{"id":135473,"date":"2018-03-08T14:37:51","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T14:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smg.go-vip.net\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/03\/08\/is-russia-influencing-americas-nuclear-debate-mac-thornberry-thinks-they-will\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:55:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:55:55","slug":"is-russia-influencing-americas-nuclear-debate-mac-thornberry-thinks-they-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2018\/03\/08\/is-russia-influencing-americas-nuclear-debate-mac-thornberry-thinks-they-will\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Russia influencing America\u2019s nuclear debate? Mac Thornberry thinks they will."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2014 As America enters into its most public debate about nuclear weapons and missile defense <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/smr\/nuclear-triad\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">in decades<\/a>, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is warning that Russia will likely try to influence the debate about the Pentagon\u2019s modernization plans \u2014 potentially including attempts to co-opt the nonproliferation community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/opinion\/commentary\/2018\/02\/05\/nuclear-posture-review-recognizing-the-return-to-great-power-competition\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Rep. Mac Thornberry<\/a>, R-Texas, spoke March 1 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he mentioned several times the idea that Russia is preparing to gin up opposition to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/space\/2018\/02\/02\/nuclear-posture-review-puts-russia-firmly-in-crosshairs\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">nuclear modernization plans<\/a> through social media and other means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere are well-meaning, very sincere opponents to all of the things we talked about today,\u201d Thornberry said. \u201cBut after what we\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/opinion\/2018\/03\/05\/deterring-russia-on-the-cyber-battlefield\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">seen the past year or two<\/a>, we better look under the hood and make sure that the Russians are not fueling our controversies in the way that we have seen them do in recent months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI suspect we\u2019re going to see much more sophisticated methods coming from Russia to try and influence the decisions that are required to implement this Nuclear Posture Review,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Asked by Defense News after his speech if the government has recently seen signs that Russia is funding nonproliferation groups, Thornberry was evasive, noting that the topic was more in the lane of the intelligence community but offering: \u201cI think we need to be much more alert than we have been on how they are trying to influence our defense decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The chairman coached his comments in historical context, citing declassified CIA files that show Russia funded and provide indirect aid to the movements against nuclear weapons in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhat they did in the \u201980s was they provided propaganda themes, they provided organizational support, they forged U.S. military documents, they gave them money,\u201d Thornberry said. \u201cAdd social media and all the new tools that are available that we saw them just use in the last election \u2014 I think we need to be much more alert than we have been on how they are trying to influence our defense decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unsurprisingly, Thornberry\u2019s comments drew strong condemnation from the nonproliferation community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, hit back at Thornberry as \u201ca politician who is doing nothing to stop the actual Russian attack on our democratic institutions but spins conspiracy theories about how the Russians manufactured an entire antinuclear movement in the 1980s and are doing it again now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAmericans\u2019 fears of nuclear wars don\u2019t have to be fanned by the Russians. [U.S. President Donald] Trump and Thornberry are doing a fine job all by themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said it was \u201cconcerning to hear an elected official resort to what almost resembles nuclear McCarthyism by hinting that defense critics might be pawns of the Kremlin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI hope he has something specific to refer to and not just be drawing broad parallels with the Cold War to create unsubstantiated suspicion about the patriotism of defense critics,\u201d Kristensen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Both men willingly acknowledged Russian efforts to co-opt the antinuclear movement of the 1970s and 1980s, but downplayed the effect that had on what Cirincione called a movement grounded in a \u201cmassive, genuine and rooted &#8230; deep fear that the two superpowers would fight a nuclear war on their continent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Added Kristensen: \u201cThe opposition to the missiles in Europe was motivated by the madness of the nuclear arms race on both sides of the Iron Curtain, not whose side you were on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The recently released Nuclear Posture Review called for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/space\/2018\/02\/02\/nuclear-posture-review-puts-russia-firmly-in-crosshairs\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">two new ship-based nuclear capabilities<\/a>, while the upcoming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/pentagon\/2017\/12\/21\/pentagon-official-promises-impactful-nuclear-missile-defense-strategies\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Missile Defense Review<\/a> is expected to call for a dramatic increase in America\u2019s defensive posture \u2015 requirements that will require increased spending from taxpayers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia may already be influencing the debate about nuclear weapons, warns Rep. Mac Thornberry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":72690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":86,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,86],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3302],"class_list":["post-135473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"3GT3LR3GENEV3CJIJPUL5CSXNA","arc_canonical_url":"\/smr\/nuclear-triad\/2018\/03\/08\/is-russia-influencing-americas-nuclear-debate-mac-thornberry-thinks-they-will\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is Russia influencing America\u2019s nuclear debate? Mac Thornberry thinks they will. - Military Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Russia may already be influencing the debate about nuclear weapons, warns Rep. Mac Thornberry.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smg.go-vip.net\/defensenews\/smr\/nuclear-triad\/2018\/03\/08\/is-russia-influencing-americas-nuclear-debate-mac-thornberry-thinks-they-will\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Russia influencing America\u2019s nuclear debate? Mac Thornberry thinks they will.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Russia may already be influencing the debate about nuclear weapons, warns Rep. 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