Peters stated that “the President may order the above-ground testing of a nuclear weapon….And while the United States leaving the [Nuclear] Test Ban Treaty may not be optimal and may indeed have negative downstream effects, doing so may be necessary to stave off further adversary escalation.”

There has not been a nuclear weapon tested above-ground in the United States since 1962, Peters said. That was a year before the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 was signed by the U.S., Soviet Union and United Kingdom. It prohibits nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, underwater or in outer space. It allowed underground tests as long as they didn’t result in “radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits of the state under whose jurisdiction or control” the test was conducted.

“Resuming atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons would be disastrous,” says Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project. He cited the “lessons learned from above-ground nuclear weapons testing—the radioactive fall-out that harmed many people, especially infants and children.”

Testimony by a co-founder of the Radiation and Public Health Project, the late Dr. Ernest Sternglass, a physicist, before the then Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, was instrumental in President John F. Kennedy signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963. 

As President Kennedy said in a 1963 national address: “This treaty can be a step towards freeing the world from the fears and dangers of radioactive fallout.” He said that “over the years the number and the yield of weapons tested have rapidly increased and so have the radioactive hazards from such testing. Continued unrestricted testing by the nuclear powers, joined in time by other nations which may be less adept in limiting pollution, will increasingly contaminate the air that all of us must breathe.” Kennedy spoke of “children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs” as a result.

The Heritage Foundation’s 900-page publication “Project 2025” is the “governing agenda” for the Trump administration, writes Susan Caskie, executive editor of the magazine The Week, in its current issue. “Many of its authors and contributors,” she noted, are now members of the administration, some appointed to “even Cabinet posts.” 

“Project 2025’s stance on nuclear testing: A dangerous step back” was the title of an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists this past September. It was written by Tom Armbruster, former U.S. ambassador to the Marshall Islands and earlier the U.S. Embassy in Moscow’s nuclear affairs officer. He wrote: “On page 431, Project 2025 calls for the United States to ‘Reject ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and indicate a willingness to conduct nuclear tests in response to adversary nuclear developments if necessary. This will require that the National Nuclear Security Administration be directed to move to immediate test readiness…’”

Armbruster said, “We should be negotiating further cuts in the world’s nuclear arsenals, a prohibition of weapons in outer space, and cleanup of the ‘legacy’ test sites around the world. It would help if Russia were a responsible partner in denuclearization but sadly that is not the case. We could be working together to find ways to mend the planet, rather than inflict further damage that will last for thousands of years.”

Peters, in his report, said: “There are two major reasons why the United States may want to restart nuclear testing in the coming years. First, it may be technically correct that the United States does not need to test its current arsenal, but the United States is building new warheads as part of the nuclear modernization effort.^”

^“It may, in fact, be necessary to test these new systems to ensure that they work as designed,” he went on. “Modelling and simulation may be sufficient to assess the viability and characteristics of these new warheads—but that is not a proven proposition. Moreover, the purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter one’s adversaries from carrying out breathtaking acts of aggression. In that sense, even if nuclear explosive testing is not necessary to convince American policymakers that next-generation nuclear systems work, it may be necessary to convince America’s adversaries that its nuclear arsenal is credible.” (original italics)

“Second and more importantly,” said Peters, “a nuclear explosive test may be necessary to demonstrate resolve. In recent years, autocrats have increasingly leveraged nuclear coercion or nuclear threats in an attempt to intimidate the West or secure geopolitical concessions.”

Peters also said: “While the United States signed and ratified the treaty under President Kennnedy—and has adhered to its requirements for over six decades—the treaty allows a state to withdraw with three months notification if it deems it in its national interests to do so.”

It was also in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that Robert Alvarez, former senior policy advisor to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy and now senior policy advisor at the Institute for Policy Studies, and Mangano, wrote an article in 2021 on radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests and the “baby tooth” study. 

“How many nuclear weapons can be detonated in support of weapons development or during a war before imperiling humans from radioactive fallout?” it began. “To find the answer, independent scientists and citizens turned to baby teeth. Lots and lots of baby teeth. Why baby teeth?….The most commonly measured isotope in these tissues—strontium 90—is absorbed as if were calcium. This isotope lodges in human bone tissue for many years and was the principal contaminant of concern in fallout investigations…”

They wrote about how “the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information and scientists at Washington University, beginning in December 1958, began assembling the most significant collection of human samples in the atmospheric bomb test era.” Donated were 320,000 baby teeth. 

“While St. Louis remained the center of the program, activists in other states contributed teeth as well. Teeth were prepared for strontium 90 lab testing by volunteers, who sent them to Harold Rosenthal, a chemist at Washington University.” 

Found, said an article in 2023 in the Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services, was a 63-fold increase in strontium-90 in baby teeth from children born in the years after large-scale nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere started in 1950, then dropping in half in the five years after the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 took effect. “This saved many lives,” comments Mangano. It was written by Dr. Timothy Mousseau, biology professor at the University of South Carolina, Dr. Michael Ketterer, professor emeritus of chemistry and biology at North Arizona University, Kelli S. Gaus, then studying for a Masters in Public Health in Applied Epidemiology, and Mangano. It was titled “Strontium 90 in Baby Teeth as a Basis for Eliminating U.S. Cancer Deaths From Nuclear Weapons Fallout.” 

Are we, if there is a return to atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, to go back to the years of radioactive fallout—and the resulting health impacts? And, as Kennedy stated, “children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs.” 

