Inside the Arms Control Association
July 2024
Today, we are facing a growing and unprecedented array of nuclear weapons dangers. At the same time, this year’s presidential election is also unprecedented, unpredictable, and extremely consequential.
History shows that U.S. presidential leadership is one of the most important factors determining whether the nuclear danger will rise or fall. Perhaps the most fundamental responsibility of a U.S. president, who has the sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons, is to avoid events that could lead to a nuclear war.
Unfortunately, mainstream campaign news coverage has paid scant attention to how the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, and the Democratic Party nominee plan to address one of, if not the, most serious threats to U.S. and international security. That needs to change.
Given what is at stake, the candidates’ approaches to the nuclear weapons threat deserve more scrutiny.
The Arms Control Association and Arms Control Today will, in our capacity as a nonpartisan public education organization, be working hard to highlight the nuclear weapons challenges that U.S. presidential and congressional candidates must responsibly address.
American voters are increasingly aware and, according to recent polling, deeply concerned about nuclear weapons dangers. A 2024 national opinion survey found that a majority of Americans believe that nuclear weapons make the world more dangerous. Overall, just 13 percent think nuclear weapons are making the world a safer place, while 63 percent think the opposite, and 14 percent say neither.
Another challenge: unless the next U.S. president can productively engage Russia and China on nuclear risk reduction and arms control measures, however, we could see all three states engaging in an unconstrained and very dangerous nuclear arms race.
Ominously, some congressional leaders and members of the nuclear weapons establishment are already proposing a major buildup of deployed U.S. nuclear forces for the first time in more than three decades.
The Heritage Foundation in its now infamous Project 2025 report calls for ramping up the U.S. nuclear modernization program by adding more nuclear warheads to missiles, fielding more nuclear-capable bombers, and deploying nuclear-armed cruise missiles at sea.
As I wrote in the lead article of the July/August issue of Arms Control Today, such an expansion would be unnecessary, counterproductive, and prohibitively expensive. More nuclear weapons will not enhance deterrence capabilities or improve U.S. security. Nuclear arms control offers the most effective, durable, and responsible path to reduce the number, role, and risks of nuclear weapons.
Another public opinion survey conducted by the polling company IPSOS in the fall of 2023 shows that the next president would have strong U.S. popular support for nuclear arms control efforts with Russia and China. The poll indicated that 86% of respondents support nuclear arms control with Russia, with only 14% opposed; it also showed 88% support arms control with China, with only 12% opposing.How exactly the winner of the 2024 race will take into account public attitudes on nuclear weapons and handle the evolving array of nuclear weapons-related challenges is difficult to forecast.
But, as I explain in an ACA Issue Brief published just before the Biden-Trump debate last month, the records and policies of the Biden-Harris administration and the Trump first term offer some clues.
No matter what the results of the U.S. election may be, we will all need to continue to work to prevent the breakdown moment when guardrails against nuclear catastrophe evaporate and be prepared to seize the breakthrough moment, when we can advance again in the direction of the security of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Our work depends on your support. Your contributions now—whether in time, or money, or analysis, or activism—will be crucial as we head toward that moment.
ACA Slams Pentagon Plans for Troubled ICBM Program
On July 9, the Department of Defense announced the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program will continue despite a massive projected 81% cost overrun. The Pentagon claims the Sentinel program will cost taxpayers $141 billion to build, up from an original estimate of $78 billion in 2020. The program is behind schedule and costs will likely grow further still.
The announcement followed a mandatory review of the program as required by the Nunn-McCurdy Act, which is designed to halt out-of-control military program costs. The Pentagon review of the program, however, claims that there are no alternatives to the Sentinel program that could meet their "requirements" for 400 missiles through the year 2070 and said it will go forward with the program.
In response, we issued a highly critical statement and will continue to press for more realistic and common-sense alternatives.
“The department’s decision fits a pattern of willful avoidance of alternatives, dating back to the origins of the Sentinel ICBM program,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "The Sentinel missile program is not only too costly, but it is redundant and dangerous."
“Rather than rush ahead, the Pentagon and the Congress should pause the Sentinel program and de-emphasize the role of ICBMs, seriously evaluate the option of extending the life of a portion of the current Minuteman III ICBM force at a lower cost, and seek ways to create momentum for deeper mutual reductions in the bloated U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals,” said ACA senior policy analyst Xiaodon Liang.
Containing Iran in the Absence of the JCPOA
Preventing a nuclear-armed Iran remains a top U.S. security objective. But as our director for nonproliferation policy, Kelsey Davenport, notes in our latest Policy White Paper, since former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the successful 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Tehran has accelerated its sensitive nuclear activities and it now has the capacity to produce a significant quantify of bomb-grade uranium within weeks.
In response, Davenport recommends in her paper, “Constraining Iran’s Nuclear Potential in the Absence of the JCPOA,“ that the United States needs to proactively pursue alternative frameworks for negotiating a longer-term nuclear deal, or series of deals, that take into account Iran’s nuclear advances and mitigate regional proliferation risks.
