The Donald, The Nuclear and No First Use

Aaron Stein 0:01

Let's talk about the Donald and the nuclear. You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk Podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament. I'm Aaron Stein, co-host of the podcast, and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafik Kariri Center for the Middle East.

Jeffrey Lewis 0:19

And I'm Jeffrey Lewis. I'm the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron 0:29

Jeffrey, is it a sunny day in California?

Jeffrey 0:34

Yeah, it's pretty sunny. It's funny. I'm looking out the window, and it's beautiful blue sky, super sunny, but there's a fog over the ocean, so I can't see the beach.

Aaron 0:47

I'm calling from an undisclosed location. I am not on the east coast of the United States today. I have nice hot weather outside and a blue sky.

Jeffrey 0:57

So are you on vacation, Aaron, or are you working?

Aaron 0:59

I've been roped into dad duty while my wife is at a conference in Las Vegas. So I am acting as a babysitter at the Venetian Hotel at the moment.

Jeffrey 1:09

Please tell me you've got a hangover style baby Bjorn thing going on right now.

Aaron 1:15

I do. He likes the roulette table. I sort of have to put him on my back and he looks over as I'm spinning away. I'm gambling with his college fund though.

Jeffrey 1:24

See, I was imagining it would be Blackjack and he'd just be screaming, you know, hit me again!

Aaron 1:29

Hit me again! Hit me again! He tenses up and just starts yelling. People around him don't appreciate it because he hits out of turn. But, you know, from our 25th floor room here at the Venetian, we have a very nice view of a new tower here in Las Vegas.

Jeffrey 1:47

Did the new towers look anything different from the old towers? I've always found Vegas architecture to be a little bit...

Aaron 1:53

Yeah, but it has a certain five letters on the top of it and matches the name of a certain Republican presidential candidate. Oh, really? I do. I'm overlooking the Trump Tower. Oh, my gosh. Well, let's talk about the Donald and the nuclear. The Donald and nuclear. I can't even pronounce it the way we should.

Jeffrey 2:16

You almost have that accent, which is weird because you're not from New York. You're from L.A., right?

Aaron 2:20

Yeah, it sort of interspersed with some of my wanting to go into the Turkish accent. But before I left, you know, I had a flight yesterday morning from the East Coast and stayed up late watching the sort of debate of the century on Monday night.

Jeffrey 2:38

I turned it off before he had started humiliating himself. So I turned it off kind of depressed. And then I noticed on Twitter that my friends are getting really cheery. Which meant I missed the clip where he talked about nuclear weapons, but we've got super producer Scott LaFoy who can just drop that in.

Aaron 3:02

Right, right. But I think it's a good place to start this because a question about one of our more recent podcasts came up. It's the whole thing about no first use. The Donald didn't listen.

Jeffrey 3:17

No, although, you know, like, Donald managed in his own little way to, I think, perfectly capture the actual policy, right? Which is, he says that, you know, these two apparently contradictory things, that he would not conduct a nuclear first strike, and he also wouldn't take that off the table, which I think is... I think to a person who's never encountered this before, that would seem really strange, but that's actually what people say.

Donald Trump 3:55

But I would certainly not do first strike. I think that once the nuclear alternative happens, it's over. At the same time, we have to be prepared. I can't take anything off the table.

Aaron 4:08

In the Donald sort of incoherence – so let me back up. I think the Donald doesn't really prepare for a lot of stuff and then he just – No. I know. I know. Drop the news here.

Jeffrey 4:20

Aaron, this is – do you have some sourcing on this claim?

Aaron 4:24

I do. I do. He has the best sources. That's right. I'm really plugged into the Trump campaign.

Jeffrey 4:30

It's tremendous. These sources, you are not going to believe. These sources. You are – trust me. You're going to love them. They are tremendous.

Aaron 4:39

I got a line right into the campaign. But he sort of – it's like when you were like in junior high and you didn't prepare for the test and you sort of flip through the book like 10 minutes before the test. And then you get to the essay question at the end and you just start sort of blurting out things.

It's like no first use. I don't take anything off the table. The Iran deal is terrible. Just sort of sound bites that are used to describe nuclear things. But when he does that about these sorts of topics, he sort of inevitably puts his finger on some of the contradictions because I don't think he's well-versed in sort of the way we dress up a lot of the policy issues.

Like one of the old ones is, well, if we have nuclear weapons, why can't we use them? And then this one, you know, it's I wouldn't launch a first strike, but I wouldn't take anything off the table.

