactical" nuclear weapons in Belarus, confirming recent remarks from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
In what the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) called an "extremely dangerous escalation" that "risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences," Putin had announced the plan in late March.
"We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia, both that are three times more powerful than the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Lukashenko told a Russian state television channel earlier this week, referencing the 1945 U.S. bombing of the Japanese cities. "Up to a million people would die immediately if, God forbid, this weapon were used."
Putin, who has said that Moscow will retain control over the Russian nukes in Belarus, addressed the deployment on Friday while speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
"As you know, we held talks with our union state, with President Lukashenko on deploying part of these tactical weapons to Belarusian territory," Putin said. "It has happened—the first nuclear warheads have been delivered to Belarusian territory. This is the first batch. We will complete this work by the end of this year."
In response to a question about the deployment, the Russian leader reportedly said that "this is a deterrence measure."
According to the BBC: "When asked by the forum's moderator about the possibility of using those weapons, he replied: 'Why should we threaten the whole world? I have already said that the use of extreme measures is possible in case there is a danger to Russian statehood.'"
Writing Friday for Responsible Statecraft, Greg Lane, a former senior executive in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Operations, argued that "Russia's goals here appear more political than military."
"First, and as it relates to the war in the Ukraine, he wants to again highlight his own unpredictability, specifically his willingness to escalate the conflict if certain red lines are crossed," Lane wrote. "Highlighting the possibility of a nuclear exchange over the war in the Ukraine also serves a second political goal for Moscow, which is to find and exploit wedge issues that can be used to influence European public opinion."
"Perhaps most importantly for the Kremlin, however, is that the re-stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus marks real and measurable progress in Putin's effort to reconstitute a 'Greater Russia,'" Lane added. "With the debacle of his so-called 'special military operation' and the now extreme improbability that the Ukrainians would ever voluntarily join such a union, the Russian president needs to be able to identify some success in making Russia great again."
TASS reported that Russia's embassy in Washington D.C. said that Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov met with U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy on Friday and "topical issues of the bilateral agenda were discussed."
Asked about Putin's statements on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that "we'll continue to monitor the situation very closely and very carefully. We have no reason to adjust our own nuclear posture. We don't see any indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon."
Noting U.S. President Joe Biden's comments earlier this week about the American commitment to defending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Blinken stressed, "That is our north star and we're very focused on that."
"As for Belarus itself, this is just another example of Lukashenko making irresponsible, provocative choices to cede control of Belarus' sovereignty against the will of the Belarusian people," the top U.S. diplomat said.
Blinken's remarks aligned with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's Thursday response to Lukashenko announcing the arrival of Russian nukes.
According to The Associated Press, Stoltenberg told journalists in Brussels that "we are, of course, closely monitoring what Russia is doing. So far, we haven't seen any changes in the nuclear posture that requires any changes in our posture."
"Russia's nuclear rhetoric and messaging is reckless and dangerous... Russia must know that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," he added, noting that "Russia has invested heavily in new modern nuclear capabilities and also deployed more nuclear capabilities, including close to NATO borders, for instance, in the high north."
The AP pointed out that "Biden and his NATO counterparts are gathering for a summit on July 11-12 in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Belarus border."
Of the world's nine nuclear-armed nations, Russia has the largest stockpile, followed by the United States; the other seven countries have far fewer. None of them support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
"No matter what the political climate, Russia must work with the United States to control the risk that nuclear weapons will be used—and to eliminate them," Global Zero, a campaign to abolish nukes, tweeted Thursday. "Anything less means disaster for everyone."
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'Extremely Dangerous Escalation': Putin to Station Russian Nukes in Belarus
"Putin's nuclear provocations are dangerous and unacceptable. U.S. and NATO must resist calls to respond in kind and avoid injecting nuclear weapons deeper into this war," said Global Zero's Derek Johnson.
Mar 25, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on state television Saturday plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus—an escalation anti-war campaigners had been warning about and that alarmed disarmament advocates and experts.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) "condemns this extremely dangerous escalation which makes the use of nuclear weapons more likely," the group declared in a series of tweets.
