China – Control Over Freedom

Chinese and American citizens greet People’s Liberation Army-Navy ships CNS Jinan (DDG-152), CNS Yiyan (FFG-548), and CNS Qiandaohu (AOE-886) arriving in Hawaii for a scheduled port visit Dec. 13, 2015. As part of a planned series of military-to-military exchanges between two nations, Chinese and U.S. Navy officers conducted dialogues to build confidence and mutual understanding. Sailors toured each other’s ships and participated in sporting events. (Photo by MC1 Nardel Gervacio)

Review by Bill Doughty––

China is growing its navy to control sea lanes and sea lines of communication after sailing a “Century of Humiliation” with boatloads of victimization, anxiety over food security, and obsessions about containment, demarkation, and entitlement.

“Control” is the operative word; “freedom” is not –– which mirrors the Communist Chinese Party’s overall philosophy of leadership in the People’s Republic of China. 

President Xi and the People’s Liberation Army Navy are actively building a “world-class” blue water naval force as they fortify rings of islands, build a “Belt and Road Initiative,” and create anti-access and area denial capability. Michael A. McDevitt explains how in “China as a Twenty First Century Naval Power: Theory, Practice, and Implications” (Naval Institute Press; 2020).

Rear Adm. (ret.) McDevitt keeps the history lesson to a minimum and instead maximizes discussion of current and future development of PLAN resources, strategies, and capabilities.

He offers careful and couched predictions with humility about the “big uncertainty” of 2035 maritime goals of both China and the United States.

But he makes a bold statement about what the PLAN has already achieved in 2020:

“When one considers all the categories that collectively add up to the comprehensive maritime power –– navy, coast guard, militia, merchant marine, port infrastructure, shipbuilding, fishing –– one sees that China is already a global leader, or is among the top to or three in the world. No other country can match China’s maritime capabilities across the board. For example, the United States has the world’s leading navy, but in terms of quantity, and some cases quality, its shipbuilding, merchant marine, coast guard, and fisheries pale in comparison with China’s. In 2013, China caught 16.3 million tons of fish compared to the American 5.2 million tons. The comparison of coast guard cutters (those of over five hundred tons) is equally stark: Chinese Coast Guard, 225, versus U.S. Coast Guard, 40.”

This combined public-private power translates to a “formidable” force in home waters, and “China as a Twenty First Century Naval Power” expounds on that thesis with two appendices –– “The China Coast Guard: A Uniformed Armed Service” by Ryan D. Martinson and “China’s Maritime Militia: An Important Force Multiplier” by Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy.

Lt. j.g. Darel Dorsey, of USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19), observes PLAN ship CNS Quilianshan (LPD 999) as the ship departs Zhanjiang, PRC, April 24, 2015. Blue Ridge conducted a port visit to Zhanjiang to build naval partnerships with China's South Sea Fleet to ensure peace and prosperity for the entire region. (MCSA Timothy Hale)

McDevitt explores the growth of PLAN’s surface navy, carrier development, and submarine deployment, as well as shipbuilding, replenishment, command and control, training and basing capabilities. He takes the reader from the western Pacific to the South China Sea and Indian Ocean; from the Philippines and India to Djibouti and Ethiopia, as the PRC finds ways to prevent what it perceives as containment –– and continue to control freedom, including in some cases freedom of naval operations in what are considered international waters.

Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen

McDevitt understandably spotlights Taiwan (Republic of China), where CCP’s deep desire for reunification meets head-on with ROC citizens’ demand for freedom and democracy.

“At this writing, tension has increased across the Taiwan Strait for a number of reasons, primarily among them the fact that Beijing simply does not trust Taiwan’s ruling party, the Democratic People’s Party (DPP), which has long advocated eventual independence. Beijing especially does not trust the current president of Taiwan, Madam Tsai Ing-wen, who helped craft the independence language in the DPP Party Charter and who in January 2020 won a second term in a landslide. This vote has been interpreted, correctly in my view, as a massive rejection by the citizens of Taiwan of Beijing’s '1C2S' [one country, two systems] strategy. Nonetheless, preliminary indications suggest Xi is unlikely to back away from IC2S, implying Beijing believes that it has time on its side.”

Meanwhile, PRC continues to aggressively build and strengthen its navy.

