Letter: Marilyn Strickland Must Do More to Prevent Nuclear War

Submitted by Sean Arent.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have unveiled the 2025 Doomsday Clock at 89 Seconds to Midnight, the closest its ever been to the metaphorical end of civilization. Their reasoning? No serious efforts have been made to address climate change, and the United States is leading the way on a renewed nuclear arms race, investing billions to modernize the entire arsenal of over five thousand warheads. “Nuclear Modernization” is expected to cost US taxpayers between $1.7 and $2 trillion in the coming years, all for shinier versions of weapons that cannot be used without triggering a mass extinction event.

Here in the 10th Congressional District, there has long been homegrown efforts to oppose and call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Founded by the late Glen Anderson, the Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (OCANW) can be found bannering over I-5 in Olympia and Lacey on a weekly basis. This group rightly points out that a never-ending cycle of arms build-ups aren’t just unsustainable, they’re suicidal. These are points my organization, the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility share. Points we are struggling to make with Congresswoman Strickland.

Last year, I joined with OCANW members and members of the broader Washington Against Nuclear Weapons coalition to lobby Congresswoman Strickland’s office about taking action on nuclear weapons. I’m sad to report that like many of her colleagues, she has done very little. We presented a suite of bills that she could join- Ted Lieu’s bill to end the practice of presidential sole authority, requiring congressional approval to launch a nuclear first strike, the HALT Act, which would promote arms negotiations, and perhaps the crown jewel, H. Res 77, which promotes 5 sane policies to take us Back from the Brink of nuclear war. Our requests have yet to find purchase.

We were pleased to learn that Strickland lent her support to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a bill that would pay for some treatments for people exposed to radiation from the production and testing of nuclear weapons, but she has a long way to go before we can consider her a champion.

What’s needed now more than ever is members of Congress that are willing to oppose the funding of new nuclear weapons programs where they live, as the Pentagon and the war profiteers they work with are constantly moving to expand weapons programs. One entity alone, Northup Grumman spent nearly $7 million on lobbying in 2024 as they gained scrutiny for an 85% cost overrun on their Sentinel Nuclear Weapons program. The Sentinel missile, designed to replace the landlocked Minutemen II ICBMs is is currently expected to cost $265 billion. Land-based missile provide less than ten percent of the strategic deterrent in the Nuclear Triad of Land, Air, and Sea. Some members of Congress like Ranking Arms Service Committee member Adam Smith have argued that the land-based missiles should be eliminated completely. Smith writes:
“The common assumption is that nuclear deterrence, and particularly the land-leg of the triad, will only be used in a crisis, intentionally, and only after reasonable contemplation. Any student of history knows that in a crisis judgments are often rushed, clouded, and irrational—no matter who is in charge. Further, there is no other weapon in the U.S. arsenal that, if struck by an enemy, could result in the loss of up to 300 million innocent American lives, as a recent Princeton University Program on Science and Global Security (SGS) study concluded.”

If you’re concerned about the new, tri-lateral nuclear arms race between the US, Russia, and China, as well as proliferation in countries like India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel, now is the time to contact Marilyn Strickland and let her know to take bolder action to turn back the hand on the Doomsday Clock.