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Ukraine, Donald Trump and Nuclear Weapons

Ukrainian nuclear weapon

It is hard if not impossible to keep up with everything that is going on within the last 24-48 hours. Somehow, Ukraine is back in the news. The president made a call to the new Ukrainian Pres. and basically said that he wanted Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden to be investigated. The implications worried that if the investigation were to get underway, Pres. Trump would free up hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine.

Why are we sending hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine? The answer is somewhat complex. In the 90s, the Ukraine voted overwhelmingly to separate from the Soviet Union. This led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and also to the Ukraine obtaining independence. Once Ukraine became a sovereign nation, it inherited a large nuclear arsenal from the Soviet Union. The United States along with several other countries negotiated with Ukraine to destroy the nuclear weapons. The deal was pretty simple. Destroy your nuclear weapons and the United States along with its allies will protect you from any threat/invasion from Russia. Simple deal, right?

If you remember, this is a big deal at the time. We sent nuclear experts to Ukraine in order to aid with the destruction of the nuclear weapons. We’ve been giving Ukraine military aid ever since.

Now, also remember, that Ukraine was recently invaded by Russia. The Russians have taken Ukrainian land. The Russians have killed Ukrainian military and private citizens. In order to fight this, we have sent Ukrainians military aid. It is this aid that Donald Trump was using as a bargaining chip to try to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Does this feel inappropriate to you? It does to me.

By ecthompsonmd|2019-09-26T02:30:06-04:00September 26th, 2019|Party Politics|Comments Off

Nuclear Weapons

Today is the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the nuclear bomb on Nagasaki. It is probably a good time to review our own nuclear weapons.

From the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

Given this lack of attention to nuclear weapons, it’s not surprising that in August 2007 a B-52 accidentally flew six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles across the country, from North Dakota to Louisiana, or that four nuclear-missile fuses were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in 2006. Gates was correct to hold Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne responsible for their lack of attention to nuclear weapons. But the bigger issue is why the Pentagon still needs to keep so many nuclear weapons in its inventory nearly two decades after the Cold War–particularly when just about everyone in the military believes they present minimal strategic utility. General Cartwright, who in 2007 moved from STRATCOM to become Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said as much. In Congressional testimony on March 8, 2007, he declared, “As good as [U.S. conventional weapons] are, we simply cannot be everywhere with our general purpose conventional forces, and use of a nuclear weapon in a prompt response may be no choice at all.”

At the height of the Cold War, the United States possessed more than 30,000 nuclear warheads in its inventory. Today, Washington continues to maintain nearly 10,000 warheads. Reducing that number to no more than 1,000 (600 operational and 400 in reserve) would be more than enough for deterrence; one of the last air force officers to command STRATCOM, Gen. Eugene Habiger, has actually suggested this number. Doing so would allow the air force hierarchy to direct its attention and resources to the challenges of the twenty-first century. According to the recently fired Secretary Wynne, the air force has a budget shortfall of $100 million over the next five years because the baseline defense budget is projected to decline in real terms over this period.

More importantly, reducing our own nuclear arsenal would enable the United States to gain the moral high ground in nonproliferation matters and in our increasingly tense relations with Russia. What better way to enhance our negotiating position with the North Koreans and Iranians than by our living up to Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which obliges us to reduce and eventually eliminate our nuclear stockpile in exchange for others not developing these weapons? And what better way to negotiate a new nuclear reduction treaty with Russia and enhance the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program than by reducing our own nuclear arsenal?

By ecthompsonmd|2015-08-09T21:31:44-04:00August 9th, 2015|Military|Comments Off

Obama Derangement Syndrome: Iranian Episode

If you haven’t noticed, our country has split up into two separate tribes – Idiots and Morons. Each tribe has approximately 30-40% of the population. (There’s a separate group that doesn’t belong either tribe that seems to always keep its head stuck firmly in the sand. I really won’t cover or discuss the Independents.) The great thing about this tribal system is that you can take any subject, any subject, and within a few seconds you know where another American stands on every issue because we all root for our tribe. If an American is against abortion, that must mean they don’t believe in climate change… Because that’s the way our tribes work. This tribalism is so sad and so stupid. This brings us to Iran.

One of the stupidest and craziest things about our tribalism is that we are against things without even thinking about it. The best example is an Iranian nuclear deal. Let’s review – during the Bush Administration, for multiple different reasons, we decided that we were not going to directly negotiate with Iran. During the Bush Administration, Iran had somewhere around 200-300 centrifuges. During nuclear negotiations in which we never specifically took part, because at the time we didn’t talk to our enemies, we took the stance that Iran could not have one centrifuge. To us, at the time, this was a nonnegotiable position. So, Iran took the position that we were being unreasonable and continued to acquire centrifuges and nuclear materia. Now, it is widely believed that Iran has over 18,000 centrifuges. (Read more about uranium enrichment.) So, what to do?

Really, and practically, there are three options. First, we can continue on the path set out by George W. Bush. We can continue to try not to negotiate with Iran. We could let the other members of the UN Security Council try to hammer out a deal that we are not part of. (Read the Iranian nuclear timeline.)

The other thing we can do is to take the posture that this is a national security issue. Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon is a direct national threat to the United States and our allies under the Bush doctrine. We could and should launch a preemptive military strike to degrade or destroy Iran’s capabilities to develop a nuclear weapon.

The final option is to try to figure out a way to negotiate a settlement in which Iran gives up the ability to make a nuclear weapon in some verifiable manner. On one hand, we get unfettered access to inspect Iran to make sure that it is meeting whatever criteria we agree upon. On the other hand, if Iran complies with these inspections, we began to ease sanctions and we began to invite Iran back into the international community.

If you’re not from one of the tribes, when you sit back and look at your three options, you really only have one option. The first option has been tried and has failed. So I think we can all agree that doing nothing and not negotiating with our “enemies” is clearly the wrong way to go about things. In my opinion, the second option needs to stay on the table, but is not something I think we need to implement now. Instead, we should wait. We should wait until the third option doesn’t work. To me this is the only course of action to make sense. Also, I might add that inspections worked in Iraq. We have irrefutable evidence that inspections did work.

What are your thoughts?