Jeffrey 5:28

Yeah. So I committed at the court at the beginning of the campaign that I wasn't going to write a column every time Donald Trump said something stupid about nuclear weapons because that would have been every column I wrote for the entirety of the campaign. And so I set a kind of test or established some criteria. And I had noticed exactly the same thing, that he has this talent, as it were, to – Put his finger on the underlying emotional idea of a pretty common or popular policy, but he doesn't know how to dress it up in the kind of nice, obscuring words of people who, you know, don't want to seem to be racist or don't want to seem to be mass murderers, right?

So he is in this amazing way this kind of spirit guide Darker recesses of our imaginations, because he says things that actually, I think, are in fact our nuclear policies, right? But he doesn't say them in the careful way that they are disguised so that you can't quite actually get at them, right? Like so much of our debate about nuclear weapons uses euphemism so that you can't actually get at what a monstrous or crazy idea you're dealing with.

But he doesn't have that defense, right? So he just says it.

Aaron 7:02

Right. He just blurts things out because, you know, he's ignorant on a lot of issues and incoherent in explaining those issues because of his ignorance. But Again, as we both just said, because he can't dress it up in the language that we all use in the policy world, he puts his finger on a lot of issues. And I don't want to sound praiseworthy of Donald Trump here.

His answer was an incoherent, rambling mess. But nevertheless, there's one snippet. Does have resonance in sort of the broader policy debate when you strip it away. And I think a good example of that is our own Secretary of Defense when discussing a similar topic basically at the same time.

Jeffrey 7:50

Oh, it's remarkable, right? So on the one hand, you've got Trump's version, and on the other hand, you have Ash Carter, who is the literal opposite of Trump in terms of experience.

Aaron 8:02

A history in nuclear weapons.

Jeffrey 8:04

Right. He's been an assistant secretary of defense. He has been an undersecretary of defense. He has been deputy secretary of defense. He is now the secretary of defense. That entire time he has had a particular interest and responsibility for nuclear weapons when he is not serving as a high-ranking defense official over this entire period, right? His other job has been a professor at Harvard where he studies and teaches these issues.

He is... As steeped in these things as possible.

Aaron 8:37

And he gets asked the same question that Donald Trump gets asked.

Jeffrey 8:40

And it's funny, it's obscured in the transcript, but I'm told it's Bob Burns from the associated press and says he asked Carter whether the United States should adopt a policy of no first use regarding nuclear weapons. Right. And Carter says, I love this. I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm going to read it. And Bob Burns obviously says, I'm not quite clear whether you... Is that a yes or a no?

And Carter says... It has been our policy for a long time and it is part of our plans going forward.

Aaron 9:36

Well, I mean he was far more coherent than Donald Trump who managed to weave in like a B-52 and all sorts of sort of rambling incoherent nonsense. But you end up at the same sort of outcome. It's a non-answer to a very pointed question on – well, it's actually a broader question that we didn't talk about in the last –

Jeffrey 9:57

Which is why we're doing another podcast.

Aaron 9:59

We didn't talk about this in the last No First Use podcast that we did a couple weeks ago. Basically, I think there's confusion about what it is and about the U.S. approach to it and sort of the pros and cons argument built around the idea of no first use of nuclear weapons.

Jeffrey 10:18

Yeah, and so we have had a series of debates about Declaratory policy, what we say about nuclear weapons. And those debates have happened from the get-go. From the advent of nuclear weapons, there has been a discussion about what we should and should not say about them. And if you are in the nuclear business, those discussions have taken on a A very rehearsed and kind of rote quality.

You know, there are the canonical arguments for doing it and the canonical arguments against it. And while the U.S. has never pledged no first use, we are in this funny position where the kind of, I would say the dominant or the consensus view is something like Trump said, which is... I would never use nuclear weapons first, or I couldn't see how we would ever use nuclear weapons first, or I couldn't imagine we would use nuclear weapons first, but we have to retain the option.

It's funny because it is such a traditional view in the United States. That's how I learned it, and I'm so used to it, it doesn't strike me as funny. But living here in California, that dichotomy of the, this is a terrible idea, we have to retain the options, Strikes most people as absurd. So I thought it would be good to talk about the origin of no first use, what people hope it would accomplish, what the objections to it are, you know, whether there's other language that's, you know, equally good, and then, you know, use that as just kind of a way to talk about this issue.

Aaron 12:05

Right. And to be clear, I wouldn't Trust Trump to put together my ham sandwich. Seriously, the man frightens me for a number of reasons. But one of the big quotes that got attributed to him, and I think it was leaked by Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe, was that during one of his first briefings about the topic is, well, if we have these things, why can't we use them?