Despite all his rhetoric and bear hugging of Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, President Bill Clinton achieved very little on the disarmament front. His successor, George W. Bush did only a bit more, putting weapons into storage, rather than dismantling them. Hopes were focussed on Barack Obama who was chosen at the onset of his presidency to be honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize, partly because it was thought he would be a standard bearer for disarmament. Apart from an initial agreement with Russia to reduce superpower long-range rockets down from 2,200 warheads each to 1,500- k in terms of numbers significant but still enough to blow up most of civilization, Obama was able to do precious little. It wasn’t his fault.

The resistance in Congress to ratifying this pact was immense and passage only came on the promise of spending $80 billion to modernise nuclear forces. Even George W. Bush junior’s plan to base an anti-ballistic missile system on Polish soil to deter Iranian missiles was modified by Obama only somewhat because of Republican resistance. It was an attempt to satisfy legitimate Russian concerns about it being used to intercept a Russian attack. More American compromise is still needed on this- it remains an issue- such as moving the site to Romania, nearer to Iran and further from Moscow and finding a way for Moscow to share the running and control of the system.

Turning the page, the US has not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which would help stymie the further spread of nuclear arms to other countries. For new nuclear powers, if you can’t test you don’t know if you have a workable bomb.

The next stage in the disarmament process should be getting rid of short-range tactical nuclear-tipped missiles base in Europe. Moscow is insisting that the first step must be the US removing all its tactical weapons from Europe, which is fair given their proximity to Moscow. It would be as if Russia had rocket bases in Mexico. As for cutting the number of intercontinental rockets, the last big cut was made in the time of Obama and President Dimitri Medvedev. Biden did renew the agreement, but no disarmament talks are presently planned.

All this adds up to very little nuclear disarmament. Doubtless, the US Senate will be an immoveable brake on Donald Trump, as it was earlier on President Barack Obama. For his part Donald Trump in his first term wanted to upgrade the US armoury of nuclear missiles. (How can anyone say Trump was in President Vladimir Putin’s pocket?) As for the Russians, observing the power of the US Senate to probably refuse to approve any new treaties, it stops them suggesting opening negotiations.

But how is it, 34 years after the end of the Cold War, that either side can justify nuclear weapons? Is Russia an enemy or is it not? Successive American presidents have said it no longer is. Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barak Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have all said it is not, even if today those alive appear to have changed their tune.

 The Russians say the same thing about the US and Europe. Putin until recently still called them “our friends”. But surely non-enemies don’t have nuclear weapons pointed at each other. At least that is what basic morality and common sense would say.

At the end of the Cold War nuclear weapons should have been allowed to rust. Many people in the West wanted this, probably a majority, but big media, Republican congressmen and senators, the military (although not all off it) and those earning a living in national security jobs, the intelligence services and including some academics, successfully fought to keep nuclear armouries replenished. Even though there were some powerful voices against nuclear weapons, such as former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, they were unable to resist this tide.

Step back a little and look at the situation from above- remember how earth looks like a tiny dot from photos sent back to Earth by the rocket Voyager 1 as it traverses the outer edge of the Solar System. Surely, being so inconsequential in the cosmos, we should not be tearing into each other. Maybe we have taken ourselves too seriously. But for the first 30 years after the Cold War it seemed we were moving, if not fast, at least in the right direction.

There is no longer a dangerous ideological divide- Premier Nikita Khrushchev once said, “we will bury you”. That sort of talk is gone. Communism is no longer the ruling ideology of Russia, backed by a ruthless police state that would stamp on the slightest dissent. Russia has now become capitalist, albeit with a human rights problem. In pre-Covid times its borders were open and still are for those travelling southward. The Christian religion and its moral teachings are for most Europeans, American and Russians still the foundation of a shared culture, including ethical rules for everyday life, and the arts- literature, theatre, ballet, opera and popular music. I would guess that 80% of Russian social legislation and the penal code is similar to the West’s. Spend time with Russian families at home and at work and you will see what I mean.

On human rights observance Russia is worse but not by much. Fifteen years ago the case of the torture and death of businessman Sergei Magnitsky who had exposed serious corruption in Russian society became a hot issue on Capitol Hill. Congress decided to get tough on Russia and imposed sanctions for the first time since the end of the Cold War.

However, it can’t be said this was as serious an issue as the serial human rights abuses carried out by American whites including policemen against black victims. Far many more innocents and petty criminals are locked up in America than in Russia. Russians have become angry that the US is regularly interfering in their internal affairs while failing to clean its own house.

The media is largely controlled by the Putin Administration, but it does allow in Moscow an independent radio station. The internet is free. So are foreign broadcasts. Away from Moscow there are many other fairly free local papers and broadcasters, albeit on a smaller scale. If Russians want to know what is going on they can easily find out.  In the West, instead of government diktat, we have press barons as owners who drive a personal or corporate agenda. The exceptions like the Guardian, Le Monde and the Christian Science Monitor which have relatively small circulations. (The BBC, although government owned, manages to maintain high-class, independent reporting and commentary, albeit on national security issues it is often self-censoring and biased against Russia and China.)

So, what is it all about? Why are we allowing events around the issue of the independence of Ukraine to slip out of our control to where the warriors call the shots? Loose talk in Moscow about bringing a nuclear-armed Russian submarine up close to the US coast does not help. Neither does the present deployment of similar US submarines in the Black Sea.