"In the context of the war in Ukraine, the likelihood of miscalculation or misinterpretation is extremely high," ICAN added. "Sharing nuclear weapons makes the situation much worse and risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences."
"Sharing nuclear weapons makes the situation much worse and risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences."
The deployment decision comes 13 months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine and after the United Kingdom this week revealed plans to provide the invaded nation with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium (DU).
Putin said the U.K.'s announcement "probably served as a reason" why Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko agreed to the plan and argued that it won't violate Russia's international nonproliferation treaty obligations, according to a BBC translation.
As Reuters explained, "The Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed by the Soviet Union, says that no nuclear power can transfer nuclear weapons or technology to a nonnuclear power, but it does allow for the weapons to be deployed outside its borders but under its control—as with U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe."
The United States, which has the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal after Russia, "long ago deployed their nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies, NATO countries, in Europe," the Russian leader noted. "We are doing the same thing that they have been doing for decades."
Russia "will not hand over" nuclear arms to Belarus, Putin insisted, explaining that his country has already given its ally an Iskander missile complex that can be equipped with weapons, plans to start training crews in early April, and aims to complete construction of a special storage facility for the nukes by the beginning of July.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and in the five years that followed, nuclear weapons based in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine were transferred to Russia—where they have remained since.
"It's a very significant move," Nikolai Sokol, a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation, told Reuters of the deployment decision. "Russia had always been very proud that it had no nuclear weapons outside its territory. So, now, yes, they are changing that and it's a big change."
Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Nuclear Information Project, told Reuters that "this is part of Putin's game to try to intimidate NATO... because there is no military utility from doing this in Belarus as Russia has so many of these weapons and forces inside Russia."
Global Zero managing partner Derek Johnson said that "Putin's nuclear provocations are dangerous and unacceptable. U.S. and NATO must resist calls to respond in kind and avoid injecting nuclear weapons deeper into this war."
In addition to his nuclear announcement, Putin pointed out during the Saturday interview that Russia also has depleted uranium shells. As he put it: "I must say that certainly, Russia has something to respond. Without exaggeration, we have hundreds of thousands, namely hundreds of thousands of such shells. We are not using them now."
A U.K. Ministry of Defense official had confirmed earlier this week that "alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armor-piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium," which swiftly generated concerns about not only Russian nuclear threats but also public health and environmental impacts.
"DU shells have already been implicated in thousands of unnecessary deaths from cancer and other serious illnesses," stressed Kate Hudson, general secretary of the U.K.-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which has advocated for a moratorium on such arms. "Sending them into yet another war zone will not help the people of Ukraine."
This post has been updated with new comments from Derek Johnson.
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Biden Nuclear Posture Review Better Than Trump's But Not the Vision We Need
While the new document curbs some of the worst excesses of the former president, it lacks vision for world without atomic weapons.
Oct 31, 2022
Last week, the Biden administration released its long-awaited Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) as part of a suite of documents, along with the National Defense Strategy and the Missile Defense Review, outlining the administration's approach to national security and nuclear strategy.
The NPR, produced once per administration as a programmatic statement, was originally anticipated to be released early this year. However, eight months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has included repeated threats of nuclear use, the strategic landscape has altered considerably.
The introductory letter to the documents frames ours as a "decisive decade." Yet, likely as a result of the instability caused by the Ukraine invasion and its uncertain outcome, their horizons are relatively short.
The NPR itself, at 28 pages, is about a third as long as that produced by the Obama administration in 2010 and, beyond a clear framing of China and Russia as the foils for U.S. nuclear policy, contains relatively little in the way of detailed analysis of the global political environment to contextualize its positions. Even if the assertion that China "likely intends to possess at least 1,000 deliverable warheads by the end of the decade" proves true, it would still fall far short of U.S. and Russian arsenals.
