Nuclear modernisation in America – should go along with maintaining arms control treaty

Is there a way to save the ‘fraying’ nuclear consensus in Congress? Defense News By: Aaron Mehta 15 Feb 19, WASHINGTON — Following the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, which called for long-term investment in modernizing America’s nuclear arsenal, Congress seemed to strike a general consensus on nukes: New investments in weapons would go hand in hand with arms reduction efforts such as the New START treaty.

It wasn’t perfect, and not everyone was on board. But on the whole, the balance allowed the investments in new bombers, nuclear warheads, long-range missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles to go through with little challenge from Democrats, while ensuring New START would receive support from Republicans.

Years later, the landscape looks very different, which could have major consequences as the Trump administration attempts to push its own priorities from the Nuclear Posture Review through a Democratic-controlled House………

The nuclear consensus was rocked early in the Trump administration, with President Donald Trump declaring after less than a month in office that the agreement was “a one-sided deal” and a “bad deal,” and pledged that “if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack.”

The situation only got rockier with the January 2018 release of the Nuclear Posture Review, which called for the creation of two new nuclear capabilities — a low-yield warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles and a submarine-launched nuclear cruise missile — that Democrats quickly denounced as the start of a new arms race.

The situation doesn’t appear to have improved for advocates of nuclear spending in the wake of November’s elections, which saw Democrats take the House and several veteran members of the Senate Armed Services Committee be replaced.

John Harvey, who as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs from 2009-2013 was one of the key authors of the 2010 NPR, said at the summit that he sees little change in the SASC’s stance toward modernization, as new members are largely in favor of the development plan. ………

“You should make clear that extending New START and continued Democrat support for modernization are a package. [Tell them] you can’t have one without the other,” Harvey said. Second, renew efforts to engage Russia on arms control initiatives that are in America’s security interests, including attempts to reduce “the large disparity of U.S. and Russian nonstrategic nuclear weapons and more productive dialogue on strategic stability.” ……….https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2019/02/14/is-there-a-way-to-save-the-fraying-nuclear-consensus-in-congress/