Speech by Jackie Cabasso – Western States Legal Foundation
Nuclear weapons policy is not an issue in the U.S. Presidential election. In fact, U.S. foreign policy is barely an issue.
Even though nuclear weapons are in the U.S. media more than they have been for many years – due mainly to the Russian government’s nuclear threats, and to some extent, North Korea’s — there is basically no public discussion and debate about nuclear weapons in the U.S.
The political situation in the United States is more volatile and uncertain than at any time in my life. Predicting who is going to be elected President in November is impossible. In the day and a half since President Biden announced he would suspend his candidacy and support his Vice-President Kamala Harris as the Democratic party candidate, members of the Democratic party have been rallying to unify around her candidacy. This morning, I read that she has secured the support of enough delegates to ensure her nomination at the Democratic convention. Polls are showing Trump and Harris now neck and neck.
We don’t know what’s going to happen. Now some Republicans, including Trump’s Vice-Presidental running mate, Senator J.D. Vance (who may be even worse than Trump), are calling on Vice-President Harris to invoke the 25th amendment to remove President Biden from office due to his alleged mental incapacity. That’s interesting, because if it happened, Kamala Harris would become President, which might give her an advantage in the election. On the other hand, it might limit her ability to actively campaign.
What I can say is this. U.S. national security policy has been remarkably consistent in the post-World War II and post-Cold War eras, despite dramatically changed geopolitical conditions and very different presidential styles. “Deterrence” — the threatened use of nuclear weapons — as the “cornerstone” of U.S. national security policy has been reaffirmed by every President, Republican or Democrat, since 1945, when President Harry Truman, a Democrat, oversaw the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
If a Democrat is elected in 2024, we can expect more of the same. There is no reason to think U.S. nuclear weapons policy would be fundamentally different under a Trump administration.
Trump’s likely nuclear policy is spelled out in a new conservative manifesto by Project 2025, a coalition of over 100 far-right groups led by the Heritage Foundation. Its 900-page book, “Mandate for Leadership,” is widely seen as the playbook for a possible second Trump administration. It is a blueprint for the most dramatic take-over and transformation of U.S. democracy in history.
Project 2025 is staffed by over 200 former officials of the first Trump administration, who proudly served Donald Trump through his administration and attempted insurrection and have learned how to work the levers of government.
In his foreword to the report, Paul Dans, a former chief of staff of the Office of Personnel Management during the Trump administration and now the director of Project 2025 writes: “Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained and prepared conservatives to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.” Russ Vought, the chief of staff of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump and now the president of the conservative think tank Center for Renewing America, added: “We have to be thinking mechanically about how to take these institutions over.” He vows to be “ready on Day One of the next transition,” declaring, “Whatever is necessary to seize control of the administrative state is really our task.”
On the domestic front Project 2025 would sweepingly roll back environmental regulations and double down on fossil fuels. It would severely curtail immigration, dismantle government agencies including the Department of Education, defund the Department of Justice, ban the abortion pill, and consolidate the President’s power – to name just a few items on its agenda.
With regard to nuclear weapons, it would mean implementing the most dramatic buildup of nuclear weapons since the start of the Reagan administration, 40 years ago. If this ultra-conservative political coalition gets its way in November, the scope, pace, and cost of U.S. nuclear weapons programs would increase all at once. Their plan seeks to significantly increase budgets and deployments of nuclear weapons and related programs and destroy the remaining arms control agreements.
For the record, Trump himself, and a number of Republican members of Congress have attempted to distance themselves from Project 2025, in some cases, claiming they haven’t even heard of it. This is not plausible.
Here’s what Project 2025 says about NATO:
“Make burden-sharing a central part of U.S. defense strategy with the United States not just helping allies to step up, but strongly encouraging them to do so….”
“Transform NATO so that U.S. allies are capable of fielding the great majority of the conventional forces required to deter Russia while relying on the United States primarily for our nuclear deterrent, and select other capabilities while reducing the U.S. force posture in Europe.” (emphasis added)
“Reboot Ambassadors Worldwide…. Political ambassadors with strong personal relationships with the President should be prioritized for key strategic posts such as Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).”