Martial arts schools parade down a street in Taiwan. (2nd Lt. Dustin Brown)

There are several mentions of the Trump administration in this book, which makes us wonder how the incoming Biden-Harris team will deal with China.

Shortly before his election Biden wrote about his support for Taiwan and commitment to freedom and democracy.

“We’re a Pacific power, and we’ll stand with friends and allies to advance our shared prosperity, security, and values in the Asia-Pacific region,” President-elect Biden proclaimed in the Chinese-language newspaper World Journal.“That includes deepening our ties with Taiwan,” Biden noted.

The Voice of American reports, "But analysts expect fewer arms sales and nearby naval voyages and less anti-China language from a Biden administration.

In an announcement of key cabinet positions today, Nov. 24, Biden reinforced a pledge of support to allies and partners. He said, “That’s how we truly keep America safe, without engaging in needless military conflicts, and our adversaries in check, and terrorists at bay. And that’s how we counter terrorism and extremism, control this pandemic and future ones, deal with the climate crisis, nuclear proliferation, cyber threats in emerging technologies that spread authoritarianism.”

Biden’s incoming Secretary of State Blinken said this week he will approach his job with “equal measures of humility and confidence.”

With then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry looking on, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden raises his glass to toast Chinese President Xi Jinping at a State Luncheon in the Chinese President's honor at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., September 25, 2015. (State Department photo)

Armenia? Azerbaijan? Russia!

Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meets with Col. Gen. Zakhir Hasanov, Azerbaijan Minister of Defense, and Col. Gen. Najmaddin Sadikhov, chief of General Staff of Azerbaijani Armed Forces, to discuss the status of the relationship between the military forces of the United States and Azerbaijan at the Ministry of Defense in Baku, Azerbaijan Feb. 16, 2017. (Dept. of Defense photo by Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Dominique A. Pineiro)

Review by Bill Doughty––

In an effort to understand the flaring conflict between two former Soviet satellites, I picked up “Russia and Eurasia” by Brent Hierman (The World Today Series, 2018-2019, 49th edition; Rowman & Littlefield, 2018)., a book that predicted the current situation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, two of the three Transcaucasian Republics (Georgia being the third).

This book offers an objective and informed view of not only Armenia and Azerbaijan, but also the Russian Federation, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Western Republics, and Central Asian Republics.

Like detailed State Department and CIA studies, this book compares geopolitics, climate, ethnicity, religion, and national idiosyncrasies with maps, history lessons, and statistics.

Soldiers with the Armenian Armed Forces Peacekeeping Brigade received certification as a NATO partner following an exercise in the Republic of Armenia Sept. 15-18, 2015. The brigade earned the certification by passing the second-level evaluation of the Operational Capabilities Concept of NATO's Partnership for Peace program. The certification solidifies Armenia's capabilities to support NATO peacekeeping operations, culminating years of preparation with assistance and guidance from the Kansas National Guard through the National Guard Bureau's State Partnership Program. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Zach Sheely)

For example, Armenia is a landlocked dry highland, slightly smaller than Maryland, with a population of about three million. The language is Armenian and the religion is Armenian Apostolic Christian, from Roman Empire times. Per capita annual income is around $9,000. Armenia is east of Turkey.

Azerbaijan, by comparison, is a dry sub-tropical nation facing the Caspian Sea. It’s about the size of Maine, with a population of ten million Azeri who speak Azerbaijani and who are primarily Islamic (Shi’a), from Persian Empire influence. Per capita annual income is $17,400. Azerbaijan is north of Iran.

The primary source of conflict is the extremely mountainous and isolated area that associates itself with Armenia but which is landlocked within Azerbaijan  –– Nagorno-Karabakh, a remnant of the Ottoman Empire.

Armenian Americans have strong ties to Armenia.  “Amid the swirling events that ultimately resulted in the end of the Ottoman Empire, Armenians claim that 1.5 million of their people were mercilessly slaughtered by the Turks in western Armenia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and a substantial number of them migrated to the U.S.”

Centuries of conquest carved up the region by many empires, including the Persian, Arab, Byzantine, Seljuk Turk, Georgian, Mongolian, Russian and Soviet –– which makes it remarkable that the Armenians only established their ministry of defense in 1992, creating an army equipped with tanks mainly from Soviet forces.