And that got blown up, and it was turned into, by the Hillary campaign, a very effective attack on him About we can't trust this guy with nuclear codes. And again, caveat, I don't trust this guy to make my ham sandwich. But that is the argument about this, right? We have to retain the option. But we definitely wouldn't use them first.

Jeffrey 12:50

Right. So, you know, I do think that in some ways, the way that the Clinton campaign has used nuclear weapons as an issue against Trump Almost perfectly explains why the Soviet Union and then later China used a no first use pledge against the United States, right? Like you know, the, the, the real and I shouldn't say it's, it's not the first people to push it, but for the longest time, the Soviet Union had a no first use pledge, which the United States assumed that the Soviets would violate on the first day of the war.

But You know, the Soviets, I think found that it was a really useful way to put pressure on the United States because so many of the scenarios, at least in the cold war, where we thought we would use nuclear weapons first would be coming to the defense of allies who are outnumbered by, you know, the red army and we couldn't get enough conventional troops into theater.

So we would use nuclear weapons and the Soviets kind of figured out that there was this wonderful propaganda ploy for them in this. Because on the one hand, allies wanted to be defended, and so they wanted to know that we would bring to bear the capabilities we had, which is exactly what Carter highlights, right? That we have these allies to defend, so that's the canonical objection to no first use.

I mean, he is answering Bob Burns' question, even if it's not exactly clear. But on the other hand, right, using nuclear weapons first sounds like you're escalating the war, right? And so at the same time that you are reassuring these allies that you're going to come to their defense... You're also making them, like, a little bit nervous.

Like, wait, wait, are you going to start a nuclear war? Like, are you going to do this on our behalf? You know, and there was that old joke, you know, that the United States planned to defend NATO down to the last German. Right. Right. And so, you know, you have this tension. And Michael Howard actually wrote a really nice article in the early 1980s about what he called deterrence and reassurance.

I think people often misquote it. But for Howard, it was this tension, which I think no first use from the Soviet perspective usefully exploited, which is at one level, allies wanted to know that we would defend them and that they enjoyed the benefit of deterrence. On the other hand, they needed to be reassured that we weren't going to go start a nuclear war.

And so at least throughout the Cold War, I think, The Soviet demand that we pledged not to use nuclear weapons for first kind of exposed this tension in the relationship and had the effect of just making the cohesion of NATO, making the cohesion less cohesive. Can I say that?

Aaron 15:29

Yeah. You know, the glue is less sticky. When you're worried about sort of the toxic effects of said glue. But that's almost exactly what Clinton's doing to Trump, right?

Jeffrey 15:40

Is she's sort of playing on that same inherent contradiction where we want nuclear weapons and we want to be defended by them, but we're also like a little bit afraid of them. And so she's sort of saying like, well, is that like, do you trust that guy?

Aaron 15:56

Right. And do you trust that guy with that type of weapon? Because they may actually have to be used. Or at least contemplate because they have a role, right? They have a role in American – the role that you just – are very articulately described.

Jeffrey 16:11

By the way, I'm sorry to talk over you again, but did you see there was the poll of Trump supporters, like people who support and oppose Trump? There was also a poll of like do you think he is likely to start a nuclear war and 20 percent of Trump supporters thought he was going to start a nuclear war.

Aaron 16:27

I did. I will admit I did not like read the poll in depth. It was one of those things that flashed across my Twitter. It was like sort of the size sort of you put your hand in your head and you say, OK, moving back on, got to go back to work type thing. So I can claim to have seen that but not the entire thing.

But China is using that exact same – you mentioned at the top. And I think the North Korea issue, another friend of the pod, North Korea, brings that issue up as well as sort of extended deterrence and how you can put pressure on the United States to at least – and I think from the Chinese perspective, it's even better because they also don't join or at least don't want to join larger talks about arms control and nonproliferation because they also use their low numbers, right?

And so they have this dual way that they can put pressure on the United States and avoid a lot of these larger conversations we have about nuclear weapons, partly because of this, because of the extended deterrence, and partly because of their low numbers.

Jeffrey 17:25

Actually, that's the course module I taught last week in my History of China's Nuclear Weapons class, is how China used a no-first-use pledge to deflect criticism from Of conducting atmospheric testing in an era when the test ban was really popular, you know? It was their classic, like, you're testing in the atmosphere, that's terrible, and like, well, what about them? They're threatening to attack us first, right? Just as a way to to change the subject. I find that really interesting because it gets to this question, like, why should we pledge no first use? Because if you imagine, I think, from an American policymaker's perspective, you know, well, this is a, this is a propaganda ploy that's intended to divide us from our allies.

