A coalition 10 of U.S. senators wrote a letter on Wednesday to the Obama administration requesting action on nuclear weapons policy in the time the president has left in office.
The letter was co-signed by U.S. Sens. Edward Markey (D-MA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Al Franken (D-MN), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
“Nuclear war poses the gravest risk to American national security,” the senators said. “The lesson of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is clear: nuclear weapons must never be used again. We must do everything we can to reduce the risk of nuclear war and preserve America’s security interests.”
Independent estimates suggest that nuclear weapons sustainment and modernization plans could cost approximately $1 trillion over the next 30 years.
“In addition to scaling back wasteful nuclear expenditures, we support reforms to U.S. nuclear posture,” the senators said. “More than a quarter-century after the end of the Cold War, the United States still maintains the option of using nuclear weapons first in a conflict. Retaining this option exacerbates mutual fears of surprise attack, putting pressure on other nuclear-armed states to keep their arsenals on high-alert and increasing the risk of unintended nuclear war.”
The senators noted their opposition to the current U.S. policy of launching nuclear weapons to the mere warning of a nuclear attack.
“This policy undermines the president’s ability to carefully deliberate in a crisis, and raises the prospect of devastating mistakes in the event of false alarms,” the senators said. “To further reduce the risk of inadvertent nuclear war, we support increasing the time available to the commander-in-chief to consider using nuclear weapons by canceling launch-on-warning plans.”