“The war between Azerbaijan and Armenia widened somewhat in the spring of 1992, when forces within Nagorno-Karabakh extended their control over areas formerly occupied by Azerbaijani forces. These same forces then overran Azerbaijani territory lying between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, creating a corridor connecting the enclave with Armenia at the post where the two territories are the closest together. This had a military significance, since Armenia, which had been shifting supplies in by air up to this point, could begin bringing supplies in by truck.”

Destruction in Armenia in 1988 (Photo courtesy USAID)

The two countries have fought over energy resources and now water resources. Their conflict is exacerbated by their cultural, historical and geopolitical differences. Both countries have confronted Communism and Islamic terrorism.

Azerbaijan, though Islamic, is fearful of the fundamental extremism of radicals in Iran. The head of state has become more autocratic, solidifying power and embracing nepotism: making his wife vice president and arranging for his son to take his place. Facing deteriorating economic woes after fixing its wealth to fossil fuel extraction, Azerbaijan has suppressed human rights and faces protests across the country. 

Armenia, meanwhile, has undergone its own form of “velvet revolution” in which the people have taken to the streets to demand more representation. But, because Armenia hosts two Russian military bases, it cannot be a full member of NATO.

A Soldier with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team, Idaho National Guard, fires his M240b machine gun at opposing forces during a situational training exercise at Saber Guardian July 31, 2016. (Capt. John Farmer)

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have participated in joint exercises, including Saber Guardian, a multinational military exercise. According to DoD, Saber Guardian in 2016 included Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Canada, Georgia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and the United States. “The objectives of this exercise are to build multinational, regional and joint partnership capacity by enhancing military relationships, exchanging professional experiences, and improving interoperability between the land forces from the participating countries.”

U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Randy Daniels, right, with the 116th Civil Engineer Squadron, Georgia Air National Guard, works with an Armenian plumber repairing pipes in the basement of a Yerevan elderly institution during a European Command Humanitarian Civic Assistance project in Yerevan, Armenia, May 13, 2016. During the project, Airmen from the 116th Civil Engineer Squadron and the 461st Air Control Wing, wing staff, worked in partnership with the Armenian people to renovate a Yerevan elderly institution. The renovation provided crucial skill set training for the civil engineers while continuing the long-lasting friendship between the Armenian people and the citizens of the United States. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Master Sgt. Roger Parsons)

The United States military has ties with both nations and has assisted in training, de-mining, and humanitarian missions.

Russian troops have moved into the region to enforce a peace treaty, with Armenians forced to leave their homes in the region they call Artsakh.

In a recent report by the New York Times: “Nearly 2,000 Russian forces will patrol the line between Azerbaijani- and Armenian-controlled regions for at least five years, under the deal brokered by President Vladimir V. Putin.”

As both countries face challenges and conflict in 2020, with thousands of casualties, Russia continues to loom large. Russia eyes the region along with China, according Hierman. 

This book helps answer questions about the future by explaining the past and showing the present differences and challenges between Armenia and Azerbaijan and situational awareness of Russia’s actions in the region.

Veterans Day Courage: ‘Rain of Steel’

Review by Bill Doughty––

The courage it takes: fighting on the other side of an ocean, often at night, relying on relatively primitive radar and spotty information, facing death-cult suicidal attacks from a fierce enemy unwilling to accept the reality of defeat.

Such was the fate of Sailors and Marines at the end of World War II, fighting in the Battle of Okinawa. Stephen L. Moore describes the warfare in “Rain of Steel: Mitscher’s Task Force 58, Ugaki’s Thunder Gods, and the Kamikaze War off Okinawa” (Naval Institute Press, 2020).

In many ways, his narrative is a tribute to courage, which makes this a great read for Veterans Day. This is also a fitting tribute to a titan of U.S. Naval aviation, Vice Adm. Marc Andrew Mitscher.

“The wrinkles in his pug face, chiseled from years of wind exposure and chain-smoking, creased as the short, frail-looking man tugged hard on another cigarette. A sly smile nipped at the corners of his mouth as the morning breeze rushed across the open air wing outside Flag Plot, his tactical control center high atop his flagship aircraft carrier. Sporting a signature duckbilled hat to protect his hairless scalp and shade his eyes from the sun, he was a staple figure, frequently sitting on a stool on the elevated island structure of his ship to watch the takeoffs and landings of the naval aviators he commanded.”

