Resuming Nuclear Weapons Testing

 The U.S. government stopped its atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1962, shortly before signing the Partial Ban Treaty of 1962. And it halted its underground nuclear tests in 1992, signing the Comprehensive Test Treaty (CTBT) in 1996. Overall, it conducted 1,030 nuclear weapons test explosions, slightly more than half the global total.

A Washington 'Post' article reported that, in mid-May 2020, a meeting of senior U.S. officials from top national security agencies engaged in serious discussions about U.S. nuclear test resumption. According to one official, the idea was that test renewal would help pressure Russia and China into making concessions during future negotiations over nuclear weapons. 

Meanwhile, during a press briefing in Brussels, the administration's special envoy for arms control stated that the U.S. government "will maintain the ability to conduct nuclear tests if we see reason to do so." Although he said he was "not aware of any reason to test at this stage," he added that he would not "shut the door on it," either. "Why would we?"

Actually, there are numerous reasons why the resumption of U.S. nuclear weapons explosions is a terrible idea. If the government began atmospheric nuclear testing, it would violate the Partial Test Ban Treaty (which it ratified), as well as the CTBT (which it signed but, thanks to Republican Senate opposition, has not yet ratified). Even if U.S. nuclear tests were conducted underground and, thus, violated only the CTBT, the result would be a dramatic loss of credibility for the United States and a escalation of the nuclear arms racer. As Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, has remarked: "Other nuclear powers would undoubtedly seize the opportunity provided by a U.S. nuclear blast to engage in explosive tests of their own, which could help them perfect new and more dangerous types of warheads."

In addition, a considerable number of non-nuclear nations might decide that, given the U.S. government's failure to fulfill its treaty obligations, their adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty no longer made sense. Therefore, they would begin nuclear testing to facilitate developing their own nuclear weapons arsenals.

Furthermore, U.S. nuclear weapons explosions, whether in the atmosphere or underground, would have serious health and environmental consequences. Even underground U.S. tests have released large quantities of radioactive fallout, and the U.S. government is still dealing with the devastation they caused to communities near the testing sites. Furthermore, no method has been found for cleaning up the plutonium and other radionuclides that the tests have left underground.

Remarkably, there is no military necessity for nuclear test resumption. Not only does the U.S. government possess nearly half the world's nuclear weapons, which are quite sufficient to eradicate life on earth, but the occasionally-cited justification for testing -- that it is necessary to make sure U.S. weapons actually work -- is deeply flawed. The U.S. government has spent tens of billions of dollars on the Stockpile Stewardship Program, a wide range of diagnostic non-explosive tests, to ensure that its nuclear weapons are reliable. And every year the directors of the U.S. nuclear labs report that they are. (Source: Excerpts from an article in "Common Dreams," entitled "Making America Feared Again: The Trump Administration Considers Resuming Nuclear Weapons Testing," by Lawrence Wittner, a professor at Albany University).

Green New Deal for Nuclear Weapons

The Green New Deal is a progressive response to climate change, because it's a solution commensurate with the scale of the problem. It also has a coherent vision for its implementation that is equal parts optimistic and realistic. Meanwhile, the arms control community is largely trapped in damage-control mode, valiantly resisting President Trump's efforts to build dangerous new nuclear weapons and withdraw from critical nuclear agreements. Environmentalists are playing offense, while the nuclear community is playing defense.

Most progressives would argue that the answer is global zero -- a nuclear-free world. However, that is a long-term solution. Just as the Green New Deal does not immediately see a fossil-fuel-free world, a progressive nuclear policy cannot immediately see a nuclear-free one.

This does not mean, however, that progressives should be satisfied with occasional and incremental nuclear policy tweaks. By applying core principles of the Green New Deal -- international cooperation, reductions, transparency, and justice -- to nuclear weapons, progressives can begin to craft a plan that seeks to ambitiously and coherently restructure U.S. nuclear policy.

The Green New Deal aims to make the United States "the international leader on climate change." In similar fashion, a progressive nuclear policy should  seek to place the United States at the forefront of global disarmament efforts -- acting as an international leader in nuclear transparency, diplomacy, and reductions.

President Trump has foolishly undone earlier diplomatic successes by killing off successful arms control  treaties -- including the Iran  nuclear deal and the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned an entire missile class -- and threatening to terminate President Barack Obama's New START, the treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployed strategic nuclear arsenals. Nevertheless, a progressive nuclear policy should begin by emulating and expanding upon specific policies from not only the Obama era, but also from the Trump administration.

In a similar vein, the United States should immediately end its bellicose rhetoric toward Iran and attempt to pick up the shattered pieces of the Iran nuclear deal. These efforts might require targeted sanctions relief and economic inducements to convince participating countries to return to the table in good faith.

With regard to other nuclear powers -- particularly Russia and China -- the Trump administration has embraced great-power competition and gung-ho militaristic policies that will drag the world deeper into a renewed arms race. Instead, the United States should engage with Russia to reconstruct the INF Treaty, with both countries returning to compliance; immediately extend- and try to expand New START; pursue arrangements to reduce military tension, draw up a long-term plan to include China and other nuclear-armed states in the arms-control process; and finally ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. 

The Green New Deal suggests the U.S. technological expertise can be leveraged to help other countries achieve Green New Deals of their own.