Gone is the open aggression of the Trump NPR and the sense that the person behind the keyboard had one hand on the big red button as they type. Rather, the Biden NPR throws several carefully worded bones to those who would have the United States honor its obligation to pursue disarmament under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, affirming the overarching goal of "a world without nuclear weapons."
From a disarmament perspective, however, this measured approach almost makes it harder to realize how much has been lost, and how much ground has been ceded. Some of the worst excesses of the previous administration have been scaled back -- most significantly, it calls to eliminate the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile and retire the B-83 gravity bomb -- and the Review explicitly calls for a reduced role for nuclear weapons in the overall U.S. national security strategy.
Yet it bears the effects of a broad shift in perception around nuclear use, driven in part by a concerted campaign by the defense industry and its allies in government and the think tank world to popularize the notion of so-called "low-yield," more "usable" nuclear weapons, as well as relatively frequent threats of nuclear use from world leaders in recent years.
In the face of advocates' calls for a "no first use" policy, or a lesser "sole purpose" declaration, the NPR leaves the door open for nuclear use, attempting to portray such a catastrophic eventuality as fundamentally manageable: such a decision might be taken in order to ensure "the lowest level of damage possible on the best achievable terms for the United States and its Allies and partners." Battlefield nuclear use is portrayed as a possible unfortunate reality of contemporary warfare, and the challenge seems to be, not to do everything in our power to make sure that a nuclear weapon is never again used, but instead to develop "resilience" in the face of their eventual "limited" use.
Additionally, sweeping aside the fact that the president still is the only person empowered to launch U.S. nuclear weapons, it paints broader decision-making processes around nuclear policy as collective, taken with concern for the demands of international law and the safety of civilians. These statements should be viewed with extreme skepticism by anyone familiar with how nuclear weapons actually work. Indeed, reading the NPR, it seems that its authors consider nuclear weapons use -- if not a resulting all-out nuclear war -- very possible, if not likely.
The sections on force modernization bear out this impression. Though the Review nods to the possibility of uncontrolled escalation involving the U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force, it counters and minimizes arguments that these weapons are destabilizing and unnecessary, albeit in rather vague terms. Replacement of Minuteman III ICBMs with the $300 billion Sentinel (previously known as the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent or GBSD) program, is presented unequivocally as necessary and cost-effective in the programmatic findings of the NPR.
Taking in the document as a whole, the picture is still grimmer. Trump-era resistance to the militarization of space has receded, and the focus on space is now a central focus of strategic thinking and technological development. Negative effects of climate change are acknowledged and accepted as inevitable, and the government's effort to manage it will heavily rely on armed authorities at the military and civilian level.
Missile defense, which has been shown over and over again to be unable to reliably perform its mission of stopping incoming missile attacks, continues to command many billions of dollars of federal investment every year. Against calls for reducing defense spending, which have grown louder at the grassroots level and in Congress, the NPR seems to suggest that the United States will remain more or less committed to the status quo for "the foreseeable future" -- also its stated timeline for maintaining U.S. nuclear weapons.
So, what will happen in Biden's "decisive decade" and what would have to change to allow for real progress on disarmament? Besides an end to Russia's war in Ukraine, the report lays out a few general conditions: "enduring improvements in the security environment, a commitment to verifiable arms control among the major nuclear powers, further progress in developing non-nuclear capabilities, and an assessment of how nuclear-armed competitors and adversaries may react."
However, there are still credible alternatives to maintaining the "nuclear triad" of land-, sea- and air-based missiles -- including eliminating land-based missiles -- that could substantially reduce the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and rein in defense spending without compromising security. In a country where defense spending continues to trump all other priorities, with increasingly obvious negative consequences for human and societal health, the Nuclear Posture Review's vocal commitment to "resilience" above all should deeply concern the public given the continued lack of investment in human security.
Biden has pulled back from his campaign promises of transformative steps toward arms control and disarmament -- now is the time for advocates to demand the administration make good on its reaffirmed commitment to a world without nuclear weapons.
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Dems Urge Biden to 'Reduce Nuclear Weapons Risks' in Summit With Chinese President
"China's test of an orbital bombardment system is only a 'Sputnik moment' if we let it result in a new arms race," lawmakers say, highlighting the United States' massive stockpile.
