Hawkish Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has never been a big fan of arms control agreements. His new op-ed in the Wall Street Journal confirms that his attitude has not softened in the slightest.
The opening paragraph adopts a highly militant tone. “The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expired this month. The end of New Start is a watershed moment in American nuclear strategy. Far from a failure of diplomacy, this expiration is an overdue correction of a strategic mistake that left America vulnerable to two nuclear rivals: Russia and China. After years of unilateral restraint, while our adversaries expanded their arsenals, America can finally build a nuclear deterrent for the threats we face.”
Although he contends that Russia has engaged in a “nuclear buildup,” he cites no evidence that Moscow exceeded the limits on the number of warheads specified in New Start. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was not a party to the treaty at all. Both Cotton and President Trump seem even more worried about Beijing’s ambitions with respect to strategic nuclear weapons than they do about Moscow’s moves. Indeed, Cotton states so explicitly. “China’s nuclear stockpile has surpassed 600 operational warheads as of mid-2024, and it remains on track to exceed 1,000 by 2030. This isn’t incremental modernization. This is a fundamental transformation from a minimal deterrent to strategic parity with America and Russia in both quality and quantity.”
The lack of treaty limits on the size of Beijing’s strategic arsenal is a legitimate concern. Any worthwhile replacement for New Start needs to include China. But Cotton’s real focus has little to do with genuine strategic arms control. His goal is to justify an extensive increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal under the label of “modernization.”
Cotton’s op-ed presents a six-part plan for doing so. One proposal is to “put multiple warheads back on U.S. land-based ICBMs. To stay below New Start limits, America reduced the load on our ICBMs to one warhead per missile. We should load existing Minuteman III ICBMs to their full capacity and ensure that Sentinel ICBMs are also deployed at full capacity.” Another one of his schemes is to “restore our theater nuclear capabilities. This means completing the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile program, forward-deploying additional U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to Europe and the Pacific, and developing hypersonic nuclear-capable delivery systems.”
Like most hawks, Cotton fails to acknowledge any U.S. responsibility for the breakdown of nuclear arms control in recent years. Yet both the Trump and Biden administrations took actions that eliminated restraints and fomented tensions. The United States decided to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in August 2019. Washington also ended its adherence to the Open Skies agreement with Moscow in November 2020. The Open Skies measure had assured greater transparency regarding the movement and deployment of bombers and missiles. The Kremlin saw that agreement as a crucial reassurance against any buildup or threatening conduct featuring U.S. or NATO strategic weapons on Russia’s doorstep in Central or Eastern Europe.
Cotton also charges, with virtually no evidence, that both Moscow and Beijing have resumed underground nuclear weapons testing. Moreover, in the unlikely event that such tests have occurred, U.S. leaders need to blame themselves. Washington’s longstanding failure to officially embrace the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has been disgraceful. Although the United States signed the treaty in 1996, it has never ratified the document. In November 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law revoking Russia’s 2000 ratification of the CTBT. In pushing through the de-ratification measure, Putin said that he merely sought to “mirror” the U.S. position. Moscow had complained about Washington’s lackadaisical attitude about that issue for years.
On October 29, 2025, Trump announced that the United States would resume testing nuclear weapons. If the president carries out his pledge, it will mark the end of a long period in which all official or de facto members of the global nuclear weapons club had refrained from conducting such tests. The United States held its last test in September 1992, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in July 1996. The Russian Federation has never conducted a nuclear weapons test; Moscow’s last venture into that area took place in October 1990, when the Soviet Union still existed. Great Britain operated on a similar timetable (1991) and France just a little later (January 1996). India and Pakistan, two of the newer entrants into the ranks of nuclear weapons powers, both conducted their latest tests in May 1998.
The last confirmed episode was the detonation of an underground warhead by North Korea in early September 2017. Despite growing tensions between Washington and Pyongyang on multiple issues, and North Korea’s plethora of moves to advance its ballistic missile program, Kim Jong-un’s regime has not yet ended its moratorium on testing nuclear warheads.
Concern about the possible resumption of nuclear testing by multiple countries is understandable. However, one could see this development coming for years, and contrary to Cotton and other American hawks, the United States bears most of the responsibility. Yet the senator just blandly includes in his six-point “modernization” plan, the observation that “the Energy Department needs to reverse the taboo against testing.”
The flippant attitude throughout his op-ed is alarming. Once again, there is not the slightest sense that any U.S. actions could be provocative and be causing some of the tensions in the nuclear arena. “Deterring nuclear war is far cheaper than fighting one. To those who ask why we should spend so much on weapons we’ll never use: We use our nuclear deterrent every single day. The mere existence of a credible nuclear force prevents adversaries from contemplating attacks they would otherwise consider.”
“And to those who fear an arms race: The race has already begun. Russia and China have been running it for more than a decade while we sat on the sidelines. The question isn’t whether there will be competition in nuclear forces, but whether America will show up to compete.”
Smug, reckless arrogance best describes Cotton’s perspective. Arms races rarely end well.