Adm. Marc Mitscher

"Rain of Steel" presents a narrative of Naval Academy bad boy Mitscher (reminiscent of John S. McCains, especially McCain III) taking on the stoic samurai and follower of a suicidal pact, Matome Ugaki, leader of kamikaze pilots. We see the role of Senator McCain’s grandfather, Adm. “Slew” McCain, Adm. Raymond A. Spruance, Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, and other brown shoe and black shoe leaders in the Pacific War.

But, Moore also gives us the heroic narratives of American veterans –– patriots like Dean Caswell, Gene Valencia, Clinton Lamar “Smitty” Smith, Archie Glenn Donahue, James Joseph “Jocko” Clark, Harris “Mitch” Mitchell, Frank Sistrunk, Dean Caswell, Tilman “Tilly” Pool, Charles Edward “Billy” Watts, and Marshall Ulrich Beebe. In fact, the book’s prologue opens with Beebe being awakened at 0400 for his Composite Squadron 39 (VC-39) call of duty.

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) burning after being hit by a Kamikaze, off Okinawa, 11 May 1945. Photographed from USS Bataan (CVL-29), NHHC.

The danger to the warfighters is palpable and their courage and commitment is inspiring.

“Berube’s F6F was smoking badly, its engine was sputtering, his canopy was so badly shattered that the hatch was jammed closed and unable to be jettisoned, and the rest of the plane was riddled with holes. The ensign announced to Clark that he would crash-land on Okinawa. Before friendly territory could be reached, however, his engine died, and Berube was forced to ditch. The impact must have torn off his copy, for in about twenty seconds he emerged from the cockpit with his Mae West inflated.

Clark circled Berube and broadcast his position over the radio to a lifeguard submarine until an acknowledgment was received. Despite his Hellcat being badly damaged as well, Clark selflessly dropped his own life raft. His heart sank as he saw the deflated raft sink before Berube could reach it. Clark remained in radio contact with the lifeguard sub, finally dropping his dye markers as he headed home due to low fuel, going up with another Essex pilot en route … A PBY rescue plane scoured the seas at the last-reported position of the downed VF-84 pilot, but Ensign Berube was never seen again.”

Marines on Okinawa, 1945.

Moore tells the story of the last great battle of the War in the Pacific with masterful grace. His detailed narrative is factual and specific, and includes dozens of Marine Corps and Navy squadrons, U.S. air groups, task groups, and task forces.

He features the courage of Marines on the ground, often in hand-to-hand combat, as well as Sailors aboard, among others, USS Essex (CV 9), USS Hancock (CV 19), USS Hornet (CV 12), USS Bennington (CV 20), USS San Jacinto (CVL 30), USS Yorktown (CV 10), USS Lexington (CV2/CV16), USS Enterprise (CV 6), and USS Belleau Wood (CVL 24).

Fortunately, we get both the U.S. an IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) perspectives, as Mitscher and Ugaki face off even as “Japan’s once mighty carrier fleet was a ghost of its former self.”

Ugaki Matome

With hardened resolve despite their obvious defeat, the IJN aviators –– believing they were fighting with God’s providence as a “divine wind” –– crashed their planes into Allied targets, aiming especially to disable American aircraft carriers. Courage on both sides is obvious and profound.

Moore’s work is clearly a labor of love, describing a one-of-a-kind, now-unimaginable warfare coordinated by a peerless leader in Adm. Mitscher. This book is packed with extensive notes, references, photos, glossary, and information from both historical records and witness interviews. Moore provides context and nuance in an objective and steady style that is a pleasure to read, especially on this Veterans Day 2020.

A little more than two months after the thunderous Battle of Okinawa, but not until more lives were lost on both sides, Japan accepted defeat. That acceptance of defeat led to the end of revanchist colonialism, military controlled government, and divine leader worship –– replaced by constitutional democratic rule of law in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Commodore Arleigh Burke, Mitscher's chief of staff and future Chief of Naval Operations, would help Japan develop its own naval service, modeled after the United States Navy: the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

Commodore Arleigh Burke and Adm. Marc Mitscher

Waking up to ‘The Fate of the Earth’

Review by Bill Doughty––

“The Fate of the Earth” by Jonathan Schell (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982) is landmark book calling for nuclear weapons control. It was written 38 years ago –– and nearly 38 years after nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (pictured above) in order to end the war with Japan in WWII.