Since both Putin and Biden maintain they are practising Christians, I ask them how, when they meet their maker, they will explain why they kept or even used nuclear weapons that could or did kill hundreds of millions of people and make many of our cities uninhabitable? Quite rightly, we are supposed to fear God and his wrath. Christ taught us to love our enemies.

Don’t the US and Russia want to set an example to the rest of the world, as is their sworn obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? After all sauce for the goose is good for the gander might say the Iranians, and those in the Middle East that will probably emulate Iran if it does go nuclear. Is the US prepared to modify the expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders that nearly 100% of Russians are angry about, and which triggered the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

Is Putin prepared to give the media and NGO activists and protestors more freedom, including releasing from prison the political prisoners. Are they both prepared to initiate big new cuts in their nuclear weapons stockpiles?

Trum is probably already checkmated by the intransigent forces around him. Maybe it is the same with Putin. Therefore, the world is checkmated. What a terrifying impasse this Ukraine crisis is.

Copyright © 2025 Jonathan Power

Meanwhile, that same Pentagon still seeks a huge “investment” in new nukes. America surely needs to launch a “first strike” against the absurdity of spending $1.7 trillion (or more) on “modernizing” the nuclear triad. Aren’t you tired of Presidents and Congress diverting your hard-earned tax dollars from Main Street USA to MAD Street, as in mutually assured destruction via nuclear war?

Don’t succumb to military BS about “investing” and “modernizing” the nuclear triad. Don’t use that language. We need to divest, not invest. We need to disarm, not rearm. The U.S. already has over 5000 nuclear weapons; a couple of dozen might suffice to tip the world into nuclear winter, assuming the Russians or Chinese respond in kind. Who could possibly believe the world needs more nukes?

George Orwell was right. In America, war has become peace (or, our alleged way to peace). Thus that old Strategic Air Command (SAC) motto people used to poke fun at: “Peace is our profession” even as SAC prepared to launch doomsday. We are propagandized to believe that war and weapons are the path to peace. The peace of mass graves, I suppose.

No one speaks with more authority on U.S. nuclear weapons and planning than Daniel Ellsberg. Check out his book on the subject, and the following interview. And remember that the U.S. was prepared in the early 1960s to launch 100 Holocausts in the name of “winning” a nuclear war. Most evil, indeed, as Ellsberg notes.

Please listen to Ellsberg. We must fight this “common insanity.”

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), professor of history, and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals. His personal substack is Bracing Views. His video testimony for the Merchants of Death Tribunal is available at this link.

Russia, the United States and China are all undertaking major modernisations of their nuclear arsenals just as the arms control treaties of the Cold War era between the Soviet Union and the United States crumble.

In an explicit signal to Washington, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control, said Trump had taken a radical position on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) during his first term.

“The international situation is extremely difficult at the moment, the American policy in its various aspects is extremely hostile to us today,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying in an interview with Russia’s Kommersant newspaper.

“So the options for us to act in the interests of ensuring security and the potential measures and actions we have to do this – and to send politically appropriate signals… does not rule anything out.”

During Trump’s first 2017-2021 term as president, his administration discussed whether or not to conduct the first U.S. nuclear test since 1992, the Washington Post reported in 2020.

In 2023 President Vladimir Putin formally revoked Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), bringing his country into line with the United States.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed by Russia in 1996 and ratified in 2000. The United States signed the treaty in 1996 but has not ratified it.

Nuclear test?

There are fears among some arms control experts, opens new tab that the United States is moving towards a return to testing as a way to develop new weapons and at the same time send a signal to rivals such as Russia and China.

Russia, with 5,580 warheads, and the United States, with 5,044, are by far the world’s biggest nuclear powers, holding about 88% of the world’s nuclear weapons, according to the Federation of American Scientists. China has about 500 warheads.

In the five decades between 1945 and the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, over 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out, 1,032 of them by the United States and 715 of them by the Soviet Union, according to the United Nations.

Post-Soviet Russia has not carried out a nuclear test. The Soviet Union last tested in 1990.

Putin has said Russia would consider testing a nuclear weapon if the United States did. Last month Putin lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks, and after Moscow said Ukraine had struck deep inside Russia with U.S.-made ATACMS missiles.

Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, only a few countries have tested nuclear weapons, according to the Arms Control Association: the United States last tested in 1992, China and France in 1996, India and Pakistan in 1998, and North Korea in 2017.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge Editing by Andrew Osborn and Gareth Jones

Back on November 19, in response to news that the Biden administration had given the greenlight to Ukraine to use US ATACMS missiles to strike targets inside Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off on a new, revised Russian nuclear war doctrine which gave him that option to use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack against Russia by a non-nuclear state that was backed by a nuclear power. According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov, the use of US-supplied ATACMS missiles by Ukraine to hit Russian territory could potentially be a trigger for a Russian nuclear response under the revised document.

Later that same day, Ukraine, using intelligence information provided by the US to guide the missiles to their targets, fired several ATACMS missiles against targets in Russia.

Russia retaliated with a new intermediate-range missile—the Oreshnik—which, while capable of carrying nuclear warheads, was outfitted with a new, novel conventional warhead.

The use of the Oreshnik represented the first time in the history of warfare that a strategic missile was used in combat, a major escalatory move by Russia reflecting the seriousness with which they took the ATACMS attack.

On November 26, the Ukrainians struck again, using ATACMS missiles to strike a Russian air defense position in the Kursk region.

The next day, on November 27, Russian General Valery V. Gerasimov, the Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces, called General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to inform him that Russia was prepared to use the Oreshnik missile to retaliate against any further ATACMS attacks, and that the Russian targets could include locations outside of Ukraine.

