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nuclear-news-list@googlegroups.comSubject: Smith aims to scrap Trump’s nuclear weapons policy
Smith aims to scrap Trump’s nuclear weapons policy
By: Joe Gould
https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2018/11/14/smith-aims-to-scrap-trumps-nuclear-weapons-policy/Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., is set to become the next chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee. (Cliff Owen/AP)
WASHINGTON — Rep. Adam Smith — set to become the next chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee in the new Congress — and other
Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday they hope to use their party’s
takeover of the House to check the Trump administration’s expansive
policies toward nuclear weapons.
Speaking at an event sponsored by the Ploughshares Fund, an
anti-nuclear weapons group, Smith said he wants to see a redo of the
Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, to continue
multilateral nuclear pacts and to advance a no-first-use policy toward
nuclear weapons for the United States.
Smith also reiterated he wants a ban on a new low-yield
submarine-launched nuclear weapon, a version of the W76-1 warhead for
the Navy’s Trident II D5 ballistic missile, dubbed the W76-2. He
introduced a bill to that effect in September.
It’s a tall order. In the House, where Democrats have picked up 34 to
40 seats, Smith’s ambitious proposals are likelier to become part of
the next annual defense policy bill. However, those proposals would
have a rougher road in negotiations with the GOP-led Senate Armed
Services Committee; on the Senate floor, where GOP holds a majority;
and in the Oval Office, where President Donald Trump wields the veto
pen.
“Fundamentally what I’m hoping what we can do moving forward is reset
our policy on nuclear weapons,” said Smith, D-Wash., adding that it
would be one of his top goals as chairman in the coming Congress.
Two Democrats and senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey,
expressed similar sentiments at Wednesday’s event.
A ‘crisis of national security’: New report to Congress sounds alarm
America’s military superiority has “eroded to a dangerous degree,”
leaving the U.S. in crisis if faced with more than one conflict at
once, a new congressionally-mandated report concluded.
By: Aaron Mehta
Ploughshares President Joe Cirincione was upbeat a week after
Democrats won control of the House and hoped the organization could
“test out new ideas” in the new Congress to introduce into the 2020
presidential elections. Cirincione condemned the emergence of “new Dr.
Strangeloves” under the Trump administration, which has flirted with
withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the
New START Treaty.
For his part, Smith has promised to rein in nuclear spending and
favors a more modest and sensible approach to nuclear weapons, as a
credible deterrent and not as an overwhelming force designed to win a
nuclear war.
But he also hoped to temper expectations for the room full of
nonproliferation advocates. For one, he does not categorically oppose
nuclear weapons.
“We need a different president. We could pass whatever legislation we
want to pass, but executive power is enormous.” Smith said. “We need
to exercise oversight, we need to put him in check as much as we can.
But we shouldn’t kid ourselves about the reality.”
Asked the best way to negotiate to reduce nuclear weapons with a
GOP-controlled SASC, Smith said he could argue the trade-offs with
conventional weapons like ships and planes. "From a dollar standpoint,
you cannot have both,” he said.
The U.S. will need to spend $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years to
modernize and maintain its nuclear weapons, according to a 2017
Congressional Budget Office estimate.
Since then, the administration released its new Nuclear Posture
Review, which called for a continuation of sustainment and
modernization efforts within the Defense and Energy departments, while
also proposing a range of programmatic changes to the nuclear weapons
enterprise.
Among them, the administration has sought the W76-2 program, a
nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile, and to sustain the B83-1
bomb beyond its planned retirement date.
Here’s when all of America’s new nuclear warhead designs will be
active — and how much they’ll cost
America will be spending a lot on nuclear weapons in the coming years.
Here's what the Trump administration will get.
By: Aaron Mehta
The Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services
committees — Rep. Mac Thornberry and Sen. Jim Inhofe, respectively —
have been supportive of the Trump administration’s direction on
nuclear weapons since the NPR was released in February.
The NPR, Thornberry said then, “assures that our deterrent will be
taken seriously by our adversaries and allies alike, while keeping the
total cost below 7 percent of what the Department of Defense spends to
protect the country.”
On Wednesday, Markey said any withdrawal from the New START Treaty
should be put to a Senate vote, as should any move to provide Saudi
Arabia with plutonium and uranium. He also pledged to “fight tooth and
nail” to defund the development and deployment of low-yield nuclear
weapons.
“There is no such thing as a zero-calorie chocolate fudge sundae,”
Markey said, “and there is no such thing as a low-yield nuclear
weapon.”
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