In this May 21, 1956, file photo, the fireball of a hydrogen bomb lights the Pacific sky a few seconds after the bomb was released over Bikini Atoll. Streamers at right are trails of rockets fired just before the blast for testing purposes.

In this May 21, 1956, file photo, the fireball of a hydrogen bomb lights the Pacific sky a few seconds after the bomb was released over Bikini Atoll. Streamers at right are trails of rockets fired just before the blast for testing purposes. AP Photo

Poll: Americans Want To Stay In Nuclear Arms Control Agreements

But there are lots of devils in the polling details.

As the Pentagon prepares to spend about a half trillion dollars over a decade on new nuclear weapons, a new poll suggests that the public favors a more constrained nuclear posture and is growing more skeptical of weapons that are in the U.S. arsenal already. A majority of respondents also favored restraining the president from launching a nuclear strike before seeking congressional approval.

The poll from the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland asked a bipartisan group of 2,264 people for their opinions on a variety of nuclear weapons issues.

The results showed, for starters, that many Americans don’t know how big the U.S. nuclear arsenal is. When told that the United States has 4,000 nuclear weapons, 41 percent said the number was bigger than they expected (57 percent of Democrats, 34 percent of Republicans.)

Eighty percent of the respondents, including 77 percent of Republicans, favor extending the New START Treaty beyond its 2021 expiration. New START limits the number of strategic nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia can deploy and allows for each party to verify the other’s deployed arsenal. Some military leaders have pointed out that the Treaty doesn’t include some of Russia’s newer nuclear weapons; others have argued for replacing it with a new, similar treaty with China.

On the issue of withdrawing from treaties, two-thirds of the respondents, including most Republicans, said the United States should stay in the INF Treaty, which limits the number of intermediate-range missiles that both sides can deploy. The United States has said it will exit the Treaty, citing Russian violations.

About 60 percent of the respondents favored “phasing out” U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. Many arms control advocates, including former Defense Secretary William Perry,  consider ICBMs to be the portion of the nuclear triad — missiles, bombers, submarines — that poses the most risk of accident for smallest reward in terms of deterrence (since they must be launched with just minutes of warning.)  But there was a big caveat among respondents. “Only one-third favor unilaterally reducing the net number of strategic warheads in the U.S. arsenal instead of putting more warheads on submarines and bombers to keep the same total as the Russians,” according to the survey.

On the issue of the presidential power to use nuclear weapons first in conflict, six in ten Republicans, and about 75 percent of the respondents overall, supported legislation requiring that U.S. president obtain permission from Congress before launching an attack. But, when they were presented with the counterargument that such a requirement would weaken deterrence, 53 percent called found the counterargument at least “somewhat” convincing.

Some members of the arms control community welcomed the findings.

“This poll shows that Americans support smart diplomacy over expensive, dangerous nuclear weapons in a big way,” said Tom Collina, who directs policy at the Ploughshares Fund. “They want to limit President Trump's sole authority to use nukes first. They want arms control, not an arms race. They rightly believe we are spending too much money on nuclear weapons. This should be a wake-up call to President Trump that his excessive and destabilizing nuclear plans are out of step with the American public.”

Kingston Reif, the Director for Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy at the Arms Control Association, saw bright spots in the responses for politicians looking to advance a strong arms control agenda. “Majorities view nuclear weapons as necessary, but majorities also support negotiated reductions with Russia and other nuclear-armed states. Majorities are concerned about the President's sole authority to launch a nuclear strike, but majorities are cautious about a no first use policy. There is also a partisan divide (though less of one in this poll than in some others I have seen). Finally, when provided with cost estimates, the majority of Americans believe we spend too much on nuclear weapons."

But some nuclear weapons watchers were more skeptical of the survey's findings. Peter Huessy, President of the defense consultancy group GeoStrategic Analysis, said that many of the poll’s questions were framed in a way that pushed a certain result. For instance, Huessy said, the 4,000 number did not reflect that most bombers and submarines are not on alert, and so the number of “ready-to-go” warheads is under 1000. That includes "400 Minuteman warheads and one-third of our submarines in their patrol box at sea or four subs each with roughly 20 missiles and each missile with five warheads," he says.

Huessy further took aim at the way the question on the INF Treaty withdrawal was worded. The survey said, “The U.S. has accused Russia of violating the treaty, but Russia has denied it. Similarly, Russia has accused the U.S. of violating the treaty, but the U.S. has also denied it.”

That wording makes it sound as though the consensus on Russia’s violation was far smaller than it is. In fact, observed Russian violations of the INF go back to the Obama administration, Also, the United States is not alone. NATO has supported U.S. conclusions on the Russian violation.

Said Huessy, “If you rig the poll questions, as the former president of Roper polling once told me, you can get exactly the answer you want.”

Regardless, some members of House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee appear willing to challenge the Defense Department on the size and scale of Pentagon's nuclear plans. A House Defense Appropriations Bill report that came out on Monday recommends $460 million in funding new ICBM development, nearly $100 million less than the Pentagon requested; and the report zeros out the Pentagon's $100 million request for new intermediate-range missiles that would violate the INF Treaty.

NEXT STORY: House Panel Rejects Space Force

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.