The phone call was part of a concerted effort by the Russians to impart on the leadership of the US the seriousness to which Russia attached to the use of ATACMS missiles by Ukraine against targets inside Russia.

The next day, November 28, Russia launched a retaliatory strike against Ukraine’s energy grid, crippling large segments of an already diminished infrastructure. But the Russian attack was made using conventional weaponry that Russia had used in the past, not the Oreshnik.

Russia was playing its part to try to deescalate a situation it found to be extremely dangerous.

But the Russian concerns were falling on deaf ears.

General Brown knew what very few outside the innermost circle of American leadership knew—that the CIA, contrary to reports published in the New York Times and Washington Post, did not believe the Russians were bluffing when it came to its threats to retaliate with nuclear weapons should the Ukrainians continue their use of ATACMS missiles.

The CIA had briefed select members of Congress and the White House that it assessed the Russians were serious about their willingness to employ nuclear weapons if the attacks continued.

And General Brown knew that the position taken by the White House was that they were prepared for this.

That they were ready for a nuclear “exchange” with Russia over the issue of Ukraine.

Indeed, on November 20, at a presentation before the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Rear Admiral Thomas Buchanan, the Director of Plans for Strategic Command, responsible for executing America’s nuclear war plans, told an audience just that—that the Biden administration was ready to engage in a nuclear conflict with Russia, one that it expected to win.

On December 5, accompanied by the irrepressible Medea Benjamin from Code Pink, her able Washington, DC, Director, Adnaan Stumo, and other volunteers and activists, including Jose Vega and Morgan Blythe, I paid a visit to several congressional representatives and their senior staff to talk about the danger of nuclear war between the US and Russia, and possible ways that such a war could be avoided.

One of the points that I drove home was, in the face of continued use of ATACMS missiles by Ukraine against Russia, and void of any possibility of getting the Biden administration to rescind its permission regarding ATACMS use by Ukraine, it was imperative that President-elect Trump issue a statement which distanced himself from this policy, and provided Russia with assurances that a Trump administration would not continue to allow Ukraine to use ATACMS against Russia.

We were assured by several of the people we met with that they would do their best to get this message to senior members of the Trump transition team.

On December 6, Tucker Carlson, the former FOX television star-turned independent journalist who conducted an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin this past February which garnered over one billion views, was back in Moscow.

In a video posted from Moscow, Carlson declared:

We’ve watched from the United States as the Biden administration has driven the US ever closer to a nuclear conflict with Russia, the country that possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. It has accelerated ever since, and it’s reached its apogee so far in the weeks after Trump’s election. He’s now the president-elect.

In that time, just a few weeks ago, the Biden administration, American military personnel launched missiles into mainland Russia and killed at least a dozen Russian soldiers. So we are, unbeknownst to most Americans, in a hot war with Russia, an undeclared war, a war you did not vote for and that most Americans don’t want, but it is ongoing. Because of that war, because of the fact that the U.S. military is killing Russians in Russia right now, we are closer to nuclear war than at any time in history, far closer than we were during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Tucker Carlson was in Moscow to do what the Biden administration wouldn’t—to speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about the threat of nuclear war between the US and Russia.

In the interview, Lavrov declared that Russia was “ready to do anything to defend our legitimate interests,” adding that “We hate even to think about war with the United States, which will take nuclear character.” Lavrov reiterated that Russia was prepared “to do anything to defend our national interests,” adding that Russia would “send additional messages” (i.e., additional Oreshnik missiles) if the leadership in the US and Europe “don’t draw necessary conclusions.”

On December 7, I hosted a series of panels at the National Press Club on the danger of a nuclear war between the US and Russia triggered by the US greenlighting of ATACMS missile targeting of Russia by Ukraine. One of the panels focused specifically on the importance of getting President-elect Trump to weigh in on this issue to assure the Russian government that he did not support these attacks.

On December 11, despite every warning Russia had given regarding its concerns regarding the continued use by Ukraine of US-provided ATACMS missiles against targets inside Russia, Ukraine fired six ATACMS missiles against a Russian airbase outside the Russian city of Taganrog. Russian authorities immediately signaled that they were preparing to respond with several Oreshnik missiles.

On December 12, Time Magazine published an interview with President-elect Trump, whom they had selected as their “Person of the Year.” It was a wide-ranging interview which touched on many topics and issues, including the decision by the Biden administration to allow Ukraine to use ATACMS against Russia.

“It’s crazy what’s taking place,” Trump said, referring to the ATACMS attacks. “It’s crazy. I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done. Now they’re doing not only missiles, but they’re doing other types of weapons. And I think that’s a very big mistake, very big mistake.

“I think the most dangerous thing right now is what’s happening, where Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the President, to start shooting missiles into Russia. I think that’s a major escalation. I think it’s a foolish decision. But I would imagine people are waiting until I get in before anything happens. I would imagine. I think that would be very smart to do that.”

The interview was conducted on November 25, after the initial ATACMS attacks and Russian Oreshnik retaliation, but before Tucker Carlson’s interview of Lavrov, or my congressional intervention and National Press Club event. Simply put, there are no causal inferences that can be drawn between Trump’s statements and anything that came after. But what is critical is that the efforts of Tucker and myself to get the Russians to be open to the possibility of a new mindset in a future Trump administration helped create an environment where the Russians were ready to receive any declaratory statement by the President-elect which could provide insight into the actions of a future Trump administration when it came to the continued use of ATACMS missiles by the US once Trump took office.

