In a stunning decision to potentially expose vital national security secrets to America’s top adversaries, the Biden administration last month quietly invited Russia and China to send observers to upcoming nuclear weapons-related tests at the U.S. Nevada Test Site. While Beijing and Moscow haven’t responded yet, Congress should prohibit such visits and invest in the U.S. nuclear deterrent instead.
The catalyst for this misguided effort was an explosive and misleading news report last month that created a false equivalency between China’s and Russia’s actions at its own test sites and U.S. activities in Nevada.
Increased activities at test sites in China and Russia, we are supposed to believe, are merely responses to commercial satellite pictures showing increased activities at our own test site in the U.S. The proposed response? Give our adversaries the keys to the nuclear kingdom to avoid misunderstandings — even in the absence of any reciprocal measures by Beijing or Moscow.
This isn’t the first time a naïve and dangerous proposal like this has come forward. More than a decade ago, as part of the so-called “Russia Reset,” the Obama administration proposed sharing classified U.S. missile defense data with Moscow to assure Russian President Vladimir Putin that America’s missile defenses weren’t directed at Russia.
In 2011, Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois held up the nomination of Obama’s new ambassador to Russia until the White House promised no sensitive data would be provided. And Congress wrote that commitment into law by prohibiting such transfers in the Defense Authorization bill. The ban remains in place to this day.
The U1a complex at the Nevada test site conducts “subcritical and physics experiments to obtain technical information about the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.” A subcritical experiment uses nuclear material and high explosives but does not set off a nuclear chain reaction.
While Russia and China hide their nuclear budgets, sites and activities from the world, the United States already provides far more transparency – albeit still with a tight grip on access to sensitive areas and information.
Information about the Nevada test site, including a virtual tour of non-sensitive areas, is available online . Washington publishes information about its stockpile stewardship program and subcritical experiments, publicly forecasting two experiments for fiscal year 2024. Earlier this year, the executive secretary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization visited the U1a complex and its underground facilities, though not the sensitive areas where the Biden administration would allow Chinese and Russian officials.
Giving Beijing and Moscow the opportunity to observe how the U.S. maintains its stockpile could help them learn how to defeat that stockpile and improve their own. Concern on Capitol Hill is already emerging. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) has pledged legislation to stop it. In a post on X, the House Armed Services Committee declared , “Our adversaries should not be given access to U.S. nuclear weapon experiments and tests.”
They are right. With Russia openly threatening nuclear weapons use if its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is not successful, and China planning to nearly quadruple its nuclear forces by 2035, such risks represent a national security non-starter.
There are significant concerns that China and Russia are conducting supercritical tests that produce a chain reaction. When nuclear weapon states declared a nuclear test moratorium in 1996, the acceptable standard was not defined. The U.S. adopted a “zero-yield” standard— a pledge to not conduct supercritical tests — to which the United Kingdom and France also adhere.
The State Department assessed last year that China’s lack of transparency on its nuclear experiments raise concerns about Beijing’s activities at its nuclear test site and its commitment to the “zero-yield” standard. Meanwhile, “Russia has conducted nuclear weapons experiments that have created nuclear yield.”
Russia is a serial violator of arms control agreements with the U.S. In February, Russia suspended participation in the New START Treaty, which limited both countries’ strategic nuclear weapon systems. Though the treaty is effectively dead because of the Kremlin’s violations, the Biden administration insists on waiting for a Russian return that may never come. The unpopular fact is that America is safer without the treaty, as Moscow is developing theater nuclear weapons, designed for use on the battlefield, that are not covered by the accord.
Russia has also shown itself to be an untrustworthy international partner. Moscow violated the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, in which Russia and the U.S. pledged to eliminate all missiles that could travel between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The Trump administration correctly withdrew from the treaty in 2019, as NATO condemned Russia’s violations as “a significant risk to Alliance security.”
China has refused to engage in meaningful discussions on its nuclear program. Given Beijing’s lack of transparency, aggressive posture in the region, and enabling of the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, Congress would be justified in pressing for a major modernization and expansion of the U.S. nuclear force.
China and Russia aren’t expanding their nuclear forces because of a lack of American transparency. They are doing so to challenge U.S. global leadership. Congress should do everything possible to ensure that they fail in that effort, starting with a prohibition on Russian and Chinese access to secret nuclear sites.
Anthony Ruggiero is a senior fellow and senior director of the Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Richard Goldberg is a senior advisor.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Most Popular
Comments / 0