Thread by @StephenUCS

A 🧵 on the #G7 Leaders’ Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament, which is both a positive development & fundamentally disappointing. While there are pieces to like, there is also some pot & kettle. Bottom line: The statement does not do enough. whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

Start with the good. Congratulations to Japan for successfully pushing the G7 to make a statement on nuclear weapons issues at all, which has never happened before. Its leaders tried the last time the #G7 met in Japan; this time they succeeded. Sarcastic HT to Russia/Ukraine.

Second, the G7 statement emphasizes some important priorities, ones that would actually address some real world problems. In particular, the FMCT & the CTBT would place real constraints on China's nuclear expansion. See: blog.ucsusa.org/gregory-kulack…

Unfortunately, while those two treaties would be incredibly helpful, getting them through the US Senate will take a fundamental change in US politics, e.g., a Republican president who a visionary arms control leader. Not a unicorn, but close.

That said, the US absolutely should be thinking about ways to negotiate the FMCT as a priority. While there is no obvious path through the Senate, it would still be valuable to negotiate the treaty. Please get to work.

The statement repeats the language that a nuclear war cannot be won & must never be fought. That is true BUT the nuclear weapons states are acting as is preparing for nuclear war - including limited nuclear war - is the ONLY way to prevent nuclear war. Untrue & a bad choice.

The statement also cites the strong language in the #G20 Bali Declaration: "The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible." That strong language with noting. whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

However the G7 contextualizes the G20 language only on Russia, which weakens it. It says "we reiterate our position that threats by Russia of nuclear weapon use, let alone any use of nuclear weapons by Russia, in the context of its aggression against Ukraine are inadmissible."

The statement emphasizes "the importance of transparency with regard to nuclear weapons" and highlights that US, UK and France have taken actions in this space. Transparency is valuable and should be promoted, even if the US had a little wobble recently.

Specifically, after Russia illegally "suspended" its compliance with the New START arms control agreement, which included a refusal to release as mandated the size of its long-range nuclear, the Biden administration decided to follow suit, and not release its stockpile numbers.

But, just a week ago, on May 12, the US reversed course, and decided to release its numbers, while highlighting that Russia was not doing so. The release is here: state.gov/new-start-trea…

Clearly, it would have been ironic for the G7 to call for transparency when the US was declining to provide its stockpile number, hence the release a week ago. However, transparency itself does not mean everything is going well.

For example, China & Russia are criticized for not being more transparent, and for building up their nuclear stockpiles, while the UK, US and France are praised for being so. But this is where the pot calling the kettle black comes into play.

Specifically, the UK was transparent that it was increasing the size of its deployed nuclear stockpile, by a very substantial 40% plus, from 180 to 260 warheads by the middle of the decade. See: armscontrol.org/act/2021-04/ne…

Similarly, the US is very transparent that is planning, at a cost of some $2 trillion, to replace every missile, every submarine, and every bomber in the US nuclear arsenal, along with the nuclear weapons they carry, built with new plutonium pits, the core of a nuclear bomb.

And it is also somewhat transparent about all the problems it is having with that plan. The land-based missiles are delayed for at least two years. There is significant risk the submarines may be delayed, says the GAO: gao.gov/products/gao-2…

And new plutonium pits are delayed for an unknown period of time, well past the goal of producing 80 pits per year by 2030. As the GAO notes, the NNSA does not even have a current estimate for when it might make 80 pits in a year (or what it will cost): gao.gov/products/gao-2…

And the US is transparently having a fight over producing a new, nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile, which the Biden administration is seeking to cancel, but Congress is currently funding. See: thebulletin.org/2023/05/can-th…

So, transparency is the a definitive indicator that a country is a paragon of virtue, to put it mildly. Indeed, Russia is transparently making nuclear threats and transparently planning to put nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Those are some takeaways from the G7 statement on nuclear policy, but they miss the bottom line. While there are good elements in the statement, it is completely lacking in actual steps that the G7 or any member states will actually take to reduce the nuclear threat.

And that, by far, is its greatest failing. The risk of nuclear war is higher now that it has been in decades, and the United States, Russia and China are all taking steps that are increasing that threat.

Specifically, if I had to point to one action that has lead us to this very dangerous place we are in right now, I would say the decision by the Bush administration to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 was a mistake of epic proportions.

The decision led Russia and China, over time, to reconsider their approach to nuclear deterrence. It was not the only factor, but it was a leading and instigating factor. See this excellent statement from @RepMoulton on the topic: democrats-armedservices.house.gov/_cache/files/f…

As a result of that decision, and others by Russia and the US compounding the error, the arms control regime that has made the world a safer place for decades is collapsing. Russia, China & the US are building new nuclear weapons. The situation is spiraling out of control.

And the G7 Statement recognizes some of that spiral, and makes a few recommendations to try to push the other way, but has no concrete actions that any of the G7 states pledge to take themselves to make the world a safer place, and to reduce the nuclear threat.

I end with a link to the @UCSUSA press statement from my colleague @LauraEGrego, which makes many of the same points I do above, including a call for more action. See: ucsusa.org/about/news/g7-…