A leak of the unclassified version of the Trump Administration’s Draft Report of its “2018 Nuclear Posture Review” reveals this Administration’s plan to build up the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal and expand the circumstances for first use of nuclear weapons. The build-up includes the manufacturing of new “low-yield” (one to two kilotons) tactical nuclear warheads for sea-launched Trident D-5 missiles intended to make nuclear weapons more “usable” for military conflict. The President’s plan also clears the way for the United States to resume nuclear weapons testing “if necessary” in a move that would further enhance the global threat of nuclear war fighting.
The United States is already in the process of refurbishing its entire nuclear arsenal at a cost of $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years, a violation of Article VI of the United Nations Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) calling on nuclear states to negotiate in “good faith" to abolish their nuclear weapon arsenals. The Trump Administration’s move to rapidly expand both the production of new tactical nuclear warheads and justification for their first use intensifies the potential imminence of nuclear war and the unacceptable consequences.
The threat of a nuclear war is drawing more and more attention and concern. Nuclear war has climbed as a concern of man-made global threats according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report published in January 2018. The survey of 1,000 international leaders in business, government, academia and civil society recognized the mounting political and military tension between North Korea’s President Kim Jung Un and U.S. President Donald Trump are bringing the world closer to nuclear war. Pope Francis similarly voiced the Vatican’s concern that the world was perhaps “one step away from nuclear war.”
The threat of nuclear war has also renewed efforts and activism “to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.” There is no choice other than nuclear weapons leading to the elimination of life on Earth. On July 7, 2017, 122 countries in the United Nations signed the “historic” first international nuclear weapons ban treaty with the nine nuclear weapons holding nations conspicuously absent. As the 2017 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has published an informative booklet that aims to focus the education and of citizens and mobilize them to get their non-signatory countries to join the UN nuclear weapons ban treaty.