The Time Magazine interview provided just that.

On the night of December 12, Russia launched a massive retaliation against Ukraine for the ATACMS attack on Tagonrog.

Like the strike that took place on November 28, the Russian action was undertaken only using conventional weapons that had already been a part of past Russian retaliatory actions.

Russia did not make use of the Oreshnik missile.

While Russia has not provided any statement which links its decision not to use the Oreshnik missile to Trump’s Time Magazine interview, one can always hold out that such a linkage did occur.

In any event, the Russians are now apprised of the position of President-elect Trump regarding the use of ATACMS missiles by Ukraine—Trump is “vehemently opposed” to such action, which he has characterized as “foolish.”

This a major declaration, one which could—even should—prevent the kind of nuclear escalation the Biden administration seems hellbent on engaging in with Russia.

But Trump’s statement cannot be allowed to stand on its own.

It needs to be reiterated by both Trump and his team, so that there is no uncertainty in the minds of the Russian leadership what awaits them if they withhold from undertaking escalatory retaliatory strikes against Ukraine and possibly NATO in response to what will inevitably be additional ATACMS attacks by Ukraine on Russian territory.

The governments of the United Kingdom and France have just authorized Ukraine to use the Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles against Russian targets.

To forestall a Russian retaliation against UK and French targets outside of Ukraine, Russia needs to know whether Trump’s attitude toward ATACMS extends to Storm Shadow, SCALP, or any other foreign-made long-range weapon (the German-made Taurus missile comes to mind).

We all may get to celebrate Christmas this year because of an interview Trump gave to Time Magazine.

But we cannot rest on our laurels.

Keep up the pressure.

Call your members of Congress.

Ask them to support HR 10218, which prohibits the use by Ukraine of ATACMS missiles against Russia.

HR 10218 may not become law, but with enough signatures, it cannot be ignored.

By rallying support around the issue of ATACMS used by Ukraine against Russia, we can raise the profile of this issue and empower those who might otherwise be hesitant to embrace this policy course out of fear of political backlash to add their voices.

And right now, the most important voices that need to be heard are those of President-elect Trump and his national security team.

Saying “no” to ATACMS doesn’t weaken any future American negotiation position regarding the end of the conflict in Ukraine.

It does ensure that such negotiations can, in fact, take place.

Yes, Virgina, there is a Santa Clause.

And he looks like Donald Trump.

The former Congressman, former chief U.N. weapons inspector and Code Pink leader spoke to an audience at the Tabard Inn in Washington on Saturday evening following an event at the National Press Club that was intended to get citizens to put pressure on Congress to back a resolution that would stop the U.S. transfer of long-range U.S. ATACM missiles to Ukraine.

The U.S. is using the territory of Ukraine to fire these missiles deep into Russia territory. Moscow says that amounts to a direct U.S. strike on Russia, putting the two countries at war. The Kremlin warned that further U.S. escalation could lead to nuclear confrontation. 

22 min. Camera: Joe Lauria. Editor: Cathy Vogan.

There is a House Resolution that has been introduced by Congressman Higgins, R-Louisiana which is, from the perspective of preventing a nuclear war, the proverbial “cure for cancer.”

HR 10218 (“To prohibit the transfer of Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine, and for other purposes”) (see text) is a carefully—indeed masterfully—crafted piece of legislation which condenses the potential trigger for a US-Russian nuclear conflict down to its most basic component—the use of ATACMS missiles by Ukraine to strike Russian territory. As has been explained in detail elsewhere, the Ukrainian ATACMS attacks on Russia are seen as an attack by the US, making the US a direct participant to the conflict.

If the attacks stop, then the US will no longer be seen by Russia as engaging in offensive military operations against Russian territory.

And as such, the trigger for the release of Russian nuclear weapons will not be pulled.

“Cancer” is cured—there will be no nuclear war.

While there are many procedural obstacles in place that will likely prevent this resolution from becoming law, it is essential that every member of Congress be familiar with the bill’s contents, and its relevance regarding the prevention of nuclear war.

It is essential that every American who reads this post, pick up the phone and call their representative in Congress and insist that they sign on to this bill.

A bill that possesses sufficient signatures from both sides of the aisle takes on an air of political relevance, and its contents cannot be ignored, especially by members of the incoming Trump administration.

A bipartisan bill blocking the use of ATACMS by Ukraine against Russia possessing a respectable number of signatures may not move the needle when it comes to action by the Biden administration, but it could very well influence the appropriate decision makers in the Trump national security team when it comes to formulating policy regarding Ukraine.

If Trump allows Ukraine to use AtACMS on Russian territory, then the risk of nuclear war will continue unabated.

But if the Trump team can be moved to articulate policy which conforms to the substance of HR 10218, the nuclear war can be prevented.

All it takes is for enough Americans to take the time to call their Congressional representatives.

But Ukraine no longer has the luxury of waiting for NATO membership. With every passing day, and especially with the reelection of Trump, the reality increasingly dawns that if we’re to guarantee Ukrainian statehood, the West must welcome Ukraine into NATO—or it must start getting ready for Ukraine to rejoin the same nuclear club it was once a part of all those years ago.

It would be an extremely bad idea for Ukraine to pursue nuclear weapons. Even assuming that they could develop and produce a small arsenal in a short period of time, it would not provide them with the security that they seek. If Moscow perceives Ukraine’s pro-Western orientation and possible NATO membership as threats, it should be obvious that it would never tolerate the creation of a Ukrainian nuclear arsenal. The Russian response to Zelensky’s trial balloon was clear that they would view any move in this direction as a provocation. Putin said, “Any step in this direction will be met with a corresponding reaction.”

