Arms control

The grubby duplicity of the Trump administration regarding its obligations on nuclear-arms control is a lamentable demonstration of American disgrace.

In June 2020, Washington and Moscow resumed talks on renewing the New START Treaty limiting long-range nuclear weapons. If the treaty, due to expire in February 2021, is not prolonged or replaced, there are fears of a new global arms race breaking out.
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The GOP think tank has been taking millions from a conglomerate while publicly promoting its landmines and autonomous machine guns.
Eli CLIFTON

China underscored this week that it is willing to engage in negotiations with the U.S. to reduce nuclear arsenals and to underpin strategic stability. However, the offer comes with the caveat that Washington must first reduce its arsenal to the level of China’s before Beijing will engage in such talks.

On June 15th, Breaking Defense headlined “Japan Halts $2.1B Aegis Ashore Work; New Black Eye For Struggling Program” and reported that Japan’s defense minister, Taro Kono, announced: “Due to considerations of cost and timing, we have stopped the process of introducing the Aegis Ashore system.” This is the Lockheed Martin anti-ballistic-missile system that the U.S. is installing at many places surrounding Russia in order to be able to eliminate or at least greatly reduce Russia’s ability to strike back effectively against the U.S.

A puerile propaganda stunt pulled by U.S. negotiators in Vienna this week ahead of talks with Russian counterparts was both at insult to China and a reprehensible distraction from credible bilateral business with Moscow on the vital issue of strategic security.
Ahead of talks with Russian delegates, the Americans took a stealthy photo of the venue contriving to show Chinese flags sitting atop vacant tables.

The answer to the above question comes down to one word: China.
U.S. envoy Marshall Billingslea is, rather belatedly, making enthusiastic sounds about arms control talks to be held with Russia later this month. The talks are scheduled for June 22 in Vienna. The Kremlin has confirmed the venue and discussions, with deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov representing the Russian side.

The president has made clear that we have a tried and true practice here. We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion. If we have to, we will, but we sure would like to avoid it.
Marshall Billingslea, May 2020
Billingslea is President Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control and will presumably be in charge of Washington’s team in negotiating a new START treaty.

Let us consider why the Donald Trump White House is currently considering detonating a nuclear weapon. It would be the first “test” of a nuke since 1992 and is clearly intended to send a message that those weapons sitting around in storage will be available for use.

Another one bites the dust. In less two years, President Donald Trump has now binned three major arms-control treaties – quite a record for undermining decades of international security architecture. First there was the nuclear accord with Iran (2018), then the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (2019), and now the Open Skies Treaty.