Nov 04, 2021
Four congressional Democrats on Thursday urged U.S. President Joe Biden to make reducing nuclear weapons risks a "top priority" in his upcoming virtual summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, emphasizing the important context of the United States' huge arsenal.
The message to Biden from Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) as well as Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and John Garamendi (D-Calif.) came a day after the Pentagon projected that China's cache of deliverable nuclear warheads could increase fivefold to 1,000 by 2030.
"The nuclear weapons stockpiles of both the United States and Russia are several times [the] size of China, even with the latest Department of Defense projection," notes the letter from the four Democrats, who co-chair the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group.
"Nonetheless, China's latest test of a hypersonic glide weapon, its reported construction of 250 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) silos, and its refusal to date to engage in nuclear risk reduction talks," the letter adds, "are a mounting national security concern."
Though Biden and Xi have exchanged verbal blows in recent days over the Chinese leader's decision to skip the ongoing COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, the lawmakers still pointed to coordination on the climate emergency as a potential model.
"We applaud your administration's efforts to seek cooperation with Beijing on the existential threats posed by the climate crisis," says the letter. "We hope that you will extend those conversations to include seeking cooperation on the existential threat of nuclear weapons. At your upcoming virtual bilateral meeting with Xi, we ask that you propose practical steps to reduce nuclear weapons risks with China."
After acknowledging some progress made on the nuclear front, the letter proposes five steps Biden could take to enhance mutual security:
- Invite China, and other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, to observe a United States-Russia New START Treaty on-site inspection;
- Seek negotiations toward a treaty or agreement that stops the additional production of fissile material;
- Seek an agreement with China that allows for advance notifications of ballistic missile launches, through the Hague Code of Conduct;
- Seek an agreement not to target or interfere in nuclear command, control, and communications (commonly referred to as "NC3") infrastructure; and
- Seek an agreement on transparency measures or verifiable limits, or both, on hypersonic cruise missiles and glide vehicles that are mounted on ballistic missiles.
"These steps will reduce the risk of a nuclear conflict with China, but won't eliminate it," the letter warns Biden. "We urge your administration, in its Integrated National Defense Strategy, to prioritize restraint and to work with allies and partners to call on China to maintain its minimum deterrent posture."
"China's test of an orbital bombardment system is only a 'Sputnik moment' if we let it result in a new arms race," the letter concludes. "Through your leadership and diplomacy we can ensure that does not happen."
Reporting on the lawmakers' letter Thursday, Politico's "National Security Daily" newsletter noted:
We asked the White House if Biden planned to raise his nuclear concerns during his superpower FaceTime with Xi. A senior administration official wouldn't preview the agenda, but did say "the virtual bilateral meeting is part of our efforts to responsibly manage the competition between our countries, and that includes ensuring the competition does not veer into conflict, so you can expect that they'd discuss a number of issues in that area."
Calls for direct nuclear talks between Washington and Beijing have mounted throughout the year. In a July statement, Global Zero--an international movement for the elimination of all nuclear weapons--also warned of the growing risk of a nuclear arms race.
"The one firm lesson of the Cold War arms race is that there's no way to build up to stability or security. And yet today, in every region of the world, governments ignore this warning as they chase the false security of nuclear deterrence and overmatch," said Global Zero CEO Dereck Johnson.
"This is not just a China problem," he said. "The United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and others are all taking significant steps to expand, enhance, or further operationalize their nuclear arsenals. Across the board, nuclear-armed powers are moving in the wrong direction and relying increasingly on these weapons as the basis for their security."
Related Content
UN Chief Warns Humanity Is 'Unacceptably Close to Nuclear Annihilation'
In mid-June, Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin jointly reaffirmed that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought." Two weeks later, Putin and Xi similarly said that they "are firmly convinced that nuclear war has no winners and should never be unleashed."
According to Johnson, "Every effort must be made to universalize this truth among all nuclear-armed states." All five of the U.N. Security Council's permanent members--China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States--are known to have nuclear weapons, along with India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan.
