To the editor:
I was proud to be a leader for building pressure and support for the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed in 1987, which banned land based medium range nuclear weapons for the US and the then Soviet Union (USSR). Those weapons, which had begun being deployed first by the USSR and then by the US, could reach Moscow in six minutes and put a hair trigger on nuclear war, making it much more likely.
President Donald Trump has just announced his intent to withdraw from this crucial treaty, which started a decades long series of nuclear reduction treaties and has helped reduce the numbers of nuclear warheads globally from 70,000 to about 15,000. Just as with the Iran Nuclear Agreement, instead of trying to fix existing treaties that are verifiably reducing the nuclear danger, he withdraws.
This continues Trump’s pattern of withdrawing from major treaties such as the Paris Climate Agreement, which undermines hard won gains toward reducing the two major threats to human survival: nuclear war and the climate crisis. It undermines a cornerstone of US security and strength as a global leader collaborating with countries around the world.
On top of that, the Trump Administration is planning a technological escalation of the US nuclear arsenal that will cost $1.7 trillion (about $15,000 per taxpaying household) and trigger a new nuclear arms race.
I know from over 40 years of full time organizing toward the global abolition of nuclear weapons that, with sustained citizen activism, major progress has been made, and can be again. Readers wanting to be involved in such efforts are urged to visit peacecoalition.org or call the Coalition for Peace Action at (609) 924-5022.
The Rev. Robert Moore
The writer is executive director of the Princeton-based Coalition for Peace Action.
