Making the Case for New START

In less than a year—on February 5, 2021—the last remaining treaty limiting the world’s two nuclear arsenals is due to expire unless the U.S. president decides to take up Russia’s offer to extend it for another five years.

To date, however, the Trump administration has yet to officially decide on the future of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Instead, Trump is talking about a new and more ambitious treaty involving all types of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons as well as those of China. These are worthy goals, but a new treaty cannot be concluded before 2021. Extending New START is the logical first step.

As our Board Chair Tom Countryman said at our press conference last week, “from ACA’s perspective, extending New START should be the easiest foreign policy decision Trump can make. Failure to extend the treaty, on the other hand, would be one of the worst decisions the President could make.”

Registration Open for 2020 Annual Meeting

This year as we mark the 75th anniversary of the dawn of the nuclear age and the 50th anniversary of the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), we face an ever more serious array of challenges.  Join us at the Washington Court Hotel on Capitol Hill (at 525 New Jersey Avenue NW, Washington, DC). The conference includes a lunch buffet and a post-event networking reception featuring special guests. 



Register today for discounted early bird pricing (available through March 27). Stay informed about updates to the program and featured speakers at armscontrol.org/ArmsControl2020.

ACA Blasts Changes to U.S. Landmines Policy

Last week, the Trump administration announced it would reverse longstanding U.S. policy not to deploy landmines outside of the Korean Peninsula, and would give combatant commanders the authority to use “self-destructing” mines when they deem necessary.

In coordination with our partners with the Campaign to Ban Landmines, the Arms Control Association responded quickly and firmly. In a press statement, we underscored that “the resumption of the use of anti-personnel landmines and continued stockpiling and production of these indiscriminate weapons is militarily unnecessary and dangerous.”

As our senior fellow Jeff Abramson told The New York Times: “The world has rejected landmines because they are indiscriminate and disproportionately harm civilians, who make up the vast majority of landmine casualties. Technical solutions to make land mines self-destruct or otherwise labeled as ‘smart’ have failed to work as advertised and been rejected by the 164 counties, including all U.S. NATO allies, that have joined the Mine Ban Treaty.”

Executive director Daryl Kimball told The Washington Post: “The Pentagon has not explained what military challenge, in which specific theater of operations, requires the deployment of new land mines for the first time in nearly three decades.”

In the coming weeks, we will push Congress to impose legislative restriction new landmine deployments. 

Working with the Catholic Community on Nuclear Disarmament

Catholic leaders and American Catholic communities have, for many decades, weighed-in on the moral and ethical issues surrounding nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence, and the need for progress on nuclear disarmament. Pope Francis’ recent and powerful set of speeches in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and his call to action to eliminate nuclear weapons have advanced the discussion.

The Arms Control Association Association has worked with U.S. Catholic thought leaders on nuclear issues for many years on nuclear matters and we continue to do so. This past month we participated in two major Washington-based conferences organized by church leaders. 

On January 30, the Arms Control Association’s Kelsey Davenport (right, above) moderated a discussion at Georgetown University with Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, senior advisor to Pope Francis following a keynote address by the Archbishop. Joining Kelsey on stage were Joan Rohlfing of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, former Ambassador James Timbie of the Hoover Institution. Archbishop Tomasi is the Pope’s advisor on nuclear issues. 

On January 31, Georgetown organized a day-long conference titled “The Pope and the Bomb,” which included a talk by Arms Control Association board member Professor Maryann Cusimano Love.

In Case You Missed It...

• Executive Director Daryl G. Kimball authors an op-ed in Just Security: “Pentagon Deployment of New “More Usable” Nuclear Weapon Is a Grave Mistake,” February 5.
• ACA Press Release, Arms Control Experts Urge Trump to Agree to Extend Key Treaty Limiting Russia’s Nuclear Forces, February 5.
• “Responses to Common Criticisms About Extending New START,” Arms Control Association Issue Brief by Kingston Reif, February 5.
• Julia Masterson, research assistant, and the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation’s Samuel Hickey wrote an op-ed for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 30, warning that triggering the official dispute resolution for the Iran nuclear deal may spark a crisis at the UN.
• Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy, was quoted in Defense One, January 23, saying that the Trump administration’s plan to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal is “a ticking budget time bomb even at historically high levels of defense spending."
• Director for Nonproliferation Policy Kelsey Davenport told BBC on January 14 that despite Iran’s worrisome retaliatory actions, its “breaches [of the 2015 nuclear deal] do not pose a near-term risk and are quickly reversible.”
• Daryl G. Kimball explained in a January 14 Foreign Policy article that Europe’s move to start the Iran nuclear deal’s dispute settlement process may “open the door to the snapback provision and the reimposition of international sanctions,” which would totally unravel the agreement.
• Kingston Reif and Shannon Bugos wrote an op-ed for Defense One, January 10, describing the why new U.S. intermediate-range ground-launched missiles are unnecessary, destabilizing and undesirable.
• Daryl G. Kimball was quoted in a January 6 The New Yorker news analysis that “it is still possible for the U.S. and Iran to return to compliance with their JCPOA commitments.”
• Julia Masterson’s letter-to-the-editor published in the January 2 edition of The Wall Street Journal corrected erroneous reporting about Iran’s nuclear program and argued that there is still space for diplomatic action to save the troubled 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

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