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Zelensky has any intention of pursuing nuclear weapons, and that’s good. He made his remarks about nuclear weapons to emphasize how important he thinks NATO membership is, but he probably knows as well as anyone else that nuclear proliferation would be a costly distraction. In addition to feeding into Moscow’s worst fears, Ukraine’s pursuit of nuclear weapons would weaken its international support and put it at risk of becoming a pariah state instead.

It is important to remember why the U.S. insisted that the non-Russian republics give up the nuclear weapons on their territory. There was nothing “puzzling” about this effort. The U.S. position was clear: the creation of more nuclear-armed states out of the wreckage of the Soviet Union was unacceptable. That was the right answer on nonproliferation grounds, and it was also clearly the right answer as far as U.S. and allied security was concerned. Removing these weapons from the three non-Russian republics was one of the biggest successes of U.S. diplomacy in the post-Cold War era. If people like Bill Clinton now want to disparage one of the few real accomplishments they ever had on foreign policy, that doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to turn off our brains and play along.

Michel’s argument relies heavily on a counterfactual that Ukraine would not have been attacked if it had somehow managed to hang on to the nuclear weapons it inherited from the USSR. Leave aside that the newly independent Ukraine didn’t want to keep these weapons, had no control over them, and couldn’t have afforded to maintain them. No Russian government would have allowed Ukraine to possess its own arsenal then or later. If Ukraine had tried to keep the nukes, there would have been a crisis and a conflict much earlier on.

Michel writes, “Decades on, America’s insistence that Ukraine divest its nuclear weapons—and give them all to Russia—is now seen as a blunder of historic proportions.” It is seen that way only by Westerners who evidently don’t understand the full history of how Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up the weapons. Mariana Budjeryn dug into the history of this process in Ukraine, and she recounts it in her book Inheriting the Bomb. As I said in my review last year:

“As Budjeryn shows, there really was no serious option of keeping the inherited nuclear weapons without exposing Ukraine to international opprobrium and isolation, and the cost of building up an indigenous nuclear weapons program to maintain their own arsenal was prohibitive. She sums up the Ukrainian foreign ministry’s view at the time: “The negative repercussions of the nuclear option would far outweigh the positive.”

That was true thirty years ago, and it is still true today. The benefits would be few and short-lived, and the costs would be extremely high. Contrary to the hawkish revisionism we have been hearing in the last few years, the U.S. did Ukraine a favor by insisting that they give up those weapons.

Budjeryn also had to this to say about Ukraine and the nuclear weapons it inherited: “If Ukraine had refused to join the NPT and kept a part of its nuclear inheritance, it would not be the same country it is today but with nuclear weapons. Indeed, it is doubtful whether it would be a country at all.” Chasing after nuclear weapons isn’t going to save Ukraine, and it has the potential to lead to its complete destruction. It is grossly irresponsible to encourage Ukraine in such a disastrous course of action.

Ryabkov did not announce a specific date or say what level of officials would attend.

The meeting is potentially significant because of a significant escalation in nuclear tensions between Russia and the West since the start of the Ukraine war.

President Vladimir Putin last month announced changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, saying Moscow was extending the list of scenarios that could prompt it to consider firing a nuclear weapon.

In January 2022, weeks before Putin sent his army into Ukraine, the “nuclear five” issued a joint statement saying they considered the avoidance of war between nuclear powers and the reduction of strategic risks to be their foremost priorities.

“We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” they said at the time.

Reporting by Reuters, writing by Mark Trevelyan Writign by Maxim Rodionov Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Heavens

‘”Project Ukraine’ is dragging American politicians only further into an abyss, from which it is increasingly difficult to get out,” Antonov told Newsweek. “As we see, the administration can only respond to the victories of Russian troops in Donbas and the failure of the provocation by the Ukrainian armed forces in the Kursk region by using the same hackneyed theses about ‘support as long as we can.'”

“There are zero signals to clients about the need to think over their position and sit down at the negotiating table,” he added. “Neither are there any hints about stopping the senseless flow of weapons at the expense of the local taxpayer.”

Instead, he argued that “Washington is continuing a dangerous discussion about the possibility of giving Ukrainians a permission to strike deep into Russian territory with Western long-range missiles.”

Such talk threatened to defy the latest ultimatum issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly warned against external intervention since first ordering a “special military operation” into Ukraine in February 2022.

“They refuse to take into account the clear warnings of the President of the Russian Federation that a ‘green light’ for such attacks would mean NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict,” Antonov said, “with all the following conclusions on our part.”

Divisions at Home and Abroad

Antonov served as deputy minister of foreign affairs and defense before being appointed as Moscow’s most senior diplomat in Washington in August 2017. He became a vocal advocate for the Kremlin’s position throughout the terms of U.S. Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who is also set to vacate his office soon as Vice President Kamala Harris gears up for a tight race against Trump next month.

Antonov said he had “no desire” to discuss the inner workings of U.S. politics today but observed that “local party strategists seem to be trying to come up with official statements for Ukraine to meet the demands of the U.S. current electoral cycle.”

“These people are not interested in the fate of Europeans and Kiev,” Antonov said. “They are only interested in the digits in public opinion polls, which supposedly can be adjusted in their favor if they demonstrate ‘determination’ and ‘leadership.’ This is pure recklessness.”