Which is true. Yeah, which it is. It is. It absolutely – well, it certainly was. On the one hand, you don't want to give them that victory. On the other hand, what I think has been so interesting is my experience is most Chinese don't even remember that history anymore.

Aaron 18:29

They don't even know why –

Jeffrey 18:31

No first use became this kind of perennial of Chinese nuclear policy. It maintained itself long after China moved testing underground and long after China signed the CTPT. And so in a weird way, no first use has acquired this other meaning, which is, I think, the argument for it. If the argument against it is you're going to alarm allies, And, and there are some other, I think, sophisticated objections we can talk to.

You know, the big argument for it is that it's really hard to have a conversation with countries with much smaller nuclear weapons much smaller size of nuclear weapons like China. If we can't find a way to, that we aren't seeking to use our nuclear weapons to coerce them.

Aaron 19:22

Right.

Jeffrey 19:23

And they have, they have decided that this phrase is the magic phrase for them. And whether we choose to utter it or not, you know, that's a complicated discussion. But, like, we do all complain that we don't have the quality of conversation with the Chinese that we'd like to have about nuclear weapons.

Aaron 19:44

You mean those prepared statements that all those track twos you go to just don't do it for you?

Jeffrey 19:48

Yeah, I mean, like, I literally was at one of these meetings, which I probably should not be telling the story, but we were super, super duper proud that we had gotten an official... From the Defense Department there, and the official from the U.S. Defense Department was only allowed. This is many years ago, and I didn't organize this meeting, so just to be clear, it's not the most recent track two that CNS hosted.

It's a different meeting from the beginning of the Obama administration that I did not organize, which is probably why I'm willing to throw the organizers under the bus. The DOD guy came and he read a statement, but he could only read the statement. And, like, the Chinese were, like, kind of giving him hell because it was, like, Is this, like, my country in 1975?

Like, what do you mean you can only read the statement? So, yeah, like, we want to get past that.

Aaron 20:39

I mean, and there was talk, I mean, just you teed it up. I mean, there was talk about it, I think in the last NPR, Nuclear Posture Review, about getting at this issue using sort of our language, you know, sort of non-proliferation walk language. But nevertheless, it was in there, but ultimately did not, you know, wasn't in the final draft, sort of a total no first use pledge.

Jeffrey 21:03

Yeah, so I would start this conversation by saying whatever changes to declaratory policy we make, my motivation is the way that I resolve the inherent contradiction between the allies problem. On the one hand, you want to be able to have a conversation with your enemies. On one hand, you want to have a conversation with your enemies. On the other hand, you want to still reassure your allies.

The way that I resolve that is I don't think we should bluff with nuclear weapons. I don't think it is in our interest For the Russians to be confused about our nuclear policy, right? And I don't think it's in our interest for the Chinese to be confused about it. So I'm not crazy about our current declaratory policy, but sorry, I tried to tee it up and now I've... No, let me jump in there.

Aaron 21:53

I was talking about the NPR and sole purpose, but, you know, the United States actually finds itself in a very... The United States finds itself in a position that Russia and the Soviet Union before it are not in, same with China today, is where you have to wrangle a whole bunch of allies who have underneath them and who are granted the benefit of American security guarantees up into the nuclear threshold.

Vastly different perceptions about the value of fighting to the last insert country here metaphor that we talked about earlier and how they view nuclear weapons as they pertain to deterring – probably Russia would be the country I'm thinking most of within the NATO alliance itself. And so you have – it's not just a straight American debate, right?

It's not just our bunch of guys getting into a room and then doing – so you have to balance a lot of inherent contradictions underneath that.

Jeffrey 22:49

Well, that's right. That's why before dumping the sole purpose, I was teeing it up in this particular way, which is to say, you know, as we think about what we want to say about nuclear weapons, we have these multiple audiences.

Aaron 23:01

We want to deter our enemies, but we also don't want to make the polls go jump into some cold bathwater.

Jeffrey 23:10

Well, actually, so I think I will get to the polls, but we have two tasks here. For both enemies and both allies. Right. So for enemies, we want to deter them, but we don't want to deter them in a way that causes them to do dangerous things. Right. Like, like you, you want stable deterrence. So you know, good deterrence, but at the same time you know, we don't want to like, we want the Chinese to be deterred from attacking our allies in the region, but we also don't want to start an arms race with the Chinese.