Peace campaigners continue to pressure leaders of all countries, including nuclear-armed states, to support the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which bans such armaments under international law and entered into force in January.
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'Makes Us All Safer': Biden Admin Announces Five-Year Extension of New START Nuclear Treaty With Russia
"This welcome step is the start of our efforts to pursue effective arms control that lowers the risks of war and helps prevent arms races," said Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Feb 02, 2021
In a widely praised move, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday formally announced a five-year extension of the last existing nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, just two days before the pact was set to expire.
"Extending the New START treaty makes the United States, U.S. allies and partners, and the world safer," Blinken said. "An unconstrained nuclear competition would endanger us all."
"The treaty is an essential guardrail against nuclear arms-racing that imposes equal limits on U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons."
--Derek Johnson, Global Zero
The New START treaty--the only remaining pact regulating the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world--caps the number of offensively deployed nuclear weapons that each country is allowed to have at 1,550 warheads and 700 missiles and bombers.
"This is good news," tweeted Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). "If New START had not been extended, it could have been the end of decades of arms control diplomacy between the U.S. and Russia."
Murphy added that former President Donald Trump "spent four years diddling on this issue," leaving President Joe Biden with just two weeks to negotiate an extension.
Biden reached out to Moscow on January 21 with an offer to extend the treaty, which was set to expire on February 5, as Common Dreams reported at the time.
The State Department's announcement of the five-year extension comes one week after the Russian parliament voted unanimously to extend the treaty, Politico reported Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill prolonging the agreement last Friday.
Derek Johnson, chief executive officer of Global Zero, an international movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons, said in a statement last month that "the treaty is an essential guardrail against nuclear arms-racing that imposes equal limits on U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons. Both countries are in full compliance with the agreement, and its intrusive verification provisions ensure neither side can cheat without detection."
"Unless you're a defense contractor," Johnson added, "this is good news for everyone."
Blinken called the extension a "welcome step" and "the start of our efforts to pursue effective arms control that lowers the risks of war and helps prevent arms races."
The U.S. "will also pursue arms control to reduce the dangers from China's modern and growing nuclear arsenal," the secretary of state added. "The United States is committed to effective arms control that enhances stability, transparency, and predictability while reducing the risks of costly, dangerous arms races."
Acknowledging that the extension of the New START treaty "makes us all safer," Paul Kawika Martin, senior director for policy and political affairs at Peace Action, called on the Biden administration to go further by reducing national spending on nuclear weapons, which increased under Trump.
"We all wonder, will the new administration's budget reduce Trump's skyrocketing nuclear weapons spending at amounts that could fund several Departments of State?" Martin asked in a statement last month.
In a tweet last week, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) welcomed the fact that the treaty would be extended and added, "We now need more bold action to remove the 'nuclear sword of Damocles' that hangs over us all."
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'Today Marks a Countdown to Nuclear Chaos': Trump Urged to Extend Key Treaty With Russia
"The collapse of New START would be a global disaster—and can be avoided at the stroke of a pen."
Feb 04, 2020
With just a year until the last remaining nuclear treaty between the United States and Russia expires, the Global Zero movement on Wednesday urged U.S. President Donald Trump to extend the pact and warned of the potential consequences if it ends.
"It would be gross negligence and the height of stupidity to let this moment pass."
--Derek Johnson, Global Zero
"Today marks a countdown to nuclear chaos," declared Derek Johnson, executive director of the international Global Zero movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The movement's statement noted that since Trump took office in 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to extend New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) at least twice, but Trump has demurred.
Johnson explained that "if Donald Trump lets New START expire, there will be no restraint, no inspection, no verification whatsoever of American and Russian nuclear activities for the first time since 1972. Both nations will be free to build even more nuclear weapons, with no obligation to declare, display, or control any of them. It will be a return to the most dangerous days of the Cold War, and the security of the entire planet hangs in the balance."
