Will Biden break from Trump’s nuclear legacy?

Sean Howard asks Washington DC-based nuclear expert Matt Korda

President Joe Biden is having a rough time. His popularity is slumping and the Democrats have suffered some electoral setbacks recently.

PeaceQuest has written about arms control advocates’ concern over the Biden Administration’s nuclear weapons policies. This week, PeaceQuest Cape Breton's Sean Howard explores the peace community’s reaction to the Biden Administration’s mixed record of accomplishments, so far.

To get the “inside scoop,” Sean spoke to Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists, based in Washington, DC on the prospects for a progressive reformation of American foreign and defence policy

Korda expressed what he would characterize as ‘qualified pessimism’ about the potential for Joe Biden to square a rather vicious circle: ending America’s ‘forever wars’ and inaugurating a new era of ‘peace first’ diplomacy, while maintaining what the Democratic Party Platform called “the best-trained, best-equipped, and most effective fighting force in the world.”

“President Biden has effectively been absent when it comes to speaking out publicly on nuclear issues,” said Korda. “As a result, presidential guidance remains highly unclear, which provides significant latitude for the hawks to exert control. It’s understandable that the Biden administration is more focused on other important topics – especially Afghanistan and COVID – but if the president declines to outline why and how his nuclear policy will differ from his predecessor’s, then the two reviews [of nuclear policy] will just end up looking essentially the same.”

Check out Sean Howard’s full interview with Matt Korda on the Biden record. His wide-ranging conversation covers U.S. nuclear weapons, missile defences, nuclear submarines, the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty, and Korda’s recent revelation, along with Hans Kristensen, about a potential expansion by China of its nuclear forces in a remote part of the country.

• Read Prospects for Peace (A Conversation with Matt Korda) published in the Cape Breton Spectator on November 3, 2021