The Foreign Service Journal, May 2020

40 MAY 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL verification mechanisms and implement some small reductions while they negotiated a new treaty for truly deep cuts in the arsenals. Thus, steady reductions would allow them to maintain nuclear forces at safer and less expensive levels than before. That bargain has been broken. A combination of Republican political opposition, Russian recalcitrance and stiff resistance from inside the nuclear-industrial complex blocked further cuts. Arms control stopped, yet the contracts continued. “Experts are suddenly talking less about the means for deterring nuclear conflict than about developing weapons that could be used for offensive purposes,” warn Albright and Ivanov. “Some have even embraced the folly that a nuclear war can be won.” The Russian deployment of shorter-range nuclear-capable missiles in Europe and U.S. deployment on strategic submarines of new “low-yield” nuclear warheads are cases in point. The resources devoted to this new nuclear buildup are staggering. Nuclear-armed states will spend more than $1 trillion this decade on nuclear weapons. The United States will spend the most, more than all the other nations combined. The Trump administration’s budget for Fiscal Year 2021 allo- cates more than $50 billion for new weapons, more than at any time since the end of the Cold War. This is a small part of the $2 trillion these weapons will cost American taxpayers over the next 25 years. If these programs are not reined in soon, they may become unstoppable. Once contractors start “bending metal,” as my col- league William Hartung said recently, these programs become much harder to cancel. Defense contractors spread production across the country, creating political support for programs in the Pentagon and Congress. Reorienting National Priorities That is why the third step may be the most consequential. Nuclear diplomacy cannot be restored by traditional means alone. There must be a nonpartisan counter to the allure of defense contracts. On June 12, 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City’s Central Park, protesting the Cold War arms race. It was the largest political demonstration in American history; and, coupled with a nuclear freeze movement, it challenged the U.S. and Soviet leadership to reverse their nuclear buildups. Although President Reagan resisted the anti-nuclear move- ment fiercely—at one time claiming it was the work of “foreign agents”—he soon understood that the political ground had shifted. It may have also allowed him to get in touch with his own deeply held feelings about abolishing nuclear weapons. He began declaring publicly that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” and pressed his Cabinet to find diplo- matic openings with Moscow. “If things get hotter and hotter, and arms control remains an issue,” Reagan told his secretary of State, George Shultz, in late 1983, “maybe I should go see [Soviet leader Yuri] Andropov and propose eliminating all nuclear weapons.” Two years later, he found a partner in Mikhail Gorbachev and by the end of the decade had powerfully reversed the nuclear arms race. We cannot expect to replicate the 20th-century nuclear freeze movement. Instead, the challenge will be to fold this issue into the new, vibrant mass movements of the current era. It may be possible for arms control and disarmament advocates to partner with movements on climate action or health care, for example. These social changes will need massive govern- ment funding for new programs. The nuclear budget is one major source for those funds. And, as important as these other causes are, they cannot achieve their goals if nuclear catas- trophe occurs. If these movements can connect and reinforce each other, awareness of how the issues intersect will grow, and Washington may again be convinced that effective diplomacy will pay domestic political dividends. It may be that the COVID-19 pandemic will reorient national priorities, alerting us to the danger of ignoring growing cata- strophic threats. There may be a new opening to restore nuclear diplomacy, to think anew and to offer clear, practical steps to prevent the worst from happening—before it is too late. n Nuclear diplomacy cannot be restored by traditional means alone. There must be a nonpartisan counter to the allure of defense contracts.