The New York Times - USA (2020-08-07)

A26 FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2020

N

The nucle-
ar weapons
dropped over

Hiroshima and
Nagasaki 75 years

ago this week wreaked
a devastation never before
seen in human warfare. Yet

they were firecrackers compared
with the nuclear weapons that were soon de-

veloped — bombs, warheads, shells, torpedoes and other de-
vices capable of vaporizing the human race in an apocalyp-

tic flash.
For decades, that thought cast a pall of acute anxiety

over America and the world. Whether because of that fear, a
strategy of effective deterrence, chance or all the above, the

United States remains the only country to have used nuclear
weapons in combat. With the end of the Cold War, anxiety

around nuclear war has receded. Most people probably are
not aware that a harrowing and expensive new arms race is

now underway.
Today Americans are more likely to identify climate
change as the greatest man-made threat to the planet. Last

year, in the list of what Americans fear compiled annually by
Chapman University, “North Korea using nuclear weapons”

and “Nuclear weapons attack” ranked 27 and 29, far below
“Corrupt government officials” (No. 1) or “Pollution of

oceans, rivers and lakes” (No. 2).
Yet even with the Cold War long over and stockpiles of

nuclear weapons in the Russian and American arsenals
sharply reduced through a series of nuclear arms treaties, to

fewer than 6,000 warheads each, there are no grounds for
complacency. The world can still be destroyed in a flash.

Nine states have nuclear weapons — the United States,
Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and

North Korea. Iran’s nuclear program has been the focus of
intense concern for years, and Saudi Arabia has vowed that

if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, it will follow suit. Con-
sider also that two men have the power to unleash a nuclear

barrage entirely on their own — President Trump and Vladi-
mir Putin, the Russian president, who are both working as-

siduously on modernizing their arsenals.
Mr. Trump has said he is working on a new arms control

agreement with Russia and is seeking to include China in
the talks. But his administration has always found it easier

to tear up treaties than to sign them, especially if the result
in any way restrains the United States. As the special envoy

for arms control, Marshall Billingslea, boasted in May, “We
know how to win these races, and we know how to spend the

adversary into oblivion.”
Before the coronavirus pandemic put millions of Ameri-

cans out of

work,

spending so

much money on

new doomsday

weapons was profli-

gate. Now, it seems mor-

ally indefensible. This week,

the Government Accountability Of-

fice said that, without changes, the Penta-

gon’s nuclear weapons modernization effort is on track to

surpass its $1.2 trillion price tag over the next three decades.

It seems as though the United States is plunging into a new

nuclear arms race with Russia and China without having

learned the lessons of the last one.

When briefed by the military in 2017 on the levels to

which American and Russian nuclear arsenals had been re-

duced through arms treaties, Mr. Trump reportedly de-

manded that the United States increase its nuclear stockpile

tenfold. According to some reports, this was what prompted

the secretary of state at the time, Rex Tillerson, to call the

president a “moron.”

Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the Inter-

mediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Iran nuclear

deal, and he has not yet extended the

New START accord, the only agreement

still in place limiting American and Rus-

sian nuclear forces, which was signed

by President Barack Obama and ex-

pires in early February. In addition, the

Trump administration was recently re-

ported to be thinking of breaking the 28-

year-old moratorium on nuclear testing.

The 75th anniversary of Hiroshima

is a good time to revive serious public

concern about nuclear weapons. The pandemic may leave

little room for other fears, but public health and economic

recovery should not have to compete for resources with a

needless and enormously expensive new arms race. As Jes-

sica Matthews, former president of the Carnegie Endow-

ment for International Peace, writes in the current issue of

The New York Review of Books, it would be good for the five

original nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, Brit-

ain, France and China — to formally endorse the principle

set forth by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gor-

bachev at their 1985 summit, that “a nuclear war cannot be

won and must never be fought.”

Above all, the wrenching images of scorched rubble

where Hiroshima had stood ought to be cause for serious re-

flection on what nuclear weapons do — and what they can-

not do.

EDITORIAL

NICHOLAS KONRAD/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Before the

coronavirus

pandemic,

spending vast

sums on new

nuclear weapons

was profligate.

Now it seems

immoral.

Into a New Arms Race TO THE EDITOR:

Re “Scientists Fret as White House

Rushes Vaccine” (front page, Aug.

3):

While the administration pur-

sues a dangerous rush to approve

a Covid-19 vaccine, people need to

recognize that a vaccine for this

disease must be effective to be

safe.

Inoculating people with a vac-

cine that does not protect will

create a false sense of security and

result in the abandonment of safe-

guards like masks and social dis-

tancing. The vaccinated will be-

come a new vector, getting sick

themselves and spreading the

disease.