So that's a, that's, We've got to both deter and, in some ways, find a way to, like, you know, reassure them, although reassure is usually a word we use with allies. It's the same problem with allies. We want to show allies that we can protect them and that they will be defended, but we also want to make it politically easy for allies to accept that.

So if we're seen as crazy warmongering cowboys, that creates anxiety within those allies, right? It makes it harder for them to stay close to us. And so... From my perspective, as we think about what we say about nuclear weapons, we have to do those four things. So we have to find language that maintains deterrence so that the bad guys stay out and the good guys stay confident.

But we also have to do it without seeming like crazy warmongers because that makes it much harder for our own allies to stay on side. And you run the risk of things like 1983 where I think we overdid it a bit.

Aaron 24:35

Yeah, I was thinking a more recent example is just the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and how acting like cowboys can fracture even very robust alliances where you had unity of purpose around the Afghan campaign.

Jeffrey 24:50

Right. So at the beginning of the Obama administration, we had this kind of, I think, desire to find some new language that NATO would be okay with. And no first use is difficult. For a while, NATO had some last resort language, which people in the Bush administration had used, and that seemed pretty good. But the idea that took hold, for better or for worse, was this idea of a sole purpose pledge.

And that was to say that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons was to deter nuclear attacks on the United States and its allies.

Aaron 25:28

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 25:30

And that got killed in the Nuclear Posture Review in part because it became seen as a stalking horse for no first use. And so what the Nuclear Posture Review said was, that's a nice idea, and we'd like to get to the point where we can do that, but we're not there yet.

Aaron 25:46

Yeah, and it kept open the option to use nuclear weapons for all WMD, not just nuclear weapons itself.

Jeffrey 25:56

Well, no, it didn't. It said... We offered a clean negative security assurances to countries in compliance with their non-proliferation obligations. So if you were Libya, you got the promise that we wouldn't nuke you even if you used chem weapons. But if you're North Korea and you use chem weapons, we can nuke you because you're not in compliance with your nuclear nonproliferation.

Right. That's what I meant.

Aaron 26:24

I meant for those that were in compliance with their MPDs. I was thinking actually at that time it was Iran and North Korea.

Jeffrey 26:29

And Syria. Yeah. Well, right. So they took advantage of the fact. The only countries we were worried about developing chemical and to a much less extent biological weapons. Were countries that were not in compliance with their nonproliferation obligations or that had nuclear weapons. So as a practical matter, it was an easy pledge to make. It would have been interesting to see how they would have handled it if Syria hadn't been out of compliance with its NPT obligations.

Oh, and I should add, the other thing is there is a... It's not really a... People say this wrong. They act like the Nuclear Posture Review carved out an exception for BWU But it didn't. It put down a marker, right? And it said, given the biological threats we know today, we're not going to use nuclear weapons to respond to a biological attack.

Oh, FYI, in case you come up with some horrible, you know, Andromeda strain, then we might reconsider the policy, right? Which is not the same thing as saying you're going to do it. It's just, you know, keeping your option open to revise your policy. Right. So that's not what I would have done, right?

Aaron 27:40

Really? I don't think the listeners got that.

Jeffrey 27:43

Yeah, so I would have – so I think we're having these endless debates about how to talk about the circumstances in which we would use nuclear weapons. I think I said this on the podcast the other day. I think that's crazy because, first of all, you are never going to find a perfect phraseology – That is clear when it needs to be clear, and ambiguous when it needs to be ambiguous, and that a spokesperson with no prior knowledge on the subject can execute flawlessly.

That's the unicorn, right? When you start talking about when the US is going to use nuclear weapons, you are asking for trouble. And in particular, it's a terrible discussion to have because You're talking about a hypothetical situation in the future, right? A decision to be made by a president who may not even be elected yet. And so there is one of the criticisms of no first use, which I think is fair, is it can be an empty promise.

So my argument has always been we shouldn't talk about when we would use nuclear weapons. We should talk about why we possess them. So we actually do make decisions about nuclear weapons all the time, not about dropping them, about what kind we're going to build them, How many we're going to build, how we're going to posture them.

And I think our declaratory policy should be about those decisions. So I think we should say that the only reason we possess nuclear weapons is for deterring nuclear attacks. So when we build a new type of weapon, the only reason we're going to build a new type of weapon is because we think it's going to strengthen deterrence against nuclear attacks.

We're not building it for the purpose of conducting a first strike. I would say that. And then, you know, if somebody wants to ask you about like, well, what would you do if, you know, the bad guys, Oh, I don't know.

