The Trump Administration’s Nuke Rap Sheet
Over this past year, the world witnessed the Trump Administration make several severely consequential missteps in the nuclear policy space.
For one, the president withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal despite Tehran’s certified compliance with its terms. Regarding North Korea, President Trump moved from throwing around insults to sitting down with dictator Kim Jong Un; unfortunately, he then failed to agree to any terms of substance while falsely claiming an end to the threat from Pyongyang. And finally, the Trump Administration also announced its intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia — a treaty that is flawed, but also crucial piece of the international arms control architecture.
All of these decisions undermined the United States’ historical leadership position in the nuclear arena, coloring us as ignorant on crucial nuclear issues and weakening our ability to head up effective negotiations as countries are less and less likely to take us at our word or assume continuity across domestic political change. Tensions have consequently heightened — especially considering that the Trump Administration started the year by promoting a greater use of nuclear weapons than ever before in the Nuclear Posture Review.
2019 will undeniably be another important year in arms control: Our allies are continuing efforts to keep the Iran nuclear deal intact despite hostility from the White House, President Trump will likely sit down with Kim again in the first few months of the year, and the administration will theoretically follow its established a timeline for withdrawing from the INF Treaty with Russia. As these events unfold, the president needs to take a backseat to experienced diplomatic negotiators and technical experts and put aside his insults in the name of securing important arms control agreements that will either make nuclear weapons nonexistent for some or limited for others. The lives of Americans depend on these agreements; the Trump Administration cannot continue discarding them.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
In May 2018, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, otherwise known as the Iran Deal. The P5+1 world powers — including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China — announced the deal with Tehran two years previously. According to the terms, Iran received modest and steady sanctions relief in return for compliance with agreed-upon limits to its nuclear activities and the toughest inspections regime in the history of arms control. Since that time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had confirmed Iranian compliance with the deal numerous times. The United States did as well, in April and again in July 2017.
In the months since U.S. withdrawal, the IAEA has continued to certify Iranian compliance with the deal, most recently this past November. The deal is accomplishing what it set out to do: More than 19,000 centrifuges and 95 percent of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile have been removed, and Iran’s only plutonium reactor has been disabled. Trust in Tehran’s word is not needed to verify these achievements because the best nuclear inspectors in the world, the IAEA, are on the ground, watching Iran’s uranium from the mines to the laboratories. Plus, in addition to the IAEA, the U.S. intelligence community and leading military figures in the Trump Administration — including Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford — have also all at various times assessed that Iran remained in compliance and was not building a nuclear weapon.
When breaking the deal, President Trump not only ignored the facts on the ground, but also sacrificed our moral and strategic highground and caused us to become less secure than before. After all, the United States led the tough but principled negotiations that culminated in the agreement, and stepping away has left us dependent on our allies to ensure that Tehran does not revert back to building up its nuclear arsenal. Plus, the United States has since re-imposed sanctions on Iran — most recently on Iranian oil in November — which has opened the door to economic friendly fire on those very countries who are keeping the deal alive.
President Trump made an entirely unforced error when choosing to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, leaving our allies with the power as we stand on the sidelines. In the next year, this cannot stand: The administration must cease attacks on the deal itself as well as the leadership of those who have picked up what we abandoned, and Congress must check any such aggression emanating from the White House and ensure we do not get drawn into another war in the Middle East, whether as a result of a foolhardy president, urging from hawkish advisors in the White House or allies abroad, or even intentional provocations from hardliners in Tehran.
DENUCLEARIZATION ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA
Amidst their threats and ultimate decision to withdraw from the Iran Deal, the Trump Administration has also contributed to a rollercoaster ride of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
In 2017, North Korea launched nearly 25 missiles, including 3 that can theoretically hit the United States and 1 that can potentially hit New York City or Washington, DC. Pyongyang also tested its largest, most powerful nuclear bomb — one that is seven times strong than the one dropped on Hiroshima. In other words, 2017 was a landmark year for North Korea’s weapons development and testing. All the while, President Trump called North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un “Little Rocket Man” on multiple occasions, as well as “a madman,” “a sick puppy,” and “short and fat.” While the administration implemented a slew of sanctions against North Korea that targeted financial institutions as well as industries such as fishing, the president himself was promising to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
2018 did not start on all that different of a tone, with the president responding to Kim’s comment about “a nuclear button on the desk in my office” by saying, “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” However, over the course of the next few weeks, as South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged dialogue, there did come a shift. In early March, South Korea extended an invitation to President Trump to attend a summit meeting with Kim, and the president immediately accepted without consulting advisors at the Departments of Defense or State. This invitation came after South and North Korea improved relations in light of the Winter Olympics in PeyongChang, which had, in turn, led to a historic meeting between Kim and President Moon at Panmunjom in April.
The following weeks were overcome with indecision: North Korea canceled a meeting with South Korea over joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises and threatened to also cancel the summit between Trump and Kim over U.S. demands that Pyongyang entirely abandon its nuclear arsenal. President Trump then responded by showing signs of wanting to withdraw from the summit himself, but then seemingly re-committed to the summit when he backed away from the demand for unilateral denuclearization. At the end of May, the president once again changed course — to the surprise of Moon, who had just visited the White House — when he ultimately decided to cancel the summit with Kim. Finally, a few days later, the White House announced that the summit in Singapore was back on.
The summit took place on 12 June 2018, during which President Trump pledged to end joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises — which he called “very provocative” and “inappropriate” — and received in return a vague promise from Kim that Pyongyang would shut down a missile testing site and supports the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. By and large, this summit proved to be a photo-op that put the United States and North Korea on an equal stage: The agreement signed by President Trump and Kim was non-binding and very non-specific — as we have clearly seen this past few months as very little progress towards denuclearization has been made. In fact, North Korea, while making empty gestures such as the detonation of test site, has reportedly moved ahead with developing its missile program at more than a dozen bases.