Schell asks Americans to open their eyes to a continuing danger of Mutually Assured Destruction that would be brought about by nuclear war, even if the war is started by accident.

“A society that systemically shuts its eyes to an urgent peril to its physical survival and fails to take any steps to save itself cannot be called psychologically well,” Schell asserts. Looking at the problem of mass extinction by nuclear weapons makes us sick, he says, but the true sickness is in not confronting what is real.

Schell contends there’s a new reality: nuclear weapons have made war obsolete. “By effectively removing the limits on human access to the forces of nature, the invention of nuclear weapons ruined war, which depended for its results, and therefore for its usefulness, on the exhaustion of the forces of one of the adversaries.”

Rickover

An icon of the nuclear Navy saw the new reality even during the Cold War.

“On the occasion of his retirement, Admiral Hyman Rickover, who devoted a good part of his life to overseeing the development and construction of nuclear-powered, nuclear-missile-bearing submarines for the United States Navy, told a congressional committee that in his belief mankind was going to destroy itself with nuclear arms. He also said of his part in the nuclear buildup that he was ‘not proud’ of it, and added that he would like to ‘sink’ the ships that he had poured so much of his life into. And, indeed, what everyone is now called on to do is to sink all the ships, and also ground all the planes, and fill in all the missile silos, and dismantle all warheads.”

This book is rich with history, context, and philosophy and includes numerous references to early thinkers (Socrates, Lucretius, Plutarch, and Pericles); historians and philosophers (Arendt, Burke, Camus, de Tocqueville, Bertrand Russell, Einstein, and Clausewitz); and the Bible (Genesis, Ten Commandments, Armageddon, and Jesus Christ –– “prince of peace” and “a servant to all”).

An early image of Jesus Christ: "not to judge the world but to save it."

In a presentation reminiscent of John Hersey’s spellbinding “Hiroshima,” Schell makes a disturbing analysis of the various ways humans would die during and especially after an all-out nuclear conflagration: radiation, fires, starvation, exposure, long-term illnesses, and short-term diseases –– all leading to possible extinction of our species.

“The weight of extinction, like the weight of mortality, bears down on life through the mind and spirit but otherwise, until the event occurs, leaves us physically undisturbed,” Schell writes.

“At present, most of us do nothing. We look away. We remain calm. We are silent. We take refuge in the hope that the holocaust won’t happen, and turn back to our individual concerns. We deny the truth that is all around us. Indifferent to the future of our kind we grow indifferent to one another. We drift apart. We grow cold. We browse our way toward the end of the world. But if once we shook off our lethargy and fatigue and began to act, the climate would change. Just as inertia produces despair –– a despair often so deep that it does not even know itself as despair –– arousal and action would give us access to hope, and life would start to mend: not just life in its entirety but daily life, every individual life. At that point, we would begin to withdraw from our role as both the victims and the perpetrators of mass murder. We would no longer be the destroyers of mankind but, rather, the gateway through which the future generations would enter the world. Then the passion and will that we need to save ourselves would flood into our lives. Then the walls of indifference, inertia, and coldness that now isolate each of us from others, and all of us from the past and future generations, would melt, like snow in the spring. E.M. Forster told us, ‘Only connect!’ Let us connect. Auden told us, ‘We must love one another or die.’ Let us love one another –– in the present and across the divides of death and birth. Christ say, ‘I come not to judge the world but to save the world.’ Let us, also, not judge the world but save the world. By restoring our severed links with life, we will restore our own lives.”

Schell presents a stark choice.

“Two paths lie before us. One leads to death, the other to life. If we choose the first path –– if we numbly refuse to acknowledge the nearness of extinction, all the while increasing our preparations to bring it about –– then we in effect become the allies of death, and in everything we do our attachment to life will weaken: our vision, blinded to the abyss that has opened at our fee, will dim and grow confused; our will, discouraged by the thought of trying to build on such a precarious foundation anything that is meant to last, will slacken; and we will sink into stupefaction, as though we were gradually weaning ourselves from life in preparation for the end. On the other hand, if we reject our doom, and bend our efforts toward survival –– if we arouse ourselves to the peril an act to forestall it, making ourselves the allies of life –– then the anesthetic fog will life; our vision, no longer straining not to see the obvious, will sharpen; our will, finding secure ground to build on, will be restored; and we will take full and clear possession of life again.”