Deluded that they are immu-

nized against Covid, too many

people will dismiss symptoms as

resulting from less devastating

diseases. They will not self-quaran-

tine, and public health agencies

will not be able to persuade ex-

posed people to limit contact with

other, susceptible people.

There are other reasons not to

bow to the political pressure and

rush a premature vaccine to mar-

ket. Wearing masks and distancing

work reliably well.

To prevent the added deaths

from an unready vaccine, we need

a national mandate for masks and

physical distancing until adequate

vaccine testing is complete.

CARL SELKIN, PASADENA, CALIF.

TO THE EDITOR:

I believe in science. I respect sci-

entists. I have a vaccination record

as long as my arm. And yet I now

find myself in the dubious com-

pany of the anti-vaccine crowd as I

ponder the safety of anything

espoused by the Trump adminis-

tration.

And I do not believe that I am

alone. Sadly, this is what an admin-

istration built on lies has wrought.

HELEN OGDEN

PACIFIC GROVE, CALIF.

TO THE EDITOR:

Major sports teams have essen-

tially unlimited resources for fre-

quent Covid testing, isolation and

tracing, as well as strict protocols.

If they are taking all these precau-

tions but still having problems

with outbreaks, how do you think

that opening public schools will

work out?

Hoping for the best is not a

science-based strategy. It’s immor-

al.

GARY PRICE, AUSTIN, TEXAS

TO THE EDITOR:

Front-line workers in emergency

rooms wear a face shield on top of

a mask. This protects their eyes

from getting infected by coro-

navirus droplets and provides

added protection if their mask is ill

fitting. My wife and I wear an N95

or KN95 mask and a face shield

whenever we leave our apartment.

As a physician I strongly advise

everybody who can acquire a face

shield to wear both a mask and a

face shield when in public. Clearly

teachers should do so if schools

reopen.

AHMED HAKKI, OSSINING, N.Y.

A Safe Vaccine, Masks and Face Shields

LETTERS

TO THE EDITOR:

Re “The Less Impossible Israeli-

Palestinian Peace” (column,

nytimes.com, July 31):

Roger Cohen rightly supports a

two-state solution against its de-

tractors. But the column doesn’t

mention Israel’s detailed peace

offers and increased Israeli public

support for a two-state solution

while ignoring the Palestinian

leadership’s refusal to deal.

Israelis have made or agreed to

four substantive peace offers or

frameworks in the last 20 years

that the Palestinian leadership

outright refused: Ehud Barak’s

peace offer in 2000; the Taba peace

framework in 2001; Ehud Olmert’s

peace offer in 2008, and the 2014

Kerry framework, which Benjamin

Netanyahu’s government quietly

supported.

What’s more, Israeli support for

a two-state solution has grown

steadily. Twenty-four years ago,

when the Israeli Labor Party put in

its platform that it did not oppose a

Palestinian state, it was the first

mainstream Israeli political party

to take this stance. Today, support

for a Palestinian state as part of a

comprehensive peace and mutual

recognition is a consensus position

across the Israeli political spec-

trum, excepting the settler parties.

Many people on both sides want

a two-state solution. But neither

Israeli politics nor its public senti-

ments are the reasons we lack one.

The reason is simpler: If the price

of Palestinian statehood is dealing

with Israel, the Palestinian leader-

ship would prefer not to have a

state.

MARTIN PERETZ, NEW YORK

The writer was for 40 years the editor

of The New Republic.

Israeli-Palestinian Obstacle

TO THE EDITOR:

President Trump is proving again

why he is America’s conspirator in

chief. First he dispatched agents to

Portland, Ore., because its leaders

had “lost control of the anarchists

and agitators.” Then he warned

that federal forces might be

needed in Chicago, where violence

is “worse than Afghanistan.” All

the while, his TV ads are laying out

a false narrative, alleging that

Democratic mayors are letting

protesters sow bedlam.

Terrifying, yes, but hardly origi-

nal. Mr. Trump is once more pirat-

ing the playbook of this country’s

all-time grand conspirator, “Low

Blow” Joe McCarthy. Just as the

crusading senator sprayed a hose

of Communist red on all he vilified,

so the rabble-rousing president is

painting his perceived enemies as

a treasonable blue.

Seventy years ago, McCarthy

showed how far he’d go when he

put in his cross hairs Gen. George

C. Marshall, mastermind of Allied

military operations during World

War II. The senator placed the

general at the epicenter of “a con-

spiracy so immense and an infamy

so black as to dwarf any previous

such venture in the history of

man.”

Conspiracy theories like the one

involving Marshall are a central

reason that 63 years after his

death Joe McCarthy’s name re-

mains an ism that stands for

smear mongering and guilt by

association. Are you listening,

President Trump?

LARRY TYE, COTUIT, MASS.

The writer is the author of “Dema-

gogue: The Life and Long Shadow of

Senator Joe McCarthy."

