| Opinion
President Donald Trump is right to propose direct talks with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China on nuclear arms control.
Amid all the chaos in the world, I want to provide a ray of light, a sliver of hope: We may be on the verge of radically reducing the gravest global existential danger ‒ that of nuclear weapons.
Many people and countries have felt threatened by the rapidly changing world order, and many increasingly look to nuclear weapons for supposed protection. But an uncontrolled global nuclear arms race would be the worst outcome, as global nuclear risks have already surged to the highest level since the end of the Cold War. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently pushed its famed Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest ever to humanity’s destruction.
To his credit, President Donald Trump has proposed confronting the growing global nuclear danger head-on. He is right to be repeatedly calling for bold denuclearization talks among the United States, China and Russia ‒ the world’s three biggest nuclear powers ‒ to de-escalate the new nuclear arms race.
If President Trump is serious about pursuing nuclear diplomacy, I’ll strongly support his initiative ‒ and there is much work to be done.
As Trump has pointed out, nothing in the world is more dangerous than the persistent threat that nuclear weapons pose to our very existence. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union waged a dangerous, costly and ultimately unwinnable nuclear arms race under the doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD). At its peak, the two countries amassed more than 70,000 nuclear weapons and repeatedly brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.
MAD was always a crazy gamble, positing that more nuclear weapons make us safer. But if it had any merit, it was designed for two nuclear peers, not for three nuclear superpowers. Nor did it account for the growing number of countries looking to acquire their own nuclear weapons, or irrational leaders with their fingers on the button. Yet, MAD still dominates countries’ nuclear thinking.
At a time of profound global changes and instability, following the dangerous and outdated Cold War playbook will only lead to another futile nuclear arms race among the world’s now nine nuclear powers and encourage even more countries to build their own nukes. Instead of increasing security, such a nuclear free-for-all will only hasten our own demise.
We don’t need to go down this path. There is a reason for hope. A new opening for peace. Not to solve all conflicts and all problems ‒ but the world’s most important and dangerous one.
As President Trump suggested, the best shot at reducing the growing nuclear threat is directly de-escalating the arms race among the United States, China and Russia. China’s rise as a world power has led it to increase its once-small nuclear arsenal. China now has roughly 600 nuclear weapons and is on a path to match America’s and Russia’s deployed arsenals of about 1,500 each (thousands more are in reserve).
Many U.S. politicians see the growth of China’s power as a reason to escalate tensions. The military industrial complex still sells the old lie: The more nuclear weapons we have, the more we can “deter” China and Russia, and the safer we will be.
This is wrong, as it always has been. Rivals like China and Russia can and will always build more of their own nukes in response. My grandfather J. Robert Oppenheimer shared the first principle of nuclear weapons: The only safety from them is in cooperation ‒ and in doing so, we can eliminate war and reap the incredible benefits that nuclear science can provide for energy and medicine.
President Trump echoed this fundamental truth when he described nuclear weapons as unusable and argued that the colossal sums we spend on making ever more destructive nukes should be redirected toward more productive ends.
Trump’s calls for U.S.-Russia-China nuclear dialogue have created an opening for much-needed diplomacy. Meaningful cooperation among the world’s three biggest nuclear powers could not only lead to direct reductions of each’s arsenal, it can also help dissuade countries considering building their own nukes from doing so.
The willingness of rival leaders to talk is the most important ingredient here ‒ something we have had a dangerous lack of since the Ukraine conflict. As global risks compound and the Doomsday Clock ticks ever closer to midnight, we must put to rest this idea that it’s somehow unacceptable to negotiate with countries we disagree with. Instead, it’s high time we embrace some nuclear realism and find common grounds to ensure our mutual survival.
In this respect, President Trump is right to propose direct talks with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China on nuclear arms control. Though nuclear negotiations often are held by bureaucrats with no real power and don’t go anywhere, it’s time the leaders themselves step up to lead.
A meaningful commitment from these three leaders to reducing global nuclear threats would be the biggest breakthrough on this most important of issues since the 1986 summit between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan ‒ a hawkish leader who ended up embracing nuclear disarmament.
Such an accomplishment would be worthy of a Nobel Peace prize for Trump, Putin and Xi, regardless of what you think of their respective politics.
There are many great ideas out there on how trilateral nuclear negotiations could work. My recommendation is to start with prohibiting artificial intelligence from launching nuclear weapons, something all parties could agree to. Washington and Moscow could then explore reducing their respective arsenals from thousands toward Beijing’s much lower level. They can further negotiate with China on a mutual pledge not to use nuclear weapons first, which China has already committed to.
Lastly, all three parties can cooperate on the peaceful use of nuclear energy and medicine.
Finding a common thread of agreement among parties who otherwise disagree is the basis of negotiation ‒ and it can be done. You don’t have to agree with China’s political system, Russia’s military actions or Trump’s trade policy to agree that a new nuclear arms race is dangerous, wasteful and cannot be won. Reducing the growing threat of nuclear weapons is something we must all support. It is the most important thing in the world.
Charles Oppenheimer is the founder and co-executive director of the Oppenheimer Project. He is the grandson of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory during the Manhattan Project.
