Those of us who work on nuclear issues at think tanks and advocacy organizations know it’s a struggle to get the public to think about, much less understand or care about, nuclear issues. This election cycle has unexpectedly brought nuclear issues to the fore, though with the focus largely being whether one of the candidates has the temperament to have his finger on the so-called “nuclear button.” During this election cycle, and in particular through the presidential debates, millions of American have been exposed, albeit very briefly and at a superficial level, to some of the more frightening aspects of our nuclear policies. This has created an opening for those of us who care about nuclear issues to try to raise public awareness about the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.
Some nuclear issues raised in the debates have already received significant public attention. For instance, in all three debates, Trump criticized and Clinton lauded (and took partial credit for) the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—better known as the Iran deal or JCPOA. It wasn’t surprising that this issue would be raised in the debates given that the deal has become a political football in Washington. But other nuclear issues raised in the debates have received much less public attention previously.
Extended Deterrence and Nonproliferation: One of these issues is the link between extended nuclear deterrence—other countries’ reliance on the United States, including its nuclear weapons, for their own defense—and efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Trump had previously called into question whether the United States should continue to bear the costs associated with U.S. defense arrangements with allies like South Korea and Japan, even suggesting that Japan should protect itself with its own nuclear weapons. Of course, calling into question the credibility of U.S. commitments to extend its “nuclear umbrella” to allies is a dangerous proposition, and could potentially lead to those countries considering acquiring their own nuclear weapons—exactly what the United States and others have been trying to prevent for decades. Trump’s comments came up in the first debate:
And in the second debate:
Unfortunately, these exchanges didn’t provide an opportunity for the public to understand how extended nuclear deterrence works or its implications for U.S. decisions on nuclear weapons policy and nonproliferation. Instead, they focused on making Trump appear to have no problem with new nuclear-armed states popping up all over the world (probably a stretch, though see this CNBC clip).
No First Use: The expert community was particularly pleased when the moderator in the first debate, Lester Holt, asked the candidates for their views on “no-first-use” policies, citing media reports that President Obama had been considering adopting a no-first-use policy.
This would have been an excellent question to ask to the candidates, one of whom will have the power to order the launch of a nuclear weapon even if not in response to a nuclear attack. However, most viewers would not have known the first thing about nuclear declaratory policy and the candidates did not offer any meaningful substantive comments on the topic—Trump gave a rather confusing answer and Clinton did not respond to the question at all.
Fortunately, recent articles have provided easy-to-understand commentary on no first use that is very accessible to a non-expert audience, such as this piece by Bruce Blair in Politico, and this piece by David Sanger and William Broad in the New York Times. And then there’s this explainer from the Wall Street Journal.
Nuclear Modernization: The issue of spending on nuclear weapons also made an appearance in the debates, though again not to the extent it deserves. In the second debate it was raised in the context of the New START treaty (the U.S.-Russia deal to reduce and cap their deployed, strategic nuclear arsenals). Clinton claims credit for helping negotiate New START as Secretary of State:
Republicans, including Trump, criticize the treaty as neutering America’s ability to keep up with Russia’s nuclear weapons program.
This issue was raised again by Trump in the third debate (which also featured Trump calling the treaty the “Start Up” agreement, much to my and many others’ amusement).
Unfortunately, the moderators in both debates missed an opportunity to follow up on Trump’s arguments, which contain the same justifications used in Washington for more nuclear spending. For instance, an excellent follow-up question for the candidates would have been whether they intend to proceed with plans to spend up to $1 trillion over 30 years to completely refurbish the entire nuclear triad and build new nuclear capabilities (Trump famously fumbled on the nuclear triad in the primaries during a CNN debate).
Even better would have been to explore the candidates’ views on the role of nuclear weapons and to explore the issue of nuclear modernization in depth—the pros and cons of modernization; how it impacts strategic stability vis-à-vis Russia and China; whether it hurts or helps nonproliferation goals with respect to U.S. allies or other non-nuclear-weapons states; whether nuclear weapons spending hurts our ability to fund other defense priorities or other domestic priorities; and whether nuclear deterrence is even relevant to protect Americans against today’s threats, such as terrorism and cyber attacks. The failure to have a national conversation on these issues is a disservice to all Americans, whose tax dollars fund these expensive programs, but who have little or no say in whether this is a wise use of their money.
For those who want to understand these issues, there has been good media coverage in recent months, such as this piece by Bill Moyer. And the claims that Russia is modernizing its arsenal faster than the United States have been explained in other articles, such as this piece by Steven Pifer in the National Interest. The popular show 60 Minutes has also covered this topic.
Prompt Launch: The third debate brought another relatively obscure nuclear issue into public light—the fact that a president only has minutes to decide whether to launch nuclear weapons in response to a warning of an incoming nuclear attack. It was raised not by the moderator but by Clinton in the context of casting doubt on Donald Trump’s fitness and competency to be president:
The nuclear community refers to this issue as “prompt launch” or “hair trigger alert.” But the debate did not lead to a discussion about whether this policy even makes sense in the first place, regardless of the competency of the person who occupies the White House. What about a situation when there has been a false warning due to computer error (as has actually happened)? Or the possibility that a cyber attack might spoof a warning of incoming attack? Both of these scenarios could lead to devastating consequences, but most Americans don’t even know that this is a real threat (the following clip from the Nuclear Threat Initiative shows otherwise).
On my own Facebook feed and in conversations after the debate, friends expressed shock after hearing the “four minutes” line, so I pointed them to two good sources that describe what it actually means to have nuclear weapons on prompt launch, such as NTI’s explainer and Bruce Blair’s chilling piece in Politico. Other great resources bring this complex issue to a wider audience through videos and infographics, including the following from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Although the presidential campaign and debates provided a unique opportunity for nuclear issues to reach a broader public audience, it’s unfortunate that it was largely in the context of one candidate’s temperament, when the real question is whether the policies themselves make any sense. This is the debate we really need.
The views in this article are those of the author alone.