nuclear-news

Democrats Retreat on Nuclear Policy Defense One, 13 Dec 19, The 2020 authorization bill fails to check Trump’s worst impulses.

Question: How do you go from a National Defense Authorization Act that in July was opposed by every House Republican to one that was approved by more GOP votes than Democratic ones and that President Donald Trump called a huge win that he cannot wait to sign?

Answer: Add Space Force and parental family leave and take out all of the progressive national security provisions.

The House passed the compromise NDAA last night; President Trump has said he will sign it. This final bill is a world apart from the version passed by House Democrats in July. The House version, ably led by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Washington, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, prohibited deployment of Trump’s new “low-yield” nuclear weapon for Trident submarines, which defense experts called “a gateway to nuclear catastrophe.” It prohibited unauthorized U.S. military action against Iran, which Trump came within 10 minutes of ordering in June, and prohibited U.S. military support for the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. And it supported extension of the New START treaty, which Trump seems to have every intention of sacking even though Russia supports keeping the crucial pact. The list goes on.

In other words, the House bill would have constrained the most dangerous tendencies of an out-of-control White House. This is exactly what you would expect Democrats to do when faced with a President that they firmly believe is a danger to U.S. national security—and are now seeking to impeach on that basis.

Not surprisingly, Republicans do not share this impression of the President, and they deeply opposed the nuclear policy provisions in the House NDAA…….

The outcome was a disaster. The topline budget rose to $738 billion and the major constraints on Trump were ripped out. Others were watered down. The most we can say about the final NDAA is that it includes some useful language on arms control and missile defense, but nothing major. Such weak tea certainly does not justify supporting a bill that funds Trump’s excessive $2 trillion program to rebuild the nuclear arsenal, among other things.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and a vice-chair of the progressive caucus issued a joint statement with Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, a presidential candidate, calling the final agreement “a bill of astonishing moral cowardice.” Over 30 progressive national security organizations (including Ploughshares Fund) sent a letter to Congress opposing the final bill as doing “almost nothing to constrain the Trump administration’s erratic and reckless foreign policy.” Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said she would oppose the bill, calling it a “$738 billion Christmas present to giant defense contractors.” …..

Democrats cannot seek to impeach Trump and yet sometimes act as if he is a normal president. They cannot attempt to remove him from office as a danger to national security and yet hand him $738 billion in military spending with no limits on his nuclear weapons development, ability to attack Iran, freedom to abandon arms control treaties, and so much more. Trump is nothing if not a disrupter. The Democrats must give the president a taste of his own medicine. https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/12/democrats-retreat-nuclear-policy/161855/