"The collapse of New START would be a global disaster--and can be avoided at the stroke of a pen," he said. "New START must be extended. No delays, no conditions. It's time to get this done."
Global Zero is circulating a petition that encourages both Trump and Putin to extend the treaty:
The petition acknowledges that another deal between the United States and Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, recently collapsed. Despite warnings from nuclear experts and peace advocates, Trump suspended the Cold War-era treaty in February 2019 and formally withdrew six months later. Those moves drew greater international attention to the upcoming expiration of New START, signed by former President Barack Obama in 2010.
Johnson argued Wednesday that extending New START is in the best interest of both countries and the international community, and that those who want to let the agreement expire are advocating for a more dangerous world:
Nuclear weapons policy can be complex, and can require months or years to sort out. But this is not one of those times. Extending New START is the obvious choice and easy to do. The treaty has a proven record of success. Extension is in the best interests of the United States, Russia, and the world. That's why it enjoys overwhelming political and military support, including from the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral (ret.) Michael Mullen, and former head of U.S. Strategic Command General (ret.) James Cartwright.
Opponents of New START operate in a Cold War time warp where zero-sum thinking is the norm. It's inconceivable to them that what's good for America might also be good for Russia. They downplay the inherent risks of nuclear weapons and take as a matter of faith that deterrence is the only guarantee of security, mistakes will never be made, crises will always be controlled. They have lost sight of the wisdom affirmed by Gorbachev and Reagan that 'a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.' This is exactly the arrogance that drove the massive build-up of nuclear weapons in the 20th century and took us to the brink of extinction. We cannot allow the Trump administration to drag us back to those dark days.
We know that Russia and the United States are complying with New START, and we know it can continue to work for years to come. We tempt fate if we allow the treaty to expire, or even let its future remain uncertain as we are now. There is no way to know what might affect the relationship between the U.S. and Russia in the weeks and months to come.
While the U.S. has continued to comply with the pact during his presidency, Trump "has expressed contradictory and erratic views about nuclear weapons and our nuclear relationship with Russia," Arms Control Association executive director Daryl Kimball wrote for Just Security in December 2019. "For nearly two years, Trump and his national security team have dithered on an interagency review that would consider whether to begin talks with Russia to extend the New START."
Both Kimball and Johnson made the case that rather than letting New START expire, Trump should extend the deal and then begin discussions for the more ambitious agreement he has claimed to be seeking.
"President Trump says he wants to include China in future nuclear arms control agreements, and to ensure all Russian systems are covered by such agreements," Johnson explained. "These are worthy goals, but they won't happen unless the current system of restraint and verification is maintained and strengthened. Extending New START is the surest path to achieving what the president says he wants."
"Trump can secure New START through 2026 and lay the groundwork for a more ambitious agenda, one that draws in China and other nuclear-armed states," he added. "It would be gross negligence and the height of stupidity to let this moment pass."
Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) also used the one-year deadline on Wednesday to warn that "the administration must negotiate an extension for New START this year, or we risk a 21st-century nuclear arms race." Casey shared his concerns in a tweet, linking to a letter he and 23 other senators sent Trump in April 2019 urging him to extend the pact.
Though not a signatory to her colleagues' letter, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) also took to Twitter Wednesday to pressure Trump to extend the treaty.
The comments from lawmakers and Johnson on Wednesday came in the wake of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' decision last month to set the Doomsday Clock--a decades-old symbol for potential global catastrophe--at 100 seconds to midnight based on the threats posed by "two simultaneous existential dangers--nuclear war and climate change--that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society's ability to respond."
As Common Dreams reported, that is the closest that the clock has been to midnight since it was launched in 1947--signaling to the world that, in the words of Bulletin president and CEO Rachel Bronson, "we now face a true emergency--an absolutely unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for error or further delay." The Bulletin's recommendations included extending the treaty.
The fresh calls for Trump to immediately extend New START also came just a day after the Pentagon confirmed that, as DefenseNews reported, "a new nuclear warhead requested, designed, and produced under the Trump administration, has been deployed aboard a nuclear submarine." The deployment was first revealed by the Federation of American Scientists on Jan. 30.