National Security Advisor John Bolton — who, it is important to note, advocated for an wildly dangerous pre-emptive military strike against Pyongyang — claims that President Trump and Kim will sit down for another summit within the first few months of the new year, though Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun has reportedly struggled to meet with his North Korean counterparts and any plans for that second summit show little sign of success. While the president has seemingly put aside childish insults — now instead saying that he and Kim “fell in love” — the lack of progress in negotiations have been disappointing to say the least. Due to his susceptibility to flattery and lack of knowledge on nuclear policy, President Trump should not have another one-on-one meeting with Kim; rather, technical experts and experienced diplomats should be the ones in the room in order to break the current stalemate. While North Korea wants the United States to make concessions such as an official end to the Korean War or the lifting of sanctions, the Trump Administration first demands complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Diplomacy is the right course here — certainly more so than “fire and fury.” Ultimately, this conversation will only be able to move forward if technical experts from both sides are able to define what specifically denuclearization means and establish the critical details of a rigorous verification regime to ensure North Korea’s compliance. Until then, the president’s assurances that there is no longer a threat from North Korea hardly seem appropriate.
U.S.-RUSSIAN NUCLEAR AGREEMENTS
In October 2018, the Trump Administration made one more major nuclear misstep: President Trump announced that the United States will soon begin the formal process of withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia.
Created by President Ronald Reagan and former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, the 1987 INF treaty marked a step forward in the Cold War, as it helped to diffuse tensions as the United States and the USSR agreed to eliminate ground-based intermediate-range nuclear and conventional missiles. These missiles slotted for elimination had ranges between 300 and 3,420 miles — in other words, they were capable of reaching Europe as well as parts of Alaska. Thanks to the treaty, the United States destroyed 846 of those missiles and the USSR destroyed 1,846, and limitations were put in place so as to dissuade two of the world’s superpowers, as well as the countries trapped in between, from stockpiling weapons in the name of defense and security.
It is true that since at least 2014, Russia has been known to be in violation of the treaty due to its development of a missile known as the Novator 9M729; China, which is not a party to the treaty, also has a large stockpile of missiles of the sort that are banned by its terms. Still, the INF treaty is a crucial piece of the international arms control architecture and should be fixed rather than cast aside. Withdrawing would, as the European Union stated, “benefit no one and on the contrary, would bring even more instability.” After all, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Moscow would retaliate if the United State withdrew; “There would be nothing left except an arms race,” Putin said. In mid-December, Putin went so far as to submit a draft resolution (admittedly in dubious faith, given Russia’s own violations) to the United Nations that would preserve the treaty, calling “on all sides to fulfill their obligations in the framework of this Treaty and resolve issues pertaining to fulfilling the assumed commitments.”
Putin’s proposal came soon after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo provided further information on President Trump’s announcement in October: The United States would begin the process of withdrawing from the INF Treaty within 60 days unless Russia made steps to come back into compliance. “The burden falls on Russia to make the necessary changes. Only they can save this treaty,” Pompeo said. If Moscow does not come into compliance by that time, then the United States will begin the formal six-month process to end the treaty — and the world would undeniably be less safe for it.
Furthermore, in the absence of the INF treaty, the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) would stand as the only U.S.-Russian arms control agreement in place, and it is set to expire in 2021 (though it does have an option for a five-year extension if both sides agree). Under New START, both the United States and Russia are limited to 1,550 nuclear warheads over 700 delivery systems. In the past, President Trump has called New START “a one-sided deal” and a “bad deal,” and more recently, Bolton has said that the administration “does not have a position that we’re prepared to negotiate.” Considering the upcoming expiration date and the president’s apparent eagerness to trash the INF treaty, such comments do not inspire confidence that the White House will take the right steps to ensure that crucial arms control agreements between Moscow and Washington will remain in place.
In the end, withdrawing from the INF treaty without exhausting all diplomatic options between the United States and Russia first would greatly increase the likelihood of renewed nuclear arms race, especially if the Trump Administration also pursues an end to New START. Plus, if the administration withdraws, they will cast our country as an increasingly isolated world power that does not keep its promises or work to preserve international rules and institutions, just as they did with the Iran nuclear deal. Therefore, similar to what should be done on the Korean Peninsula, President Trump should give the floor to experienced diplomatic negotiators and technical experts so that they can work on resolving Russia’s violation and knowledgably addressing any challenges the treaty does not meet.
LIMITING NUKES
Ultimately, it is clear that in the nuclear arena, the Trump Administration made several unforced missteps at the expense of lives both at home and abroad. Revoking our promises set in the Iran nuclear deal leaves the safety of the United States in the hands of our allies, who have since taken over what was once our leadership position in that space. This demonstrated failure by the Trump Administration to stick to U.S. promises does not set a sound foundation for negotiations with North Korea over denuclearization or with Russia over the INF treaty and New START — a fact we have seen as little to no progress has been made with Pyongyang and as Russia stands at the ready to respond in kind to U.S. withdrawal from the INF treaty.
It is very clear that President Trump cannot sit in the driver’s seat for nuclear negotiations; after all, he has demonstrated since the earliest days of the campaign no knowledge of any of the intricacies of the issues and chooses to cover such ignorance with foolish, provocative threats. Diplomatic professionals and technical experts must be the ones representing the United States at the arms control table, else any limits on nuclear weapons will be weakened to the point of instigating an arms race that no one could likely control.
Shannon Bugos is the Communications and Writing Manager at Truman National Security Project and the editor-in-chief of the Doctrine Blog. Views expressed here are her own.
