DID ARMS CONTROL DISAPPEAR DURING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION?

DID ARMS CONTROL DISAPPEAR DURING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION?

By PeterHuessy, President, GeoStrategic Analysis, Senior Warrior Maven Columnist

Is arms control in danger of disappearing? The short answer is no. The key point is since 2002, under the 2002 Moscow Treaty and the New Start treaty of 2010, allowed deployed warheads for the USA and Russia have remained stable at roughly 2200.

The facts are clear: The United States over the past four years has remained committed to the 2010 New Start treaty despite its verification shortcomings and its lack of control over certain  strategic systems and all medium range/theater nuclear systems. It has been under four administrations since then end of the Cold War—Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, and Trump—and under the Moscow and New Start agreements that the Russians and the Chinese have modernized their nuclear forces to the point where Russia has completed 90% of its modernization and China as well on its way in the current decade to more than double its nuclear forces from 350 warheads to somewhere around 700-800.

So, the charge that only during the Trump administration has the Russian and Chinese nuclear force levels gotten worse is not substantiated by the facts. As is the equally erroneous charge that the Trump administration has eliminated arms control limits on Russian nuclear forces as the New START treaty has remain in force from 2017 through 2021.

Another current charge is that only under the Trump administration has there been a commitment to nuclear force modernization that is both unaffordable and unnecessary. This is also a charge that is without merit. The facts again are that it was during the Obama administration starting in December 2010 that the US Senate required that the New START treaty of 2010 be accompanied by a commitment to the full modernization of US nuclear forces, the nuclear command and control and the infrastructure on which the production and maintenance of our nuclear warheads depends.

Just as the Obama administration was committed to the Columbia class submarine, the GBSD new land-based ICBMs, and the B-21 bomber along with the long-range strike option or new cruise missile, so too has the Trump administration carried out the requirements of the 2010 nuclear posture review reflected in the 2018 nuclear posture review done under the Trump administration.

Some recent analyses charge that the nuclear modernization of the past 12 years under both the Obama administration and the Trump administration is totally unnecessary. But if allowed by the New Start treaty how could such deployments also be simultaneously unnecessary?