Donald 29:42

Dropped an asteroid on Wyoming.

Jeffrey 29:44

You know, it's an irresponsible, I'm not going to engage in irresponsible speculation about hypothetical scenarios. I wouldn't even talk about that. I would just simply say the reason we have nuclear weapons is for deterring nuclear attacks against ourselves and our allies. And everything we do, every decision we make is to maximize that goal. And frankly, I think that's as good as no first use, if not better.

Aaron 30:05

Yeah, I was about to say it's a way you can get no first use without actually having to say it. And it's also a good way is to curtail the mission just around deterring nuclear strikes, just as you just said. And just from a wonky perspective, I would find that fascinating to get a better glimpse, at least overtly, about – The decisions made about nuclear weapon and what they are in reaction to, you know, so we need this because we're concerned about that.

And, you know, that would just be extremely interesting because you would, you would, in that respect, glean a little bit about, you know, war planning against potential adversaries, even then that war planning is, is, is who involves nuclear weapons is inherently awful to think about.

Jeffrey 30:43

Well, so I actually, right. This is part of the benefit is I, I think that one of the benefits of talking about why we possess nuclear weapons is Right, is that it's true. Like, I really don't think that we're developing the long-range strike op, sorry, long-range standoff weapon, right, the LRSO. We're not developing that as a first-strike weapon, right?

We're developing that because we're worried that the Russians are going to use a nuclear weapon first to signal, and we want to have a limited capability to signal back. Now, I'm not sure that that's a great idea, right? But it's not No matter how dumb of an idea you think LRSO is, it is intended to strengthen deterrence against a Russian first use.

And so I think sometimes because we have this declaratory policy that focuses on use scenarios, we aren't as effective in communicating that. And so we do the reassurance bit better. But also I think we would do the deterrence bit better because – And I see this all the time with Japan where we talk so much about nuclear weapons that we treat them like a talisman, you know, and that actually is bad because when Japanese experts who are smart notice that the things we say about nuclear weapons don't match up to the reality, that makes them feel worse off.

I think we would be way better off if we focused on explaining – The real conventional capabilities that we had that we really would bring to bear in their defense, and how those would allow us to win. I just am not someone who likes to bluff with nuclear weapons. I think with allies, you do the best you can to defend them, and you explain to them as clearly as you can why this is the best defense.

You engage with them in that development of that defensive posture, and that's what will reassure them, not lying about some weapon that we're not going to use.

Aaron 32:41

Yeah, and just before we flip to the last sort of block there and wrap up, do you think it's wise – and it's a genuine question, we didn't talk about this off the show – to introduce conventional into those type of talks? Because one of the things that you always see from the Russian side is that in order to match our conventional capabilities, they need to go nuclear.

And so within the NATO context, do you think it's wise – You know, to say, this is how awesome our conventional weapons are. This is how in certain instances they can be paired with nuclear, you know nuclear deterrence to prevent the Russian first use.

Jeffrey 33:15

So yes, I would still highlight the credibility and usefulness and power of our conventional operations. This is a whole other podcast. Yeah, it is. I actually am someone who I get no love from the state department on this view. This is a really long conversation that there's no way we can do it justice here. But I would just say this.

There are really good structural reasons why we are unlikely to ever use nuclear weapons in a conflict, even with Russia. And so if you ask me what my most important tasks are when it comes to deterring Russia, it's about keeping the NATO alliance cohesive. And it's about putting as much pressure on Russia not to use nuclear weapons first.

And so I am someone who actually thinks NATO would be stronger if we embrace the humanitarian initiative, you know, to talk about the consequences of nuclear war, precisely because the Russians no longer appeal to the left in Europe, right? They appeal to the crazy right. And so the people that we are trying to build a coalition with to keep NATO strong against Russian aggression are not people who are going to be enthusiastic about nuclear weapons.

So for me, the reassurance piece Convincing the center-left to stay, to be now the bedrock of the transatlantic alliance, you know, in the face of these, like, insane right-wing political parties.

Aaron 34:45

Like Donald Trump.

Jeffrey 34:47

Yes. Well, you know, like, who loves the Russians? Like Marine Le Pen and the AFD Nazis in Germany and, you know, UKIP in the UK. And so we, if we care about the transatlantic partnership, and you work for people, That's our mission statement, man. That's our mission statement. Our friends and the people we need for NATO cohesion are center-right through the center-left, even a little bit deeper into the left now.

