Resetting the Clock: What We Should Demand from Biden on Nuclear Weapons Policy

Stop whatever you are doing and consider the fact that, according to those scientists and analysts in which we as a society have placed our collective trust, the apocalypse is imminent.[1] The fact that such a statement sounds outlandish, or even melodramatic, is a testament to the efficacy of the veil draped over our eyes by everyday life. Noam Chomsky published a book in 1989 with the title, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies.[2] The denial of the realities of the existential threats we face constitutes one of those illusions, and it is one that we cannot, by any standard, afford to perpetuate.

Our proximity to the end is measured by the Doomsday Clock set by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a group descended from the ones who helped develope the original atomic weapons in the 40s.[3] They conclude that we are now 100 seconds to midnight due to the “simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond.”[4] For comparison, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the National Security Council of the United States actually considered initiating a conflict--which, by most analyses, would have escalated to a nuclear exchange-- we were at seven minutes to midnight.[5]

Surely, these two colossal, dread-inducing problems should be the prime concerns of international lawyers. To take the issue of nuclear war, they should be screaming in terror. The exiting President Donald Trump tore almost every existing nuclear arms treaty to shreds, including the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty.[6] He one left standing the New START Treaty of 2010, which sought to impose “central limits on strategic arms,” including capping the United States’ and Russia’s arsenals at 700 ICBMs, deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and deployed heavy bombers; 1,550 nuclear warheads on various delivery mechanisms; and 800 launchers and bombers of different types set up for nuclear armaments.[7] To get a sense of how sturdy a protection this lonely treaty spared by Trump’s onslaught is, consider that researchers have shown that a conflict involving only 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs would likely “disrupt global climate for at least a decade and wipe out the ozone layer for a decade.”[8]

One might locate hope in the fact that we are waving goodbye to a President who was uniquely opposed to efforts to pull us back from nuclear annihilation, but this only brings us to the question of what the next administration can and will do. Biden will seemingly face two challenges:

First, he will become president of a government that spent the past four years amping up its nuclear potential.[9] An example of escalation includes a $13 billion contract granted to defense contractor Northrop Grumman for the development of a “Ground Based Strategic Deterrent.”[10] Also in the works is a new breed of cruise missile developed by Raytheon and dubbed the Long-Range Standoff Weapon.[11] All the while, former Secretary of Defense William Perry argued that even under the spell of deterrence theory and belief that the United States needs to maintain a solid arsenal, it is simply illogical to continue this endless march towards the advancement of weapons of mass destruction.[12] Submarine-launched warheads, Perry states, would be more than enough of a deterrent.[13] If Biden is willing, and for the sake of us all let’s hope he is, an appropriations battle looms. His indications thus far bode well—he expressed an understanding that more weapons only heighten the chance of use.[14]   

Second, Biden will face the task of repairing and advancing the international legal framework of nuclear arms control and non-proliferation. Firstly, seeing as it expires in February, the new administration can seek to renew the New START Treaty for another five-year term.[15] This should be a relatively seamless matter; the Los Angeles Times reports that “Russia has said it is willing to extend the pact unconditionally” even though Trump declined to make that commitment.[16] Of course, the pale corpses of Trump’s diplomatic casualties lay strewn about for resurrection. And it wouldn’t hurt to return to a state of greater security, even if it only amounts to a matter of seconds on the Doomsday Clock.

But perhaps if we want to make real progress on this front, we should aim for a world where one President cannot drive us so close to the edge. This would involve improving, not upon the state affairs under Trump, who the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists states, “singlehandedly destroyed decades worth of hard work done by previous US administrations,” but instead improving on those policies in place before Trump’s tenure.[17] For instance, Biden could one-up Obama by finally committing the United States to a no first use policy and communicate to the world that if there is a nuclear exchange, the US won’t be the ones who started it.[18] Judging from the overwhelming supremacy of the American military’s conventional means of warfare, this would be entirely feasible. With such a move, the US would reach at least the fringes of sanity on this issue.

 Frank Tamberino is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLIV.

This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.

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[1] See 2020 Doomsday Clock Statement, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/ (last visited Nov. 27, 2020).

[2] See generally Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies (1989).

[3] See supra note 1.

[4] Id.

[5] See Doomsday Clock moved to just two minutes to ‘apocalypse,’ BBC News (Jan. 25, 2018),

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-42823734.

[6] See U.S. Completes INF Treaty Withdrawal, Arms Control Association (Sept. 2019), https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-09/news/us-completes-inf-treaty-withdrawal; Trump Exits Open Skies Treaty, Moves to Discard Observation Planes, Wall St. J. (Nov. 22, 2020), https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-exits-open-skies-treaty-moves-to-discard-observation-planes-11606055371.

[7] See Sara Z. Kutchesfahani, Here’s what to expect from Biden on top nuclear weapons issues, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Bulletin (Nov. 9, 2020), https://thebulletin.org/2020/11/heres-what-to-expect-from-biden-on-top-nuclear-weapons-issues/; New START Treaty, Russ.-U.S., Apr. 8, 2010, T.I.A.S. No. 11-205 .

[8] See Charles Q. Choi, ‘Small’ Nuclear War Could Trigger Catastrophic Cooling, Live Science (Mar. 26, 2014),

https://www.livescience.com/44380-small-nuclear-war-could-trigger-catastrophic-cooling.html.

[9] See Bryan Bender, Biden could take swift action on transgender ban, nuclear weapons, Politico (Nov. 7, 2020, 6:00 PM), https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/07/joe-biden-policies-defense-433632.

[10] Id.

[11] Id.

[12] See John F. Harris and Bryan Bender, Bill Perry Is Terrified. Why Aren’t You?, Politico Magazine (Jan. 6, 2017), https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/william-perry-nuclear-weapons-proliferation-214604.

[13] Id.

[14] See Roberts Burns, Biden says he would push for less U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons for defense, PBS NewsHour (Sept. 21, 2020), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-says-he-would-push-for-less-u-s-reliance-on-nuclear-weapons-for-defense.

[15] See Bender, supra note 9.

[16] See The Times Editorial Board, Editorial: Trump is trashing arms control treaties and making the world more dangerous, L.A. Times (June 11, 2020, 3:00 AM), https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-11/trump-trashing-arms-control-treaties.

[17] See Kutchesfahani, supra note 7.

[18] See id.