He also identified a “divided” public discourse in the U.S.

“On one hand,” Antonov said, “we see a lot of attempts by reasonable political scientists to understand the situation, find workable—at least in the eyes of the United States— options to end the conflict and develop an inter-party consensus based on a common understanding of the danger of collapsing into World War III.”

“However, any voices of reason in Washington today are silenced or written off as ‘Kremlin propaganda,” he added. “The recent unjustified sanctions against Russian journalists are in this vein, as well as provocative attacks by local intelligence services against Dmitry Simes, Scott Ritter and compatriots living in America.”

Antonov railed against what he called a “brutal ‘cleansing’ of the information space in America” via the prosecution and censorship of individuals accused of spreading Russian propaganda, sanctions and raids against state-backed Russian media outlets and other measures.

Such actions, he argued, target those “who call for a sober assessment of the risks of being dragged into a morass of the Eastern Europe conflict and the prospect of a head-on collision with a nuclear power, those who warn that sitting out overseas while others are dying, without any costs, is an illusion and self-deception.”

Newsweek reached out to the U.S. State Department and the Ukrainian Embassy to the U.S. for comment.

Washington and Kyiv have long accused Moscow of spreading disinformation via state-sponsored campaigns intended to serve the Kremlin’s interests.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has declared an unwavering position to continue military assistance to Ukraine, and many NATO allies have offered similar pledges. However, the issue has proved increasingly polarizing in Western capitals, with some, including a number of Republicans in the U.S., expressing growing skepticism about the utility of the current strategy.

The division also runs through the upcoming U.S. election. Harris vows to continue with Biden’s approach of supporting Ukraine until victory, while Trump has promised to quickly reach a deal that would put an end to what has become Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

But as these debates play out at a turbulent time for U.S. politics, Antonov accused U.S. think tanks of responding to “reasonable” publications with “poisonous commentaries about the harm of any conversation with ‘the Russians'” and said that U.S. politicians prefer “to listen to ‘hawks.'”

Rather than seeking peace, they discuss “creating hostilities between the Slavs, encouraging the killing of people, and intensifying military escalation,” he argued.

“All this only confirms that the political elites have set themselves the task not just to defeat Russia but to preserve the old world order, based on the rules favorable to NATO countries,” Antonov said. “We want to change this obviously outdated state of affairs. We want our security interests to be taken into account.”

A Flashpoint in Flames

While Russia’s large-scale war against Ukraine began in February 2022, the roots of the conflict could be traced back to seismic shifts in the global order that began decades earlier.

Since first assuming power on the eve of the 21st century, less than 10 years after the fall of the USSR, Putin has consistently argued against the growing presence of the U.S.-led NATO military alliance in the former Soviet sphere of influence. He has accused Western rivals of seeking to encircle Russia; Washington and its allies have argued that entry into NATO was voluntary and was often pursued due to the perceived threats of Russian aggression.

The geopolitical storm landed in Ukraine a decade ago, when a mass uprising supported by the U.S. in 2014 ousted the government in favor of leadership seeking closer ties with the West. Moscow condemned what it called a “coup” and sent forces to seize the Crimean Peninsula as Russia-aligned separatists rose in the eastern Donbas region.

Thus began the largest militarization on the continent since the Cold War, with NATO increasingly shoring up its position in Eastern Europe and Russia dedicating more troops and equipment to its western frontier.

As Russian troops began to amass in unprecedented numbers along Ukraine’s borders in 2021, Moscow issued two proposals for demilitarizing that would effectively see NATO reduce its presence in regions near Russia’s borders, to which Antonov said the response was “silence and smirks.”

Talks quickly unraveled, and Putin ultimately resorted to force. Both sides continue to blame one another for setting the stage for conflict.

“In America, there is an unwillingness to recognize that over the past few decades, the West, led by Washington, has been rejecting Moscow’s outstretched hand of cooperation again and again,” Antonov said. “Year after year, it has been militarily ‘exploiting’ European territory, conducting waves of NATO expansion to the East.”

“It has organized color revolutions and anti-constitutional coups,” he said, “increasingly encircling Russia in a hostile ‘ring,’ and as the ‘decisive battering ram’ it chose Ukraine.”

Antonov said that the Pentagon has gone so far as “to study the outcomes of using nuclear weapons on the agricultural sector of Eastern Europe, including Russia,” including “modeling a global nuclear war scenario that will lead to the destruction, as Americans think for some reason, of only agricultural farms.”

“Such simulations were actively conducted during the Cold War years,” Antonov said. “It is noteworthy that even the American military started to contemplate a nuclear conflict.”

“At the same time, they mistakenly believe that this catastrophe will only affect Europe and Russia,” he added. “This is extremely short-sighted. America will not be able to sit it out across the ocean. A global nuclear catastrophe would affect everyone.”

Now, Antonov said, “The objective maximum task at this stage is to prevent the ties between two great powers and permanent members of the Security Council from finally plunging into an uncontrolled nosedive.”

“Russia, as a responsible state, is not interested in such an extremely dangerous development of the situation,” he said. “We convey this idea to our interlocutors and the general public in America on a regular basis. We try to put it explicitly that an insatiable desire to achieve strategic victory on the battlefield over Russia is simply impossible.”