He imagines mechanisms that would prevent the threat of nuclear war: destruction of weapons, destruction of the factories that manufacture them, and clear-eyed verification as part of international cooperation as we realize our ignorance in order to achieve greater reverence for the “swollen power” to destroy ourselves as a species. 

At first, Schell's thesis may come off as overly hopeful or even naive, but he realizes the importance of first strengthening international cooperation in order to achieve mutually assured survival. "The present-day United Nations," he says, "is the empty husk of those irresolute good intentions." 

As usual, education and critical thinking are key to understanding and wisdom.

“We are in deep ignorance. Our ignorance should dispose us to wonder, our wonder should make us humble, our humility should inspire us to reverence and caution, and our reverence and caution should lead us to act without delay to withdraw the threat we now pose to the earth and to ourselves.”

In his more recent “The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger” (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company; 2007), Schell ties the nuclear threat to another existential danger: climate change.

“The two perils have a great deal in common. Both are the fruit of swollen human power –– in the one case, the destructive power of war; in the other, the productive power of fossil-fuel energy. Both put stakes on the table of a magnitude never present before in human decision making. Both threaten life on a planetary scale. Both require a fully global response. Anyone concerned by the one should be concerned with the other. It would be a shame to save the earth from slowly warming only to burn it up in an instant in a nuclear war.”

Will 2020 be a turning point for world cooperation in starting to deal with global climate change, a worldwide pandemic, and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons?

Schell’s “Fate of the World” was written on the eve of President Reagan’s historic meeting with leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, so in “The Seventh Decade” he focuses on the potential as well as the missed opportunities during and after the Cold War.

Reagan and Gorbachev

Reagan and Gorbachev tried to have nuclear weapons “dispatched to history’s graveyard. Superior power was no longer the route to dominance. Certainly, global empire was out of the question,” just as all-out war itself had been made obsolete.

The Republican Party of 2020 has no platform, stating, “Resolved, That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention,” and “the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.” Despite no mention in a formal platform, President Trump has boasted about upgrading and building more nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, the Democratic Party’s extensive platform says, in part, “Democrats believe the United States has a moral responsibility and national security imperative to prevent the spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and eventually secure their elimination.”

President-elect Biden's platform also resolves:

“Democrats believe that the sole purpose of our nuclear arsenal should be to deter—and, if necessary, retaliate against—a nuclear attack, and we will work to put that belief into practice, in consultation with our allies and military. We will work to maintain a strong, credible deterrent while reducing our overreliance and excessive expenditure on nuclear weapons. The Trump Administration’s proposal to build new nuclear weapons is unnecessary, wasteful, and indefensible.”

Notably, the platform echoes President Reagan’s commitment to reducing nuclear dangers by returning to talks and treaties. 

“Democrats commit to strengthening the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, maintaining the moratorium on explosive nuclear weapons testing, pushing for the ratification of the UN Arms Trade Treaty and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and extending New START. Just as was the case during the height of the Cold War, it’s in our interest to work with Russia to verifiably limit and reduce our nuclear stockpiles. We will build on this foundation to negotiate arms control agreements that reflect the emergence of new players like China, capture new technologies, and move the world back from the nuclear precipice.”

The position to eventually eliminate nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons comes in a section of the platform called “Renewing American Leadership,” which says, "We can only be strong in the world when we are strong and united at home. We believe that a healthy democracy, just society, and inclusive economy are essential prerequisites for effective American leadership abroad. And we believe that the ultimate measure —and purpose—of our foreign policy is whether it protects and advances America’s security, prosperity and values—and delivers results for all Americans.”

Schell demands an eyes-wide-open examination of the global threats we face. He challenges us to think differently about the future in order to preserve the future –– and our species.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden meets a Sailor aboard Nimitz-Class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76). Biden and Dr. Jill Biden visited San Diego in 2009.