Presenting the pros and cons of continuing to provide U.S. armaments to Ukraine, Project 2025 concludes: “Regardless of viewpoints, all sides agree that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is unjust and that the Ukrainian people have a right to defend their homeland. Furthermore, the conflict has severely weakened Putin’s military strength and provided a boost to NATO unity and its importance to European nations. The next conservative President has a generational opportunity to bring resolution to the foreign policy tensions within the movement and chart a new path forward that recognizes Communist China as the defining threat to U.S. interests in the 21st century.”
In a very revealing passage, Project 2025 notes: “A further key priority is keeping Türkiye in the Western fold and a NATO ally. This includes a vigorous outreach to Türkiye to dissuade it from “hedging” toward Russia or China, which is likely to require a rethinking of U.S. support for YPG/PKK [People’s Protection Units/Kurdistan Worker’s Party] Kurdish forces, which Ankara believes are an existential threat to its security. For the foreseeable future— and much longer than one new Administration—Middle Eastern oil will play a key role in the world economy. Therefore, the U.S. must continue to support its allies and compete with its economic adversaries, including China. Relations with Saudi Arabia should be strengthened in a way that seriously curtails Chinese influence in Riyadh.”
The U.S. government as a whole is deeply committed to NATO, as is illustrated by the fact that Congress passed, and President Biden signed, a law requiring that a withdrawal from NATO be approved by Congress.
I do not believe that a Trump administration would pull the U.S. out of NATO.
In light of the Russian Federation’s illegal war of aggression in Ukraine and its attendant drumbeat of nuclear threats, a number of former German government officials and European politicians have called for the European Union to acquire its own nuclear arsenal.
For example, former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of the Green Party told Der Speigel last year, “As long as we have a neighbor Russia that follows Putin’s imperial ideology, we cannot do without deterring this Russia.”
Asked whether deterrence includes Germany acquiring its own nuclear weapons, he said, “That is indeed the most difficult question.” Noting that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is “also working with nuclear blackmail,” he said: “Should the Federal Republic of Germany possess nuclear weapons? No. Europe? Yes. The EU needs its own nuclear deterrent.” What exactly this means is unclear.
In July 2023, Adm. Jacques Lanxade, joint chief of staff of the French Armed Forces; Denis MacShane, a former UK minister of Europe; Margarita Mathiopoulos a foreign policy advisor to the former chairman of the German Free Democratic Party, Guido Westerwelle; and Gen. Klaus Naumann, chairman of the military committee of NATO and joint chief of staff of the German Armed Forces wrote:
“Europe needs a credible nuclear deterrent of its own, under NATO command. Only a trilateral British, French, and German nuclear umbrella, combined with a US umbrella, all under the command and control of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) will be a credible deterrent for Russia. This would require that France and Germany find a solution for equipping their joint Future Combat Air System—a new generation of advanced fighter jets—and the German F-35 dual capable aircraft with French nuclear weapons. Germany would not have its own nuclear weapons, so this arrangement would not violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The NATO command structure must be tailored in such a way that Europe can fight a conflict in which neither Americans nor Canadians may wish to get involved, while taking advantage of NATO commands and systems. To this end the deputy SACEUR has to be European, and a headquarters-based Combined Joint Task Force must serve as his or her operational command.”
Such plans would violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and other applicable laws. But more alarming is the growing normalization of nuclear threats and legitimization of nuclear proliferation suggested by Fischer and others.
At a time when all of the nuclear armed states are qualitatively and, in some cases, quantitatively upgrading their nuclear arsenals, a new multipolar arms race is underway, and the dangers of wars among nuclear armed states are growing. Adding more nuclear-armed actors to the world stage is a truly terrifying prospect.
On X, formerly Twitter, Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists wrote:
“There are two ways to undermine NATO security. One is for Trump to say something stupid (which he does all the time). The other is for Europe to overreact and say, ‘We can no longer rely’ on the US nuclear umbrella and need a eurobomb. It’s exactly what Putin [and] Trump want to hear.”
Germany and other EU members should rebuff any suggestion of acquiring nuclear weapons and take the lead in rejecting reliance on nuclear weapons, use every diplomatic means at their disposal to lower the temperature with Russia and bring the Ukraine war to an end, and promote negotiations among nuclear-armed states to begin the process of nuclear disarmament.
I wholeheartedly agree with Tom Sauer of the University of Antwerp, who said: “Instead of talking about the eurobomb, we should talk about having a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Europe extending to Russia, if possible.”