02/27/2020 In the past month, the Trump Administration has confirmed the deployment of low-yield nuclear warheads for its submarine-launched ballistic missiles. These warheads have an explosive capacity smaller than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and were created with the intent to be used preemptively or in a “limited” nuclear war.
The move follows the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review, which includes the novel theory that the threat or limited use of “smaller” nuclear weapons will prevent aggression by the Russians or other US adversaries. The Trump administration’s new warhead program continues plans started under President Obama to spend over $1 trillion (now estimated to be $1.7 trillion) during the next 30 years to modernize and expand the US nuclear arsenal.
IPPNW denounces the development and deployment of these new low-yield nuclear weapons, which will lower the threshold for their use and escalate a resurgent arms race with Russia. They dramatically increase the threat of nuclear war, further threatening the health and survival of everyone on the planet. Nuclear weapons, whatever their size, kill indiscriminately. Their deployment invites uncertainty and miscalculation and their use would ignite massive retaliation leading to full-scale nuclear war.
Rather than doubling down on a new generations of genocidal weapons, the US, Russia, and the other nuclear armed states must fulfill their disarmament obligations under the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty and join the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear. So far, 35 nations have formally joined the TPNW and another 81 signatories are in the process of ratifying it.
It is time to end the senseless spending on weapons that can end life on Earth as we know it within a matter of minutes.
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