We're going to get further with the Greens than we are with those AFD guys in Germany. I think that means our best Is one in which NATO de-emphasizes nuclear weapons and uses that to stigmatize the Russians, right? Like, why should Europe be freaked out about the Russians? Because they are the people who are investing heavily in a whole new generation of nuclear weapons to threaten Europe, right?

Like, they are the crazy people who are still trying to fight the Cold War. We are not.

Aaron 35:58

We are the cowboys. They are the cowboys.

Jeffrey 36:01

I get nowhere with the State Department on that. I love the people in the State Department. They are great. But they show up at these meetings and then they make common cause with the crazy Russians and the French, who I also love, join in. And I feel like we are serving to excuse Russia's behavior and enable... Their investments in nuclear weapons.

And we're allowing them to do that without making them pay a cost in Europe. And so that is a whole other podcast. But to me, a different declaratory policy would be part of reorienting our policy to really put the onus on Russia to stop trying to reignite the arms race.

Aaron 36:42

Right. And, you know, something that you brought up, you know, through this, and we both sort of been talking about is that Regardless of the policy proposal put forward, it ultimately depends on – in the reassurance bid, I should say. It ultimately depends on whichever ally is operating underneath the umbrella to still believe that the press will make a timely decision at the right time.

And so it gets back to something you did. I think it was for NTI about the – The time in which the president has to launch a nuclear strike, and then some of the murmurs and rumors, I would say in reaction to this hyper-awareness about who's in charge of the nuclear codes during this campaign season, about interjecting some, I don't want to call them delays, but at least some congressional oversight over presidential nuclear decision-making.

Jeffrey 37:39

Yeah, it turns out terrible candidates make for terrible proposals to constrain those terrible candidates.

Aaron 37:46

Right, so people are concerned Trump will have the codes in Congress.

Jeffrey 37:51

Right, so Ted Lieu, now joined by Ed Markey, has proposed a bill in the House, the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2016. This is House Resolution 6179 that prohibits the president from launching a nuclear first strike without a declaration of war by Congress.

Aaron 38:18

Okay. Like, that just makes no sense to me. I don't even know what to say about that. Like, it doesn't make sense. So, I mean, Donald Trump really doesn't know what he's talking about.

Jeffrey 38:28

Do these guys know what they're talking about? So… I like Marky. Marky has a certain willingness to stand up and say the unpopular thing. But yeah, I feel like the remedy here is worse than the problem. I guess at some level, I don't know. We should invite someone on who thinks this is a good idea.

Aaron 39:01

Is there anybody? There must be some of their staffers who drafted. I don't know. No, I actually I've talked to some of the staffers. They're smart people. Look, I get it.

Jeffrey 39:12

The idea that it's a little crazy that the president can go start a nuclear war without Congress. I can see how that would strike people as being a little odd. But as we discussed last week, my views on executive power are slightly to the right of Dick Cheney's. So maybe I'm not the best person to ask. So if I was going to say something in its defense, I would say that it seems crazy that we have this giant nuclear arsenal that the president can quickly and without any additional authorization simply order to be used.

On the other hand, who paid for those weapons?

Aaron 39:57

Right. Well, not Trump. He doesn't pay income tax. No, that's right.

Jeffrey 40:03

Taxpayers, including one of the candidates for president of the United States. The president is the commander-in-chief. Congress has given the commander-in-chief this enormous and complicated nuclear arsenal and has happily signed off on every budget request. You know, to fund the command and control system that would allow the president to use nuclear weapons in this way. And now it's kind of like, well, you shouldn't be able to use them first unless you get a declaration of war.

Can I jump in here? That's not the problem. The problem is we have a crazy posture. Like, anyway, yeah, you please jump in.

Aaron 40:48

We were talking about it earlier in that declaratory policy, you don't want to be speaking with multiple heads when you involve nuclear weapons, and you don't want to signal unintentionally to a nuclear-armed adversary at a time when nuclear war is being even thought of. So imagine at a time of extreme, let's say, Russia-NATO tensions, and the President of the United States goes to Congress to get...

Authorization to have the option to launch nuclear weapons. What would you do if you're in line?

Jeffrey 41:25

Oh, wow. You know what? That's an elegant objection, Aaron. I had not even worked through that. I was just fussing around with details. You're right. That's a terrible situation. So this is a situation where the North Koreans are poised to invade South Korea.

Aaron 41:46

Right.

Jeffrey 41:48

And tensions are incredibly high. Right. And we have determined, for whatever reason, that we may need to initiate hostilities in order to prevent the North Koreans from using their nuclear weapons. And that is going to require us to use some nuclear weapons in order to prevent them from being able to do this. And yet it is still preemptive.