To stay on top of developments relating to Iran’s sensitive nuclear activities, see our latest “P4+1 and Iran Nuclear Deal Alert” and register for updates.
Rallying Support for Action on Disarmament at NPT Meeting
This week, ACA representatives will be in Geneva where diplomats from the states-parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) will gather for two weeks to discuss progress for implementation of the landmark 1968 treaty and share proposals on nonproliferation, disarmament, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The next major NPT Review Conference will take place in 2026.
While there, our two-person delegation will:
- Deliver a joint civil society statement to the plenary on “Breaking the Impasse on Disarmament and Implementing Article VI Obligations” organized by ACA and endorsed by more than 50 organizations and senior experts.
- Co-host, along with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons a networking meeting for nuclear disarmament campaigners, and
- Hold a briefing and panel discussion on “Action Steps to Implement Article VI of the NPT.”
For more on the dynamics of the upcoming NPT Preparatory Committee meeting, see the latest news reporting in the July/August issue of Arms Control Today: “States-Parties Prepare to Confront Challenges to NPT.”
Training the Next Generation
As part of ACA’s long-running efforts to train the next generation of nuclear experts and activists, this summer, Garrett Welch is assisting our team as our summer 2024 nuclear policy research intern. Garrett recently earned his Master's degree from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and previously was a policy and research intern for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
We are now accepting applications for our Fall 2024 internship term. The internship will be for 20 hours/week from Sept. 16, through Dec. 13, 2024, at a pay rate of $20 per hour. The intern may work either remotely or out of our Washington, D.C. office. The role will provide opportunities to track nuclear policy developments, activities, and events and write news content that informs ACA’s audiences through fact sheets, issue briefs, newsletters, and news stories in Arms Control Today.
Also, don’t miss the latest in our “New Voices” essay series in Arms Control Today, which is dedicated to providing young professionals and activists with an opportunity to contribute to the conversation on eliminating the threats posed by the world’s most dangerous weapons. See: “What College Students Know and Do Not Know About Nuclear Weapons,” by Alison Cartier, Juline Horan, and Molly Mullin.
CWC Coalition Hosts Workshops on the Future of the Regime
Last year the United States completed the verifiable elimination of the last of the world’s declared stockpile of chemical weapons, a major milestone in the decades-long effort to rid the world of chemical weapons. Nevertheless, the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention faces ongoing technical and political challenges including violations of the norm against CW use and maintaining a strong CWC inspectorate to verify compliance and hold violators accountable.
Earlier this month the CWC Coalition, which is hosted and supported by ACA, held two in-depth workshops bringing together two dozen leading experts from around the world focused on “The Future of the CWC” to explore these challenges and outline recommendations for the years ahead.
The result will be a summary report that we will present at the November meetings of CWC states-parties in The Hague. For more on the CWC Coalition, which is supported by grants from Global Affairs Canada and the German Federal Foreign Office, see: https://www.cwccoalition.org.
Approaches to Mitigating the Risks of Autonomy in Nuclear Weapons Systems
At ACA’s June 7 Annual Meeting, UN Secretary-General António Guterres argued that: “Until such time as [nuclear] weapons are eliminated, all countries must agree that any decision on nuclear use is made by humans, not machines or algorithms.” We agree.
Earlier in the year, Guterres also requested input from civil society experts on autonomous weapons systems (AWS) and ways to address the challenges and concerns they raise from humanitarian, legal, security, technological, and ethical perspectives.
In May, ACA’s policy team submitted our recommendations on how to mitigate the growing risk of the integration of autonomy with nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) systems, and the use of conventionally armed AWS to target and destabilize nuclear forces. Our “Submission on Autonomous Weapons Systems to the UN Secretary-General” is posted online.
ACA In the News
- Newsweek’s report on “Why China Doesn't Trust America's Nuclear Weapons Talks,” includes an extensive set of comments and analysis from Daryl Kimball, July 20.
- “Trump, as president, could launch a nuclear strike. This should scare you,” by Thomas Countryman and Alexander Vershbow, The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 19, 2024.
- Executive director Daryl Kimball spoke with VOA's Russian Service on the announcement that "U.S to deploy long range missiles in Germany" to demonstrate its commitment to NATO and European defense, July 11.
- Policy director Kelsey Davenport commented on how U.S. policymakers would respond as “Iran elects reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as president” on BBC, July 6.
- Kimball spoke with Newsweek as "Russia Threatens Nuclear Doctrine 'Amendments' amid Ukraine War," July 6.
- MSNBC cited Kimball's latest editorial in Arms Control Today in the story on how "Trump allies are peddling a catastrophic idea for U.S. nuclear weapon policy," July 6.
- The Independent (UK) cited ACA's reaction to the news that "Allies of Donald Trump are pushing for the first nuclear tests in three decades," July 5.
- On June 30, VOA’s Korea Service interviewed ACA Board Chair Tom Countryman on the causes of the growing nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula and how to manage them.
- Policy director Kelsey Davenport described Israeli deterrence signaling in The Progressive's article on "The Samson Option: Israel’s Plan to Nuke Its Opponents," June 24