Rival Proposals

Several notable attempts have been made to achieve a diplomatic solution since the beginning of the conflict, including direct talks held in Belarus and Turkey in the early weeks. The discussions appeared to make the most progress in Istanbul in April 2022 but have since remained largely frozen.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a resolution that would see Russian forces unconditionally withdraw from his country’s territory, including four provinces annexed by Moscow in an internationally disputed referendum held in September 2022, as well as from Crimea, which was annexed in a similar vote after being captured by Russia in 2014. He’s also stated that Russian officials, including Putin, must face accountability for alleged war crimes.

These core demands, which Russia outright rejected, were reportedly featured in the new “victory plan” presented by the Ukrainian leader to the White House last month. The plan was set to be unveiled this weekend at a summit in Germany, but the meeting was canceled after Biden pulled out to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.

Putin presented a new proposal of his own in June. This entailed Ukraine ceding the unilaterally Russian-annexed territories, Kyiv abandoning its desire to become a full NATO member, and other measures dismissed by Zelensky and his foreign backers.

Harris referred to the conditions of the Russian plan as “proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable,” during a meeting last month with Zelensky.

Trump has not responded directly to the Russian proposal but has said he had his own plan that would end the war “in 24 hours.” While he has declined to offer details, his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, has revealed the plan would likely include a “demilitarized zone” along the current line of demarcation between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

On the ground, the war has only intensified. Russian forces have advanced on several key axes, while Ukrainian forces have conducted strikes further into Russia itself, including a ground incursion into Kursk province.

Echoing the position expressed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during an exclusive interview with Newsweek earlier this week, Antonov saw additional pledges of military assistance to Ukraine from the U.S. and other Western countries as a direct response to the Russian peace plan, resulting in new warnings from the Kremlin over growing foreign involvement in the conflict.

“Now, amid talks of long-range missiles, Vladimir Putin has sent a clear warning to the United States and its allies,” Antonov said. “He reminded them of the direct involvement of American so-called ‘technical specialists’ in planning and carrying out strikes against Russia.”

Antonov compared the discussions surrounding providing such missiles to Ukraine to “a diver frozen before the decisive jump into the abyss.” He added, “Just think about how far the Western elites have gone in their desire to profit from pitting two Slavic peoples against each other.”

He also referenced the recent reports of a U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter jet being downed by friendly, potentially from a U.S.-supplied Patriot air defense system, as a “clear and obvious confirmation that the Ukrainian army is not ready to operate modern Western weapons.”

Asked last month about the ongoing deliberations of allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike Russia, Biden simply said, “We’re working that out right now.” No policy changes have since been announced.

Later in September, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller responded to a question about the use of U.S.-provided long-range missiles in the war by stating that there was no “one magic capability that would change the face of the conflict.”

“We look at all of the capabilities and all the tactics and all the support that we provide Ukraine in totality,” Miller said at the time, “and when we approve any new weapon system or any new tactic, we look at how it’s going to affect the entire battlefield and Ukraine’s entire strategy. And that’s what we’ll continue to do.”

Last week, however, Zelensky accused Western partners of “dragging out” the supply of long-range weapons during a meeting with new NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

A ‘Sobering’ Farewell Message

Antonov left Washington in the midst of the most challenging period in the U.S.-Russia relationship since the end of the Cold War. While he continued to advocate for improved ties, he also acknowledged the depth of the bilateral deterioration between the world’s top two nuclear powers.

“The average American reader, who sees and hears on a daily basis a stream of anti-Russian reports and articles from the media and notes Russophobic slogans coming from government officials and legislators, would hardly be surprised by an unsatisfactory assessment of bilateral ties between Russia and the U.S.,” Antonov said.

“Relations between Moscow and Washington are going through an extremely turbulent period, arguably touching the lowest point in their history,” he added. “Trust between our countries has been completely lost. With rare exceptions, almost all areas of interaction have been ‘frozen.'”

He saw “only a few” politicians and organizations today that he said, “are trying to look behind the curtain of propaganda clichés and understand what really provoked this ‘ice age’ in Russian-American relations.”

Otherwise, he saw few efforts “to take a critical look at the situation and try to understand the root causes of the downward spiral, rather than throwing out sharp accusations of ‘unprovoked aggression,’ ‘imperialism,’ and alleged attempts to subjugate nearly half of Europe.”

In the White House, he described an administration that “continues to burn one bridge after another.”

“We believe that normalization of relations is valuable in itself for either party,” Antonov said. “It takes two to tango. We will not forcefully invite anyone to cooperate.”

Antonov was not especially hopeful that the situation would change depending on whether Harris or Trump emerged victorious next month.

“We stay clear-eyed and understand that in the current circumstances, there is little chance for people who may assume power in the United States not to ultimately find themselves under the dense influence of the ‘deep state’ and corporate structures that are Russophobic towards Russia,” Antonov said.

“The debris in Russia-U.S. relations is so huge that it is extremely difficult to clear it up even with very serious political will,” he added. “Blind support for the Kiev regime and its terrorism on Russian territory puts an end to even an attempt to approach the discussion of normalization of relations.”

With little indication of peace on the horizon and the threat of an even larger-scale confrontation still looming, Antonov cautioned against those who “believe that through controlled escalation it is possible to avoid the worst and weaken Russia, send it into oblivion—to the ‘dump’ of history.”

“The main sobering message that is now required to avoid fatal mistakes is to stop and cease the openly hostile policy towards the Russian Federation,” Antonov said. “Recognize that our country has national interests and a legitimate right to ensure the safety of its citizens, to have its own alternative viewpoint and the opportunity to share it with anyone who is interested in hearing it.”

Tom O’Connor is a Senior Writer, Foreign Policy & Deputy Editor, National Security and Foreign Policy