And so it is forbidden. And so the president goes before Congress and asks for, like, a 60-day authorization.

Aaron 42:24

It's insane. It's totally insane. Seoul is gone. What would you do, I mean, if you were the portly man in Pyongyang?

Jeffrey 42:32

Yeah, you know, what if it's a recess?

Aaron 42:36

What if it's in August? Good question.

Jeffrey 42:44

Oh, Scott, you don't say much, it's all quality, my friend. The whole thing is a farce to me. I'm sorry, Ed Markey staff, if you, if you listen to this, I'm sorry. I don't, don't take it personally, but it's totally insane. So we will have to have someone on who thinks this is a good idea. I, I, my initial just reactions, I don't think the War Powers Act is constitutional, you know? Like, yeah, the Congress has the power to declare war, but the President's the commander-in-chief. Congress has decided to President standing army which is like a big deal but it didn't do it and... and the consequence of getting the president to state party is to got your power to declare war but that's just how it works... and and so you know my my argument would always be but yes i think this is probably unconstitutional i don't think it would survive in the supreme court and more to the point if you don't like the idea that we have

A giant nuclear force that the president alone can order, you know, to launch in a matter of minutes. Then, you know, like, fix the posture, change the forces. I don't feel like this helps the problem. And I had not thought about, Aaron, your very elegant objection. God, yeah, that's terrifying with the Russians. You know, the Russians are like on the verge of invading the Baltics.

And, you know, I've got to listen to Steve King on the House floor talking about how the latter Putin is a wonderful guy and we can't authorize the president to use nuclear weapons. No, this is – We've got to wrap up here.

Aaron 44:22

Just think about the Syria debate where John Kerry had to go before the House by the president's own decision.

Jeffrey 44:29

Yeah.

Aaron 44:30

Yeah. The whole thing is just – it's almost as rambling and bizarre as Trump's statement about nuclear weapons if you ask me.

Jeffrey 44:41

But I'm sorry.

Aaron 44:43

I think now I've made my point. But that's not a happy note.

Jeffrey 44:50

That's not – the happy note is it's probably not going to pass.

Aaron 44:53

Right. The happy note is this thing will probably die. And I still have a view of Trump Tower for the next couple of days.

Jeffrey 44:58

Well, you know what I should say? Serious happy note about this. Even though I don't think this bill is the solution, I am genuinely glad to see Markey and Lew paying attention to the issue, seeing that, yeah, there is this absurd situation where we have endowed the president with the incredible ability to end civilization with no checks and balances.

And to think, like, that's crazy, we should do something about that. Like, that's all good, right? This may not be the thing we want to do about it, but, like, I can't criticize them for looking at this and going, like, that's crazy, because it's crazy.

Aaron 45:41

Right, I mean... They're right.

Jeffrey 45:42

So at least they're making an effort. I mean, here we are beating up on their idea that there are, you know, they're not like Steve King out there, you know, tweeting pictures of his latest Nazi buddies. Like it may not be the solution, but at least they're not part of the problem.

Aaron 46:03

Right. This is really where – this is where I'm going to wrap up here. We should end this thing. But I'm in the state of militias here in Clive and Bundy. But I'm really happy that the debate has been focused on nuclear weapons, A, because we can build podcasts around them, B, because it's needed. And Trump, in his sort of ignorance, does put his finger on the button, you know, figuratively, of a lot of issues.

But as you said, you know, I think it's missing the point about sort of what's going on and how we should address policy about the rise of the far right. And if you want to put in nuclear weapons in there, about what to do about it, you know, at least policy-wise. And so we have a whole other podcast we can build around reassuring NATO allies in a time of far right-wing authoritarianism.

Jeffrey 46:51

I'm actually writing that paper for Scott Sagan for an upcoming conference, basically about the role that nuclear weapons play in an era where NATO's challenge from Russia comes from its threat to democratic institutions, which is a slightly different era than the communist one.

Aaron 47:12

Right. So... Well, I think the expectation of a new paper from you and for Scott Sagan is a happy note. So I think we can end it there and thank the listeners for tuning in. And thanks, Scott, again for coming to the rescue and keeping the podcast alive when we went through dire straits. And Jeffrey, always a pleasure.

Jeffrey 47:31

It's great to talk to you. Don't gamble away that kid in college money.

Aaron 47:34

Well, you know, we can double up if you put it on black. So, you know, that's my way of thinking about it.