The Trump administration is being accused of making nuclear war more likely with plans to introduce lower-yield nuclear weapons with reduced destructive capability that would diminish the psychological bar for using them.
A former US official who claims to have seen a draft of the plans told the The Guardian newspaper on Tuesday that the Pentagon is spearheading the initiative ordered by the White House.
Jon Wolfsthal, who was special assistant to Barack Obama on arms control and nonproliferation, said security officials envision a more versatile program by applying a modified nuclear warhead to the Trident D5 submarine.
The Trump administration is planning to make nuclear weapons easier to use and more readily an option in case of a conflict, according to one former Obama adviser (Pictured Right: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un)
Jon Wolfsthal claims the defense department is spearheading the plan that aims to deter hostile actors from attacking US interests, including Russia, North Korea and China (pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin)
An unarmed Trident II D5 missile launches from the Ohio-class fleet ballistic-missile submarine USS Maryland
View of the Trident submarine USS Georgia(SSGN 729) on Thursday, October 7, 2004 off the coast of Southern California
The White House, Wolfsthal said, is also attempting to loosen constraints that guide first-strike protocols, in what he described as a decidedly more hawkish posture that breaks away from historical precedent.
The aim of the new policy is to deter Russia from using tactical warheads in a possible conflict with Eastern Europe, according to The Guardian. The program also seeks to reign in other state actors that may threaten US interests.
‘What I’ve been told by the people who wrote the thing was what they were trying to do was to send a clear deterrent message to Russians, the North Korean and the Chinese,’ Wolfsthal told the publication.
‘And there is pretty good, moderate but strong language that makes clear that any attempt by Russia or North Korea to use nuclear weapons would result in a massive consequence for them and I think that’s actually moderate, centrist and probably very much needed.’
Wolfsthal also noted that plans are in motion to apply lower-yield ‘tactical’ nuclear ballistic missiles to the military’s new Columbia-class submarines.
‘Where (the administration) go overboard, is where they say… the US needs to develop two new types of nuclear weapons,’ Wolfsthal said.
The plan breaks with the previous administration’s goal of reducing nuclear weapons in US defense strategy.
Jon Wolfstha (pictured) said security officials envision a more versatile program by applying a modified nuclear warhead to the Trident D5 submarine
The White House plans to reveal its own nuclear posture review (NPR), the first in eight years, during the President’s State of the Union address at the end of January
Security experts, however, have voiced concern with the policy, arguing that constructing more ‘usable’ nuclear weapons increases the likelihood of their use.
They claim that President Donald Trump’s volatility, along with his recent hostile rhetoric directed towards North Korea, presents an unpredictable element in the nuclear equation.
Wolfsthal described the modified Trident warhead as ‘totally unnecessary,’ as the US already as a diversified weapons arsenal
Last week, Trump fired off a warning tweet to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, taunting leader who said in his New Year speech that Americans should be aware he has a ‘button’ for nuclear weapons.
Trump warned the hermit country: ‘North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un just stated that the ”Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!’
The White House plans to reveal its nuclear posture review (NPR), the first in eight years, during the President’s State of the Union address at the end of January.
Wolfsthal described the modified Trident warhead as ‘totally unnecessary,’ as the US already as a diversified weapons arsenal including low-yield weapons, B61 gravity bombs and air-launched cruise missiles.
The ex-Obama adviser called the strategy ‘pretty dumb,’ pointing out that launching an attack with a significantly smaller nuclear pay-load would inflict negligible damage while giving away a submarine’s position.
‘We spend $5bn per submarine to make it invisible and we put a lot of warheads on each submarine and so what they want to do is take one missile, put one small warhead on it and launch it first, so the submarine is vulnerable to Russian attack.’ Wolfsthal said. ‘That strikes me as being unsustainable from a naval strategy point of view.’
The theory behind the White House plan assumes that if Russia attacks NATO forces on its eastern flank, the Russians would use a tactical nuclear weapon early on, to compensate for their relative weakness in conventional arms, the Guardian notes.
The Russians, the theory argues, would then expect to US military to back down, believing it would be reluctant to use a massive nuclear weapon.
Military experts say that such a scenario would be unlikely.
Lt. Alex Baerg mans the parascope aboard the Trident submarine USS Georgia on October 7, 2004 off the coast of Southern California
Crew members work on upgrades aboard the Trident Submarine USS Georgia at the Naval Base Point Loma September 8, 2004
‘It assumes that the intelligence community has determined that one or several adversaries out there are gambling that the US would be self-deterred from using a ballistic missile warhead because they have larger yield,’ Hans Kristensen, the director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, told the Guardian.
‘That’s just not the case. We have never, ever heard anyone say that is so,’ he added.
Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, called the strategy ‘dangerous,’ adding that the development of new nuclear capabilities was anachronistic thinking that belongs to the days of the Cold War.
‘The use of even a small number of these weapons would be catastrophic,’ Kimball said.
‘Threatening nuclear attack to counter new kinds of “asymmetric” threats is unnecessary, would increase the risk of nuclear weapons use, and would make it easier for other countries to justify excessive roles for nuclear weapons in their policies.’
The largest nuclear weapon currently in America’s is the B83, with a maximum yield of 1.2 megatons of TNT. The B83 is said to be 75 times stronger than 16 kt yield of the atomic bomb ‘Little Boy’ dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.
The M-28 Davey Crockett was America’s smallest nuclear capable weapon, with a yield between 10 and 20 tons TNT equivalent.
One metric megaton is the equivalent of one million metric tons.
Nuclear policy experts Hans Kristensen (left) and Daryl Kimball (right) call the new nuclear policy initiative short-sighted and necessary