He is not being well-informed on Nuclear Issues

Despite his well know aversion to using the other “N” word and discussing the issues connected with nuclear deterrence and nuclear sabre rattling by America’s adversaries the President, during his trip to Asia this week, dropped a bit of a bombshell of his own. On October 29, President Trump posted a brief statement on Truth Social about nuclear weapons testing, which contained the following key points:

• “The United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country”
• “In my first term in office” the U.S. “accomplished a complete update and renovation of existing [U.S. nuclear] weapons.
• “because of other countries testing programs I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis”
• The process of testing our nuclear weapons “will begin immediately.”

Sadly, whoever provided the President with the background information for each of his statements is manifestly unaware of the easily ascertainable facts, and so the President is being extremely poorly served by his own staff.

First, the Russian Federation has more nuclear weapons than any other nation. Its stockpile of nuclear weapons available to the Russian military is about 5200 while its overall stockpile is about 5600. The numbers for the U.S. are about 3700 and 4400. This information is easily available in public sources like the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook or the annual assessments published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

Second, during the President’s first term progress was made on the “Strategic Modernization Program” initiated in 2010, but no new platforms (submarine-launched ballistic missiles, bombers or land-based missiles) were deployed between 2017 and 2021; we rely today instead on aging systems which are decades old.  Very importantly a small number of modified low yield submarine launched warheads were produced and placed in service, and development work began on other new air force nuclear warheads, but none were deployed.

Third, the President’s staff has a profound misunderstanding about the difference between the test of a nuclear “system’s” delivery vehicles (i.e., a ballistic or cruise missile) and the test of a nuclear “warhead.”  In the days before the President’s text Russia conducted a test of a new cruise missile and a new trans-oceanic torpedo (both of which, incidentally, are not constrained by the new START treaty). Tests of missile systems are commonly conducted by all the nuclear powers, including the United States. Today, with the sole exception of North Korea in 2017, neither Russia nor China nor any other nuclear weapons state has conducted a nuclear warhead test in this century. To be clear, the U.S. Intelligence Community has raised concerns that both Russia and China may be covertly carrying out extremely low yield tests of experimental nuclear designs, but those do not appear to be the “tests” to which the President’s Truth Social post was referring.

Finally, the President appears to have been informed that the Department of War/Defense is responsible for nuclear weapons testing. It is not: that responsibility belongs to Department of Energy. Based on over 30 years of neglect, that Department would be unable today to conduct a nuclear weapon test in the near future. Rather, based on estimates provided to the Congress by DOE, it would take 24-36 months to do so, at a cost of several billion dollars – dollars which have not been authorized or appropriated by Congress.

Parenthetically, the President appears to have been advised that extending the New START treaty (which expires next February) a proposal raised by Russian President Vladimir Putin, might be a good idea; it is not, the treaty today is very much in Russia’s interest and very harmful to our own.

When asked, on his return flight from Asia, why he had delivered himself of this signal of U.S. strategic nuclear weapons muscle-flexing, the President said he believed that if others were testing then the U.S. should test as well. Depending on the state of our own nuclear weapons (currently assessed by the military as being reliable), and if he had been properly informed on the facts that others had resumed testing of nuclear weapons there would be something to this argument. But as things stand, the President owes it to himself and to America’s national security to improve the quality of advice he is being provided on the vital issue of nuclear deterrence and our ability to sustain it – and quickly.

Mr. Edelman was undersecretary of defense for policy, 2005-09, and is counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Mr. Miller served as special assistant to the president and senior director for defense policy and arms control on the National Security Council staff, 2001-05, and is a principal of the Scowcroft Group.