With rumors abound of the Trump administration considering taking steps to start live nuclear testing, which the US has not done since 1992, House Democrats have added a measure to a 2021 spending bill prohibiting funding for live tests.
The House Appropriation Committee added a measure to its draft of the 2021 appropriations bill for the Department of Energy that would prohibit funds being used to “conduct, or prepare to conduct, any explosive nuclear weapons test that produces any yield.”
“Critically, the bill would prevent the Trump administration from using any funds to carry out its dangerous and short-sighted plan to resume nuclear testing,” Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), the committee’s chairwoman said in a statement on Monday.
Rumors of the Trump administration considering resuming live nuclear tests surfaced in May when The Washington Post reported senior officials were discussing the possibility of a live test to send a message to Russia and China.
In June, the Senate Armed Services Committee included $10 million to resume live nuclear testing if needed in its version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Pentagon spending bill. The amendment to the NDAA was proposed by Senator Tom Cotton (R-KY).
The US and Russia started arms control talks in June and are set to pick back up sometime in July or August. The last nuclear arms control agreement between the two powers, the New START is going to expire in February 2021. Russia has offered to extend the treaty, but the US insists on making a new deal with China being involved. However, Beijing has repeatedly rejected the idea of a trilateral agreement since its nuclear arsenal is much smaller than Washington’s and Moscow’s.
Marshall Billingslea, President Trump’s envoy for arms control, has signaled that the US is ready for a new arms race. In May, Billingslea said the US is willing to spend Russia and China “into oblivion” to win a new arms race.
It has not occurred to the General that both Russia and China are spending a fraction on various new technology, just to have US to chase their capabilities. The issue is — what are our objectives. With Russia and China it is simple — defense with capabilities to disable offensive forward assets. With Russia, the strategy is not to have war fought on its territory. China ditto.
What is ours? How to attack China and Russia and disable their defenses in order to defeat them. We do not assume others having capabilities to bring war to our territory. So, if the offense fails, where is the defense?
When strategy is not clear, any direction is good, and it is assumed — money always available.
With COVID support money ending — what is plan B? Economy cannot be revved up, as people are not spending, eating out, going on vacations. Many countries will be in trouble without tourists coming, and many a loan will nit be paid. This is true for our states and cities.
Where are we heading with this?
I have a feeling that our warfare state is niw hyping up the dangers — just in case we will want to cut some of their fat to meet dire needs.
True. “cut some of their fat”..been true for far too long, maybe beyond redemption.
“cut some of their fat”
And perhaps cut some of their “meat” as well. When the vast majority of the military budget is used for aggressive warfare and promoting world supremacy, there really isn’t any “fat,” as no level of spending is ever enough. I have heard reasonable analysts say we could defend ourselves adequately with roughly 10% of current military expenditures, if defense were actually the goal. And “adequately” doesn’t do this proposal justice, as we’d be far less likely to be attacked from abroad if we weren’t such a bully.
While my preference for what to spend the savings on would be to reduce taxes and the deficit, even if we just handed the money over as cash to everyone making less than $50,000.00 / year, this would be infinitely more productive than building more weapons of war.
The Democrats would probably reverse the ban once back in power. Ditto the RINOS,
Resuming live tests has no sabre-rattling value; not sure why Trump would bother. It would be like letting Little Rocket Man set the agenda; nuke tests are for the weaker player..