Echo of McCarthy in Trump

ONE PRETTY GOODforecasting rule for the
coronavirus era has been to take what-
ever Trump administration officials are
saying and assume that the opposite will
happen. When President Trump declared
in February that the number of cases
would soon go close to zero, you knew that
a huge pandemic was coming. When Vice
President Mike Pence insisted in mid-
June that “there isn’t a coronavirus ‘sec-
ond wave,’ ” a giant surge in new cases and
deaths was clearly imminent.
And when Larry Kudlow, the adminis-
tration’s chief economist, declared just
last week that a “V-shaped recovery” was
still on track, it was predictable that the
economy would stall.
On Friday, we’ll get an official employ-
ment report for July. But a variety of pri-
vate indicators, like the monthly report
from the data-processing firm ADP, al-
ready suggest that the rapid employment
gains of May and June were a dead-cat
bounce and that job growth has at best
slowed to a crawl.
ADP’s number was at least positive —
some other indicators suggest that em-
ployment is actually falling. But even if
the small reported job gains were right, at

this rate we won’t be back to precoron-

avirus employment until... 2027.

Also, both ADP and the forthcoming of-

ficial report will be old news — basically

snapshots of the economy in the second

week of July. Since then much of the coun-

try has either paused or reversed eco-

nomic reopening, and there are indica-

tions that many workers rehired during

the abortive recovery of May and June

have been laid off again.

But things could get much worse. In

fact, they probably will get much worse

unless Republicans get serious about an-

other economic relief package, and do it

very soon.

I’m not sure how many people realize

just how much deeper the coronavirus re-

cession of 2020 could have been. Obvi-

ously it was terrible: Employment

plunged, and real G.D.P. fell by around 10

percent. Almost all of that, however, re-

flected the direct effects of the pandemic,

which forced much of the economy into

lockdown.

What didn’thappen was a major second

round of job losses driven by plunging

consumer demand. Millions of workers

lost their regular incomes; without fed-

eral aid, they would have been forced to

slash spending, causing millions more to

lose their jobs. Luckily Congress stepped

up to the plate with special aid to the un-

employed, which sustained consumer

spending and kept the nonquarantined

parts of the economy afloat.

Now that aid has expired. Democrats

offered a plan months ago to maintain

benefits, but Republicans can’t even agree

among themselves on a counteroffer.

Even if an agreement is hammered out —

and there’s no sign that this is imminent —

it will be weeks before the money is flow-

ing again.

The suffering among cut-off families

will be immense, but there will also be

broad damage to the economy as a whole.

How big will this damage be? I’ve been do-

ing the math, and it’s terrifying.

Unlike affluent Americans, the mostly

low-wage workers whose benefits have

just been terminated can’t blunt the im-

pact by drawing on savings or borrowing

against assets. So their spending will fall

by a lot. Evidence on the initial effects of

emergency aid suggests that the end of

benefits will push overall consumer

spending — the main driver of the econ-

omy — down by more than 4 percent.

Furthermore, evidence from austerity

policies a decade ago suggests a substan-

tial “multiplier” effect, as spending cuts

lead to falling incomes, leading to further

spending cuts.

Put it all together and the expiration of

emergency aid could produce a 4 percent

to 5 percent fall in G.D.P. But wait, there’s

more. States and cities are in dire straits

and are already planning harsh spending

cuts; but Republicans refuse to provide

aid, with Trump insisting, falsely, that lo-

cal fiscal crises have nothing to do with

Covid-19.

Bear in mind that the coronavirus itself

— a shock that came out of the blue,

though the United States mishandled it

terribly — reduced G.D.P. by “only”

around 10 percent. What we’re looking at

now may be another shock, a sort of eco-

nomic second wave, almost as severe in

monetary terms as the first. And unlike

the pandemic, this shock will be entirely

self-generated, brought on by the feck-

lessness of President Trump and — let’s

give credit where it’s due — Mitch McCon-

nell, the Senate majority leader.

The question is, how can this be happen-

ing? The 2008 financial crisis and the slug-

gish recovery that followed weren’t that

long ago, and they taught us valuable

lessons directly relevant to our current

plight. Above all, experience in that slump

demonstrated both that economic depres-

sions are no time to obsess over debt and

that slashing spending in the face of mass

unemployment is a terrible mistake.

But nobody in the White House or on

the G.O.P. side of Capitol Hill seems to

have learned anything from that experi-

ence. In fact, nothaving learned anything

from the last crisis almost seems to be a

requirement for Republican economic ad-

visers.

So at the moment we seem to be headed

for a Greater Recession — a worse slump

than 2007-2009, overlaid on the coro-

navirus slump. MAGA! 0

PAUL KRUGMAN

Coming Next: The Greater Recession

Ending federal aid would

hurt the economy nearly

as badly as the virus.