Donald Trump’s victory Tuesday in the U.S. presidential election stunned political pundits and prompted speculation about a number of policy areas likely to change once President Barack Obama leaves office – not least among them the future of the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
During their campaigns the Republican and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton offered two distinct visions of the future of nuclear nonproliferation, the United States’ role in the world, and U.S. spending on its nuclear deterrent. Even so, the results of the election are not likely to drastically change existing nuclear policy, observers say.
Analysts have expressed uncertainty over some policies regarding the United States’ strategic orientation in the world; asked about potential changes to nuclear policy under a Trump administration, James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, “I have absolutely no idea and, neither I strongly suspect, does Mr. Trump.”
However, many appear to agree that current U.S. nuclear modernization plans will remain unchanged; the view from the defense industry, meanwhile, seems positive.
Trump has not outlined a detailed vision for the size and scope of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, but his public statements – as well as the Republican Party platform released during his campaign – reinforced support for the ongoing modernization of the deterrent, which involves upgrades to each leg of the nuclear triad – new ICBMs, strategic bombers, and ballistic missile submarines, along with a new nuclear cruise missile – at a cost of $1 trillion over 30 years.
Trump’s new presidential transition website, Greatagain.gov, says: “A Trump Administration also recognizes the uniquely catastrophic threats posed by nuclear weapons and cyber attacks. Mr. Trump will ensure our strategic nuclear triad is modernized to ensure it continues to be an effective deterrent, and his Administration will review and minimize our nation’s infrastructure vulnerabilities to cyber threats.”
William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said by email, “I see little opposition on either side of the aisle to proposals to greatly boost defense expenditures, but it is hard for me to anticipate the specific forms a push for nuclear modernization will take.”
“The biggest riddle, however, is how responsive a very hawkish group of Cold Warriors at the top of State and DOD . . . will be to the new president’s stated desires to reorient U.S. policy toward Russia, NATO, and our East Asian allies,” Potter said. “My guess is that the Cold Warriors ultimately will prevail, and we will soon sink back into an even more expensive and ideologically charged arms race with Russia.”
The current nuclear modernization plan appears to hew to U.S. policy to sustain its deterrent – swapping out old weapons for new systems that will operate for decades to come – without significantly enhancing the nation’s nuclear strength. But the potential for new weapons with new capabilities is not necessarily off the table – for example, the U.S. Air Force and the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration studied the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator “bunker buster” during the George W. Bush presidency, but never moved forward with development.
Miles Pomper, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said he does not foresee major changes in the nuclear modernization program. With regard to the potential development of new capabilities and the impact of a new administration on the defense industry, “it’s too early to tell,” he said.
Michaela Dodge, senior policy analyst for defense and strategic policy at The Heritage Foundation, agreed that the new administration will likely maintain existing modernization programs, particularly since the programs have already begun and involve years of work.
The defense industry has largely avoided commenting on the outcome of the election, but seems to be reaping some benefits already. Stocks jumped to record highs the day after the election, a time that CNN Money said historically sees a decline – while the S&P 500 on average declined by 1.1 percent the day after the election between 1932 and 2012, it actually increased by the same percentage this week. The boost was particularly high for the healthcare and defense industries, with stocks of Pentagon contractors such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin spiking.
An industry source said in a telephone interview that defense contractors have a positive view of a Trump presidency, given his stated commitment to rebuild the military from years of constrained spending. “We’re all excited about that,” the individual said.
Still, a “dose of reality” will set in when it comes to creating a budget, the source said, noting that securing increased funding for national defense will take “extraordinary effort” and must begin with lifting Budget Control Act spending caps. Trump’s defense plans, as stated during his campaign, would add $55 billion to $80 billion annually to the Pentagon budget, Bloomberg reported Friday.
Despite these challenges and some uncertainty related to funding tradeoffs – greater defense spending would presumably be coupled with funding cuts in other federal budget categories – the overall sense is that a Trump administration will be positive for the industry.
Boeing spokesman Dan Curran said in an emailed statement, “We congratulate President-elect Trump and newly elected members of Congress and look forward to working with them to ensure that U.S. companies can compete, win and grow our economy to provide good jobs to U.S. workers; as well as preserve American leadership in national security.”
Lockheed Martin spokesman William Phelps said by email that the company “congratulates President-elect Trump and we look forward to working with his administration and the new Congress to support and strengthen our national defense. Over the coming months, we will continue to work closely with the transition team and Congressional leadership on critical issues that impact our customers, our business and our industry.”
A Northrop Grumman spokesperson declined to comment.
A Lockheed Martin subsidiary is the management and operations contractor for the Sandia National Laboratories; the company is also in the running for the M&O contract at the Nevada National Security Site. The contractor has also bid for the Defense Department’s Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) intercontinental ballistic missile contract and previously developed the Air Force’s first-ever operational ICBM.
Boeing and Northrop Grumman are also in the running for the GBSD program. Boeing developed the original Minuteman missile beginning in 1958, and Northrop was the Air Force’s ICBM systems engineering and technical assistance contractor for several decades. Northrop is also a member of the team of contractors currently running the Nevada National Security Site.
Arms Control
The other side of the coin is nuclear arms control, which Obama emphasized during his presidency but which Trump did not discuss during the campaign.
Obama’s 2009 Prague Agenda outlined his goal toward achieving a world without nuclear weapons through steps that included the bilateral New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia to cut both countries’ nuclear arsenals, support for ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and negotiations toward a treaty to halt the global production of nuclear-weapon-usable fissile material.
Obama began the Nuclear Security Summit process, four high-levels meetings through which world leaders and international organizations made commitments to work together to secure nuclear material, deter nuclear smuggling, and minimize the use of highly enriched uranium worldwide. His administration ramped up efforts in recent months to push for CTBT ratification, which remains a far-off goal, particularly with a new incoming administration.
Policy issues such as adoption of no-first-use of nuclear weapons – which Obama reportedly considered and then dropped near the end of his term – or ratification of the CTBT “will not be the prime focus” of the Trump administration, Dodge said.
Moreover, “arms control for the sake of arms control is a bad idea,” she added, citing the U.S.-Russian relationship and competing strategic interests as reasons that “it would be very difficult to get arms control that serves the United States’ interests at this point.”