U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood claimed Tuesday that the deployment "strengthens deterrence and provides the United States a prompt, more survivable low-yield strategic weapon; supports our commitment to extended deterrence; and demonstrates to potential adversaries that there is no advantage to limited nuclear employment because the United States can credibly and decisively respond to any threat scenario."
However, arms experts--including Global Zero co-founder Bruce Blair, who testified against the weapon to Congress last year--were not enthusiastic about the new "low yield" nuclear weapons and challenged the narrative that such a weapon is more "usable" than those which are more powerful.
"We must not delude ourselves into thinking lower-yield nukes are more usable in a conflict," Blair told the Associated Press. "Any use of this sea-based weapon--either first or second--will risk stoking the flames of conflict and escalating to all-out nuclear war. A wiser response to an enemy's use of one or two low-yield nukes would be to refrain from nuclear escalation while unleashing America's ferocious and decisive conventional juggernaut."
Arms Control Association's Kimball wrote for Just Security Wednesday that "the administration's stated rationale for the new weapon, a modified, lower-yield nuclear warhead installed on Trident D-5 submarine-launched strategic ballistic missiles, is deeply flawed, and the decision to field the device only heightens the danger of escalation."
"The belief that a nuclear conflict would be 'limited' and could be controlled is extremely dangerous," he continued, pushing back against Rood's statement from Tuesday. "Political and military leaders must recognize even so-called 'limited' nuclear use puts their national survival at risk."
Kimball also reiterated the importance of extending the existing treaty, concluding that "without New START, and with the pursuit of new nuclear weapons capabilities on both sides, the risk of all-out nuclear arms competition will only grow."
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Realizing Worst Fears of Peace Groups, Trump's Nuclear Posture Review Urges Expanded Use of World's Deadliest Weapons
"Who let Dr. Strangelove write the Nuclear Posture Review?"
Feb 02, 2018
The Pentagon's official outline for its use of nuclear force was denounced as "radical" and "extreme" by prominent anti-nuclear weapons groups when it was released Friday afternoon--confirming peace advocates' worst fears that the Trump administration would seek to expand the use of nuclear force.
"Who in their right mind thinks we should expand the list of scenarios in which we might launch nuclear weapons?" asked Peace Action in a statement. "Who let Dr. Strangelove write the Nuclear Posture Review?"
The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) calls for the development of smaller warheads that the military believes would be seen as more "usable" against other nations.
"The risk of use for nuclear weapons has always been unacceptably high. The new Trump Nuclear Doctrine is to deliberately increase that risk."--Beatrice Fihn, ICAN
"In support of a strong and credible nuclear deterrent, the United States must...maintain a nuclear force with a diverse, flexible range of nuclear yield and delivery modes that are ready, capable, and credible," reads the report, which serves as the first updated document the U.S. has released regarding its perceived nuclear threats since 2010.
In addition to "diversifying" its nuclear arsenal, the Pentagon notes that it will seek to "expand the range of credible U.S. options for responding to nuclear or non-nuclear strategic attack," raising concerns that President Donald Trump will argue for the use of nuclear force as a deterrent--a significant departure from previous administrations which saw nuclear weapons as an option only for retaliation.
"The risk of use for nuclear weapons has always been unacceptably high," said Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). "The new Trump Nuclear Doctrine is to deliberately increase that risk. It is an all-out attempt to take nuclear weapons out of the silos and onto the battlefield. This policy is a shift from one where the use of nuclear weapons is possible to one where the use of nuclear weapons is likely."
Derek Johnson, head of Global Zero, called the NPR "a radical plan written by extreme elements and nuclear ideologues in Trump's inner circle who believe nuclear weapons are a wonder drug that can solve our national security challenges."
"Trump's insistence that we need more and better weapons is already spurring countries to follow in his footsteps," he added. "Nuclear arms-racing is a steep and slippery slope; we'd do well to learn the lessons of the former Soviet Union, whose collapse was accelerated by its unsustainable nuclear ambitions."
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