OK, so maybe this is another thing we should ignore, but Trump coming out with his call for the US to increase its stockpile of nuclear weapons, as well as upgrading them, is seriously off the wall. One reason I had no doubt about voting for Clinton, despite disliking both aspects of her positions and her personality, was his occasional wild remarks about nuclear weapons (e.g. "Why can't we just use them when we feel like it?" or something like that). One would have hoped he would get past that after getting elected, but I see nothing good coming out of this at all, with not a nation on the planet supporting this, not even UK or Israel, and plenty disliking it and quite possibly setting off a new nuclear arms race, just what many past presidents have been carefully trying to undo.
Of course the Chinese will hate this, but an irony is that this might upend one of the few possible bright spots in foreign policy Trump has offered. I have not been a fan of his ass kissing of Putin, but in fact I had begun to hope that maybe Putin might just behave better in some parts of the world, Baltics and Ukraine in particular, to please his new pet president. But I seriously doubt that Vladdie is going to like this at all. This particular honeymoon may be over before it even begins. Time to bottle back up all that now drunk champagne in Moscow.
The only real question is if this is just Trump himself shooting off his mouth thoughtlessly yet again or whether this reflects advice from any of his new national security team. Some of these people seem not entirely unreasonable, including the wildly named "Mad Dog" Mattis, incoming SecDef. If indeed this is being pushed by an adviser, I suspect the conspiracy-minded NSC guy, Flynn. If it is just Trump, however, maybe they can walk him back off this.
As it is, it may be just as well that the late Tom Schelling did not liive to see this awfulness.
Addendum at 11:10 PM: I have now learned that Putin put out an unpleasantly aggressive statement about enhancing the Russian nuclear weapons stockpile so that it can penetrate various defenses in Europe shortly before Trump issued his tweet. I am not sure if Trump's tweet was specifically a reply to that or not, but this does put a different spin on this, with it looking like the honeymoon was ended by Putin rather than Trump before Trump could even get in office. Wow, what a sucker Trump was with all that falling all over Putin, not to mention the reportedly 37% of Republicans who supposedly now think that Putin is just great since Trump has been saying so many nice things about him. Just gag all the way around.
Barkley Rosser
16 comments:
But Obama already betrayed his own promises and went along with the military's plan for a $ trillion upgrade of the U.S. nuke arsenal.
Upgrade, not expansion. Big difference.
Umm... no, insofar as "upgrade" means enhancing the power of warheads or increasing the accuracy of delivery vehicles, that amounts to "expansion", a distinction without a difference. Mind it was the U.S. that abrogated the the anti-ballistic missile treaty, while pursuing the pipe-dream of anti-missile defense under Dubbya, which project continues to this day, so the Russkies have every reason to be worried, (as it threatens, as per Reagan 1, a first strike "strategy" which the U.S. has never exactly renounced.)
You're responding to a Trump tweet which says: " “the United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” That just endorses the current U.S. posture under Obama et alia, while over-egging it a bit. But Trump says/tweets such contradictory flapdoodle, that it's hard to tell just where he stands or what he might intend
the honeymoon was ended by Putin rather than Trump before Trump could even get in office.
Or maybe the honeymoon between Putin and Trump never existed and it just was a fake news promoted by the Clinton left. You know, the good kind of fake news.
John,
Your point about Reagan is valid, and it was under W. Bush that the ABM was abrogated, that being the top priority of his admin when he took office, dismissing warnings from the outgoing Clinton people that dealing with al Qaeda was much more important. That said, the upgrade program is not obviously an expansion given that weapons degrade over time.
Of course, it is true that it is very unclear what Trump meant, and the followup by his people has been all about stopping proliferation, which has not clarified anything at all. That said, I see no reason at this time for Putin to be suddenly making an aggressive speech about this, even if ultimately he is justified in having his own upgrade program. Here he is supposedly all buddy buddy with Trump, and he is coming on like Khrushchev banging his shoe on a podium at the UN or something. Yikes!
Um, Anonymous, if you want to believe that this is some product of the "Clinton Left," then you are just hopelessly out of your mind, or have been paying zero attention over the last year and a half, which has been marked by unrelenting praise by Trump for Putin, which Putin has partially responded to in kind, if not as loquaciously or repeatedly. But they were literally breaking out the champagne and openly cheering in Moscow after the election, with the day after the Deputy Foreign Minister bragging about all the times he met with Trump campaign people to coordinate action.
This has been a full blown bromance, especially coming from Trump. So now Trump is going to have face the hard fact that he has been made a sucker. Frankly, I am mystified why Putin would do this to him at this time. It could prove very dangerous to Putin, and in fact, for some time my biggest worry about Trump has been exactly about this, that Putin would cross him and he would fly off the handle in thin-skinned anger and do something really reckless. But then maybe that is it: Putin is showing him the hard reality before he gets in office and can do anything serious about it. Ha ha ha, sucker Trump!
Trump wants us to make nice to Putin and he also wants to have a new nuclear arm's race. This is beyond inconsistent. It seems Trump has surrounded himself with all the worst elements of the Republican Party who are giving him inconsistent advice. That is how Reagan treated his economic team in 1981 - putting together a toxic mix of inconsistent insanity. But that's only the economy. Doing this with foreign policy is a recipe for World War III.
TalkingPointsMemo watches Morning Joe so we don’t have to:
In a conversation with NBC’s Mika Brzezinski, Trump reportedly said: “Let it be an arms race.” Brzezinski shared Trump's off-the-air remarks with viewers on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Friday after she said she spoke with Trump and asked him to clarify his tweet. “Let it be an arms race,” Brzezinski said Trump had told her. ”We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”
Is it too late to keep this clown out of the White House?
"You're responding to a Trump tweet which says..." - John Halasz - where you watching Morning Joe? This was a lot more than a tweet. It is a dangerous call for World War III.
Barkley - just saw your update. This story has the background:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/22/donald-trump-tweets-expand-nuclear-weapons
Putin is already testing Trump. Something tells me he would think twice had Clinton won.
pgl,
Oh, I have no doubt Putin would not be pulling this if Hillary had won. What is worrying is that Putin is so blatantly taking advantage of Trump's sycophancy so early on, which may seriously back fire.
A cynical view of this, probably not the driving force, but maybe there as a factor, is that Trump may not see it as a bad thing to give more business to the nuclear weapons part of our military-industrial complex, which he has already signaled he is going to pump up like a good Republican president. These are well established interests, even if they really do not need any special pumping up, given as john c. halasz has accurately noted, they have already been given the bon bon of this long term upgrade program by Obama.
I'm listening to Senator Bob Casey saying we already spend $35 billion a year on the nuclear arms program. Casey does not want a larger military industrial complex.
Bill Moyers talked about this spending earlier this year:
http://billmoyers.com/story/the-trillion-dollar-question-the-media-have-neglected-to-ask-presidential-candidates/
Why was this not part of the Presidential debates? Oh yea - crowded out by Anthony Weiners lap top and those damn emails.
It's simple: Trump's negotiating.
Um, Professor, you wrote, and I quote
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH
Have you forgotten Iraq's WMD? Saddam's links to Al Qaeda?
Is there something alive inside that old decrepit skull?
I love it. When trolls post really stupid stuff they do so anonymously. Well, Merry Christmas, "Anonymous," and the rest of you as well that want to celebrate it.
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