More than 40 Democrats in the House of Representatives have signed a letter to President Donald Trump calling for his administration to reinforce its role in arms control and bolster its nonproliferation efforts as it prepares a Nuclear Posture Review.
The June 13 letter, signed by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), John Garamendi (D-Calif.), and a host of others, encouraged the Trump administration to “Reaffirm U.S. leadership for reducing the role and number of U.S. nuclear weapons globally,” including by extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia.
The agreement, which requires each side by next February to cap its deployed nuclear arsenal at 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads and 700 long-range delivery systems, allows for a five-year treaty extension past its 2021 expiration. The administration, however, has not yet said whether it would pursue this route. Trump’s options include negotiating a follow-on agreement or abandoning it entirely.
The letter hailed New START for providing transparency into Russia’s nuclear forces, saying the treaty “provides stability and predictability that we don’t want to lose.”
It also called on the president to find opportunities to bring Russia back into compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which U.S. officials have determined Moscow is violating by flight testing and most recently deploying a ground-launched cruise missile.
The lawmakers urged the administration to fund nonproliferation efforts and international institutions involved in securing nuclear weapon-usable materials worldwide – such as the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In a comment that was likely to spark some optimism about this work, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Monday at a House Armed Services Committee hearing that “nuclear nonproliferation has not received enough attention over quite a few years.”
“We have a responsibility to re-energize the nuclear nonproliferation effort,” he said.
Meanwhile, the letter called for a “more cost-effective approach” to nuclear modernization; Democrats have long criticized the U.S. plan to spend $1 trillion over 30 years to upgrade each leg of the nuclear triad, which both the former and current administrations have supported.
“Instead of a one-for-one replacement of each existing nuclear weapons system, we encourage you to prioritize finite defense dollars on securing and hardening command and control systems,” the letter said, calling for a reconsideration of spending by the Energy and Defense departments.
Mattis said Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee that he would seek counsel from former officials and experts as part of his review of each leg of the nuclear triad; the names he gave could indicate an openness to reconsidering various aspects of U.S. nuclear policy.
An interagency team is developing the Nuclear Posture Review that will set U.S. policy for up to 10 years. Administration officials have said that each aspect of nuclear policy is under consideration as part of the review, which should be finalized and released by the end of the year.
“I’m also going back, and basically interrogating Dr. William Perry, and Ms. Rose Gottemoeller, and other experts to make certain that we start from a position of knowledge and we’re not rediscovering the wheel,” Mattis said.
Gottemoeller, deputy secretary general of NATO, previously served in the Obama administration as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, where she was chief U.S. negotiator for New START.
Perry served as defense secretary under former President Bill Clinton. He has been a vocal critic of the current nuclear modernization program, particularly the Long-Range Standoff nuclear cruise missile program, arguing that it is destabilizing because other states would not know upon launch whether the missile carried a conventional or nuclear warhead.
The signatories of the letter to Trump requested a response by July 13 with information on the administration’s approach to nuclear policy and the Nuclear Posture Review process.
