The horror and promise of Trump's nuclear policy
However alarming you may find the short-term prospect of President Trump's withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, there is a great opportunity here for diplomacy
President Trump announced Friday that the United States will withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing Russia's noncompliance with the decades-old agreement. This was, among the other things, the greatest escalation of hostilities with Russia by an American president in more than 30 years, perhaps even the most significant since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
If nothing else this decision puts paid to the lunatic fiction that Trump is in any conceivable manner serving the interests of Russia. Meanwhile we are faced with the revolting spectacle of defense executives licking their lips at the thought of profiting from the construction of weapons capable of killing a million people more or less instantaneously.
Still, it is possible to be of two minds about the administration's decision to withdraw from the agreement. The 31-year-old INF is not without its problems. For one thing, its language was outdated. For more than a decade, Putin's Russia has been able to comply with the letter but not the spirit of the treaty by building large numbers of weapons that, while perhaps not technically restricted by the text of the document, are certainly the sort of thing whose construction it had been meant to impede — forever. This is to say nothing of the fact that China, a much greater threat to American security than Russia will ever hope to be again, is not a party to the agreement, limiting its effectiveness.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
This means that, however alarming we may find the short-term prospect of the collapse, there is a great opportunity here for diplomacy. The negotiation of a new wide-ranging arms control treaty, one that would bind not only the United States and her allies, Russia, and China, but perhaps Iran and North Korea as well, would be the greatest diplomatic triumph of our young century.
How optimistic should we be about the ability of Trump and his administration to bring together such an agreement? It is difficult to say. But I for one find it hard to imagine his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who has come up in the world of GOP foreign policy brinksmanship, being the man to do it, though I would be happy to be proven wrong.
Certain facts are worth facing at the outset. One is that no meaningful deal is likely to be reached that does not involve significant — perhaps even, for the United States, fatal — concessions to China's economics interests. The reign of globalized free trade is destroying us, materially and spiritually. What would a new Cold War do?
In the meantime, I cannot be the only person who feels a quiet sense of horror at the thought of the post-Cold War order collapsing as it were overnight. My mind is full of visions — skin sliding off human faces like a strip of bark, the bodies of children melting, babies turned to charcoal dust. But the truth is that we were never very far away from these possibilities. The peace of 1989 was a lie. Hundreds of millions of us could die an instant because we have created Satanic engines of destruction that cannot be employed in the service of any just cause and refused to destroy them forever.
This is why in the long-term total disarmament is the only solution. Nuclear war is impossible. Such a conflict could not be won. It would mean the end of civilization itself.
Now the task of saving us from this horrendous fate has fallen to a man who makes glib jokes about the size of his nuclear button. I for one will be praying.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.
-
5 ways to help the environment while on vacation
The Week Recommends An afternoon of planting trees could be the best part of your trip
By Catherine Garcia, The Week US Published
-
Doctors are taking on dental duties in low-income areas
Under the radar Physicians are biting into the dentistry industry
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Instagram hopes that blurring nudity in messages will make teens safer
The Explainer The option will be turned on by default for users under 18
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Myanmar: the Spring Revolution and the downfall of the generals
Talking Point An armed protest movement has swept across the country since the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown in 2021
By The Week Staff Published
-
Israel hits Iran with retaliatory airstrike
Speed Read The attack comes after Iran's drone and missile barrage last weekend
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Is there a peaceful way forward for Israel and Iran?
Today's Big Question Tehran has initially sought to downplay the latest Israeli missile strike on its territory
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Sudan on brink of collapse after a year of war
Speed Read 18 million people face famine as the country continues its bloody downward spiral
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How powerful is Iran?
Today's big question Islamic republic is facing domestic dissent and 'economic peril' but has a vast military, dangerous allies and a nuclear threat
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
US, Israel brace for Iran retaliatory strikes
Speed Read An Iranian attack on Israel is believed to be imminent
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How green onions could swing South Korea's election
The Explainer Country's president has fallen foul of the oldest trick in the campaign book, not knowing the price of groceries
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Ukraine's battle to save Kharkiv from Putin's drones
The Explainer Country's second-largest city has been under almost daily attacks since February amid claims Russia wants to make it uninhabitable
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published