Why Nuclear Weapons Are Shaping Up As a Big 2020 Campaign Issue

Heather Hurlburt wrote for New York Magazine discussing the impact of Trump's exit from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Although nuclear weapons seemed obsolete to many after the Cold War, in fact three new nuclear states have emerged since the Soviet Union fell apart (India, Pakistan, and North Korea). China has ramped up its arsenal, Russia is modernizing its, and Washington is preparing to do the same. The goal of a world free of nuclear weapons seems much farther away than it did in 1986. This fact has produced both new interest among some countries in obtaining nuclear weapons, and new hostility among nonnuclear countries, which recently negotiated and signed a Ban Treaty aimed squarely at Washington and Moscow. The Trump administration says that it is leaving the treaty because “words have to mean something,” and Moscow is violating it. But Washington’s words also mean something to the rest of the world.

It looks as if congressional Democrats think they mean something to 2020 voters as well. The weeks since the midterms have seen a groundswell of leaders from the Establishment and progressive wings of the party — including some presidential hopefuls — calling on Trump to stay in the INF Treaty and put the brakes on plans to expand the American nuclear arsenal. The incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith, has called for “a nuclear weapons policy that reduces the number of weapons and reduces the likelihood of any sort of nuclear conflict.” The leading Senate Democrats from the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, and Intelligence Committees released a letter this week calling on Trump to stay in the INF Treaty. And when Senator Elizabeth Warren gave a foreign policy speech last week that many saw as an opening salvo in a presidential bid, what issue did she pick to crystallize her critique of Trump as both corrupt and reckless? Aggressive spending on new nuclear weapons, while withdrawing from existing arms-control treaties.

The last time nuclear weapons played a role in a presidential campaign, George H.W. Bush wasn’t just alive, he was a candidate. But every single person who is fantasizing about the Democratic nomination shares the legacy that belongs to Reagan and Bush as well as JFK and every president since — that the safest way to deal with the greatest dangers is through international cooperation, and that the “freedom” to fire off a nuclear weapon of any size at will is no freedom at all. With Russia indicating that it will match Washington’s withdrawal and aim to match it in any new arms race — as well as nuclear worries continuing to bubble in North Korea and Iran — it looks as if Americans will have lots of opportunity to have that debate between now and November 2020.