Published Op-eds | Arms Control Association

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– President Joe Biden

June 2, 2022

Published Op-eds

The opinion pieces and editorials below are those authored by Arms Control Association staff and leadership published in major U.S. and international media.

If Trump Ends Another Nuclear Treaty, it Will Be the Height of Folly

Authored by Kingston Reif and Michèle Flournoy on September 5, 2019

During his first two and a half years in office, President Donald Trump and his administration have laid waste to numerous international agreements originally designed to strengthen US security, bolster US alliances, and constrain US adversaries. The toll has been particularly high with respect to deals concerning nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. Over the past 14 months, the administration has withdrawn from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and abandoned the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty . Both of these valuable agreements have been discarded without a viable plan to...

New START Must Be Extended, With or Without China

Authored by Daryl G. Kimball on May 27, 2019

This op-ed originally appeared in The National Interest , May 27, 2019. The baffling non-answers from the senior administration officials strongly suggest that the president’s impulse for a grand U.S.-Chinese-Russian arms control bargain is not backed up with a realistic plan. On May 14, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Sochi, Russia to discuss what the State Department called a “new era” in “arms control to address new and emerging threats” with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin. The trip follows reports that Donald Trump has directed his...

Making Nuclear Weapons Menacing Again

Authored by Michael Klare on March 21, 2019

This op-ed originally appeared in The Nation , Mar. 21, 2019. “There is no higher priority for national defense,” the Pentagon declared last year, than for the United States to “replace its strategic nuclear triad and sustain the warheads it carries.” In plain English, this means spending an estimated $1.7 trillion to rebuild every component of the US nuclear arsenal: the entire three-legged strategic “ triad ” of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and long-range bombers. Military officials claim the existing force has become obsolete...

A peace treaty could be essential to North Korean denuclearization

Authored by Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins on February 25, 2019

This op-ed originally appeared in Axios , Feb. 25, 2019. As the second summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un approaches, the U.S. continues to focus its attention on the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program. Yes, but: If Trump is serious about denuclearizing North Korea, he should also use the summit with Kim Jong-un to take steps toward negotiating a peace agreement and formally ending the Korean War, noting the diplomatic engagements that have taken place between North and South Korea in 2017 that help to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Why it...

Congress should block rule changes for firearm exports

Authored by Jeff Abramson on February 20, 2019

This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill , February 20, 2019. As the nation is reminded of the tragic consequences of gun violence with the one-year anniversary of the Parkland school shooting, the Trump administration is pushing forward with plans to expedite the export abroad of the same kind of military-style weapons used in many of the mass shootings that have taken place in recent years. These are not the commodities that the United States should make easier to export. Congress can and should stop the changes, which would put the Department of Commerce in charge of regulating these...

Two Ideas That Might Stop a Post-INF Arms Race, and One That Won’t

Authored by Daryl G. Kimball on February 11, 2019

This op-ed originally appeared in Defense One on Feb. 11, 2019. Barring an 11th-hour diplomatic breakthrough that resolves Russian and U.S. concerns about the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, new arms control arrangements will be needed to avert a dangerous and costly new missile race in Europe. On Feb. 2, both sides announced that they will suspend their obligations under the three-decade-old treaty, and will likely withdraw on August 2. This will scuttle the agreement that led to the verifiable elimination of 2,692 Soviet and U.S. missiles, helped end the Cold War, and paved the...

Save the INF Treaty, Save the World

Authored by Thomas Countryman and Richard Burt on December 5, 2018

This op-ed originally appeared in Politico Magazine , Dec. 5, 2018. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Tuesday that the United States will soon “suspend” its obligations under 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty—an arms-control treaty credited with helping to end the Cold War – in response to the prolonged Russian violation of the agreement. If Russia does not return to compliance in 60 days, Pompeo said, the United States will formally announce its intention to withdraw from the treaty, as President Trump declared he would do last month. The two of us have advised...

Congress needs to wake up to nuclear security threat

Authored by Kingston Reif, Jack Brosnan, Andy Semmel, and Nathan Sermonis on November 14, 2018

This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill , Nov. 14, 2018. With much of the world’s attention trained on nuclear risks from North Korea, Iran, and Russia, the unfinished work of keeping nuclear materials and know-how from criminals and terrorists cannot be ignored. As the White House emphasizes state-based threats, Congress must take up a greater leadership role to prevent a nuclear or radiological 9/11. Effective congressional oversight of this issue has been constrained in recent years by numerous obstacles, including limited institutional knowledge, misunderstanding of the subject,...

Trump’s latest blunder: Withdrawal from the US-Russian INF Treaty

Authored by Greg Thielmann on October 25, 2018

This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill , Oct. 25, 2018. It appears that President Donald Trump ’s hard-line security advisor, John Bolton, has persuaded him to renounce the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. At least in this case, unlike with Trump’s quixotic violation of the seven-party Iran nuclear deal, the administration can point to a treaty violation by the other party . But as a practical matter, unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the treaty is reckless and will have a similarly counterproductive and...

Entering a 1984 World, Trump-Style

Authored by Michael Klare on July 24, 2018

This op-ed was originally published on TomDispatch.com on July 24, 2018. The pundits and politicians generally take it for granted that President Trump lacks a coherent foreign policy. They believe that he acts solely out of spite, caprice, and political opportunism—lashing out at U.S. allies like Germany’s Angela Merkel and England’s Theresa May only to embrace authoritarian rulers like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. His instinctive rancor and impulsiveness seemed on full display during his recent trip to Europe, where he lambasted Merkel, undercut May, and then, in...