"Since 2016, JP Morgan Chase --which received  $25 billion in TARP funds -- poured $196 billion into coal, oil, gas projects around the world. Wells Fargo was given the same amount and has invested in new fossil fuel infrastructure to the tune of $153 billion over the same period." [1]

"Any bank that wants a check from the federal government, for example, should have to stop financing the companies wrecking the earth. Bailout recipients should be subject to a strict carbon audit that examines the  lifetime emissions of projects they finance." "As of 2018, over ten [of the] largest insurers in the United States were holding just over $50 billion in fossil fuel investments. Just two of these companies disclosed that they considered climate change when making investment strategies."

"New procurement standards mandating zero-carbon fleets see unionized workers building tons of thousands of electric vehicles for agencies like the US postal services. That massive purchasing power will continue to swell; more plant and animal species will die off ; people will suffer hotter   summers, colder winters, longer hours, worse benefits, less pay, and minorities will feel their pain compounded by the weight of marginalization." "That brings us to where we are today, with a veneer of economic prosperity, but few guarantees for working people in the future."

Footnote" 
[1] Kate Aronoff, "A Green Bailout for the People," The Nation, November 25, 2019.     

The INF, New START, and CTBT Treaties

I. The INF Treaty
At the beginning of February 2019, the Trump administration announced that, in August the U.S. government will withdraw from the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty -- the historic agreement that had banned U.S.  Russian ground-launched cruise missiles -- and would proceed to develop such weapons. On the following day, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that, in response, his government was suspending its observance of the treaty and would build the kinds of nuclear missiles that the INF treaty had outlawed.

II. The New START Treaty
The next nuclear disarmament agreement on the chopping block appears to be the 2010 New START Treaty, which reduces the U.S. and Russian nuclear deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 each, limits U.S. and Russian delivery vehicles,  and provides for extensive inspection. If the treaty   is allowed to expire, it would be the first time since 1972 that there would be no nuclear arms control agreement between Russia and the United States.

One other key international agreement, which President Clinton signed -- but the U.S. Senate has never ratified -- is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Adopted with great fanfare in 1996 and backed by nearly all the world's nations, the CTBT bans nuclear weapons testing, a practice which has long served as a prerequisite for developing or upgrading nuclear arsenals.

Coincidentally, the U.S. and Russian governments, which possess approximately 93 percent of the world's nearly 14,000 nuclear warheads, have abandoned negotiations over controlling or eliminating them for the first time since the 1950s.

Instead of honoring the commitment under Article VI of the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to pursue negotiations for "cessation of the nuclear arms race" and for "nuclear disarmament," all nine nuclear powers are today modernizing their nuclear weapons production facilities and adding new, improved types of nuclear weapons to their arsenals. Over the next 30 years, its nuclear buildup will cost the United States alone an estimated $1,700,000,000,000.

Confirming the new interest in nuclear warfare, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in June 2019, posted a planning document on the Pentagon's website with a more upbeat appraisal of nuclear war-fighting than seen for many years by declaring that "using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability."

Of course, most Americans are not pining for this kind of approach to nuclear weapons. Indeed, a May 2019 opinion poll by the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland found that two-thirds of U.S. respondents favored remaining within the INF Treaty; 80% wanted to extend the New START Treaty;  about 60% supported "phasing out" U.S. ICBMs, and 75% backed legislation requiring congressional approval before the president could order a nuclear strike.

(The material above was excerpted from an article published by Larry Wittner in the July 28, 2019 "History News Network." Larry and I serve on the Peace Action board.)

III. Capitalizing on Selling Nukes to the Saudis
The following is an analysis by Don Leich of the New Jersey Peace Action board of the Team Trump's efforts to capitalize from selling nuke technology to the Saudis. It is an analysis of the 50-page report released by Rep. Elijah Cummings of his committee's oversight work.

1.) This was the brainchild of ex-convict/former Reagan National Security Adviser Bud McFarland, who partnered with former generals to create an "underground" consortium of backers for a new Mideast Marshall Plan. The goal is to launch Saudi Arabia ahead of Iran in nuclear energy capacity and yes, weapons, of course, and ultimately to be paid billions for it.

2.) Tom Barrack was the self appointed middleman for negotiations between the Trump administration and the key players in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar. During the campaign, Manafort and Gates played important roles getting Barrack's message through.

3.) Tom Barrack (Colony Capital), Leon Black (Apollo),  Steve Schwarzman (Blackstone) attempt to buy Westinghouse (the nuke reactor builder) with funding promised from Saudi Arabia, UAE. Note that each one of these hedge funds currently fiance or have financed both Trump and Kushner. The case can easily be made that Trump and Kushner are their designated partners who use their government positions and access to negotiate transnational financial deals that increase their hedge fund lenders' holdings and profits.

4.) Brookfield Asset Management won the bid to buy Westinghouse, and then it took over the Kushners' lease on 666 Fifth Avenue. Qatar put up this money through Brookfield.

5.) Everyone involved in this Saudi Nuke deal bypassed Congress and withheld information about the deal. The shared secret goal is to proliferate nuclear technology in the Middle East when all U.S. efforts to date have been to limit proliferation through treaties and agreements. There are very strict standards for transferring nuke technology, safeguarding, cooperating, etc. Saudi Arabia wants exemptions and Team Trump was (is) fine with that, and is still keeping negotiations secret from any congressional oversight.