It's hard to imagine an American leader boasting about his willingness to unleash a nuclear weapons race — and doing it on the phone with a stunned talk-show host sitting in her pajamas the day before Christmas Eve. But that's exactly what happened recently when President-elect Donald Trump reportedly told host Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe, "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all."
Trump was doubling down on a tweet he issued the day before that called for greatly strengthening and expanding U.S. nuclear capability until "the world comes to its senses regarding nukes." The tweet and the boast that followed left analysts scrambling for interpretations.
But whether the president-elect is engaging in some kind of negotiating ploy or invoking new strategy akin to the Reagan-era faceoff with the Soviets that produced more than enough bombs to "make the rubble bounce" (in the words of Winston Churchill) he misses the point entirely. The U.S. could and should reduce its nuclear arsenal — an idea Trump's own nominee for Defense secretary, James Mattis, has endorsed — and still hold enough powerful weapons to intimidate any adversary.
The basic idea behind a nuclear arsenal is the ability to annihilate any nation foolish enough to launch a first strike — thus deterring war. The U.S. at one time had more than 30,000 nuclear weapons and the Soviets 40,000. With the end of the Cold War, those arsenals have shrunk dramatically until today: The Americans and Russians now each have about 4,500 warheads deployed or stockpiled.
The biggest problem with the U.S. arsenal isn't that it needs to grow; it's that it's aging and needs to be modernized, a process President Obama already initiated and one that could cost a staggering trillion dollars over the next three decades. But that price tag is necessary only if the U.S. clings to a decades-old nuclear war plan that is obsolete — the nuclear triad.
It is the three ways that the U.S. can deliver nuclear weapons: by intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) buried in blast-hardened silos, heavy bombers and nuclear submarines patrolling the seas. During a political debate last year, Trump demonstrated he clearly didn't understand the concept.
All three means of delivery require updated hardware — new missiles, planes and submarines — at a cost that for decades would chew through a Pentagon budget that must also maintain a vast conventional force. But billions could be saved by streamlining the arsenal. Land-based ICBMs were once valued for their accuracy. But missiles launched from submarines are now just as precise. Mattis questioned the need for ICBMs during congressional testimony in 2015: "Is it time to reduce the triad to a diad, removing the land‐based missiles?"
Opposing view: Merits of Twitter
President-elect Donald Trump’s use of Twitter to bypass media curation has merits that are likely to make such communication characteristic of modern politics. Twitter offers little scope for elaboration, especially by a political figure who has not yet assumed office. Still, it is difficult to find any basis for the over-the-top emotional response by critics.
Let’s look at what the president-elect accomplished by his remarks, and assess the evidence that may have contributed to its timing.
On Dec. 21, the president-elect met with the nation’s senior military leadership, including officers with responsibility for managing our nuclear deterrent; he got an earful. On Dec. 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his senior military leadership for their annual review of Russia’s defense capabilities and future needs. Putin said, “It is necessary to strengthen the combat potential of the strategic nuclear forces.”
On Dec. 22, the president-elect responded to Putin: the U.S. “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes;” and reinforced his commitment to sustaining the credibility of the U.S. nuclear “umbrella” in saying the next day, “Let it be an arms race. … We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”
The president-elect’s remarks are consistent with 70 years of U.S. policy.
William Schneider served as undersecretary of State for President Reagan.
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