Coming Soon: A New Arms Race

Terry H. Schwadron

Feb. 2, 2019

Apparently, we’re restarting the Cold War nuclear arms race anew — most likely not only with Russia, but with China, too. It sounds expensive, potentially dangerous with increased chances for misunderstood intentions, and a generally depressing turn for all of us.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday made official what has been known for weeks, that the United States is abandoning a Reagan-negotiated intermediate nuclear missile treaty — though technically giving a required six-month notice. Pompeo said again that Russia had violated the 1987 agreement by deploying missiles near European borders; Russia insisted that it is living within the constraints, and added that the United States is the violator, as a result of putting mobile launchers for anti-ballistic missiles.

Apparently the only real defense against bad guys with missiles is good guys with missiles. The depressing part is that we thought we had outlived those days.

Meanwhile, the real target in all this seems to be weapons being deployed by China, half a world away. “Trump administration’s real aim is to broaden its prohibitions to include China,” said The New York Times.

China is not a signer of the treaty and is not constrained from adding these missiles, with a range of up to several hundred miles rather than thousands of miles for ICBMs. China has interest in adding missiles to create a dominant position in the Western Pacific.

“Complicating that question is the American intelligence agencies’ warning this week that Russia and China are “more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s,” added The Times.

Now maybe it’s just me. Withdrawing from the treaty means no one wins, that Russia will be able to do what it wants, that China, which is not a part of the treaty, can develop whatever missiles it wants, and the U.S. can spend money like crazy to always try to have superior numbers of missiles. Quite a moral position from which to lecture to North Korea, India and Iran, I’d say. And a position that never fixes the problem or gets Russia instead to comply and China to join in a trilateral agreement.

The decision to leave the nuclear arms treaty took American allies by surprise when word of the decision first leaked out in October and was quickly confirmed by Trump.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military alliance that was created to counter the Soviet threat 70 years ago, acknowledged that Russia had violated the INF treaty and called on Moscow in December “to return urgently to full and verifiable compliance.”

To me, the issues involved grow increasingly complicated if we cannot be sure that the president is basing his administration’s actions on factual analysis.

The blowup this week between Trump and intelligence agencies about the status of global threats — and the subsequent attempt by the president to wipe away any policy differences as having been misreported from live, televised hearings that we all watched — is anything but reassuring.

But it will mean more American weapons-building jobs, leading to yesterday’s

Very Positive Jobs Report

Another very positive jobs report hit yesterday, the kind of news that you’d think that President Trump would be leaning on rather than his plea for disputed a border Wall.

This was the jobs report that might be skewed by the furlough of federal workers, yet it still showed 304,000 new jobs, led by additions in restaurants and hotels, construction and health care, while retail areas lagged or lost jobs.

If you are a Trump supporter, you might credit the corporate tax cuts; if you’re not, it is a continuation of years’ worth of months jobs increases (though last month’s surprisingly good jobs report was adjusted downward).

To me, outside of the effects of the month-long government shutdown, the least noticed aspect of this report is that it came in the first month that 19 states had raised the minimum wage. Hoo-hah. Higher minimum wages did not eliminate jobs.

Statistics being statistics, the actual jobless rate actually ticked up again to 4%, as a result of adding more job-seekers. Furloughed government workers and contractors were counted as jobless, and the number of people working part-time who wanted a full-time job increased significantly in January, also likely due to the shutdown, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Ironically, the bureau of labor statistics continued to work during the shutdown.

Wages, too, were reported rising slightly to 3.2% over last year.

Most other measures of U.S. jobs remained in line with trends that go back eight years.

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