Nuclear Weapons 217 - Donald Trump Is Not Competent To Control U.S. Nuclear Weapons - Part 1 of 2 Parts.
Part One of Two Parts:
As Donald Trump says increasingly provocative and bizarre things about international affairs, more and more of his critics question his qualifications for being the President of the United States. One of the most important international issues under discussion has to do with the possible uses of nuclear weapons against future enemies.
When told by an interviewer that he should not be talking about the use of nuclear weapons, Trump responded with "Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?" The reason huge nuclear arsenals were developed during the Cold War was to deter enemies from thinking that they could launch a nuclear attack and escape unscathed. We made the nuclear weapons specifically to prevent nuclear attacks.
When asked by an interviewer if he would ever consider using nuclear weapons in Europe, Trump said that he would be the last to do so but that he would not take that negotiating "card" off the table. Any use of nuclear weapons in Europe would be devastating to the civilian population regardless of who started it.
Trump said during an interview that using nuclear weapons was a last resort but that we needed to be "unpredictable" about the possibility. The problem with that attitude is that such unpredictability increases the likelihood that in an escalating international conflict, one side or the other would be more likely to use nuclear weapons first if the other side was "unpredictable."
When talking about the possible use of nuclear weapons against ISIS in the Middle East in an inteview, Trump brought up the idea of unpredictability again. ISIS makes a practice of hiding within cities full of civilians. Use of nuclear weapons against such an enemy would result in a terrible loss of innocent civilian lives. And, if your enemy is suicidal, they may not be concerned about the possible use of nuclear weapons against them.
During an interview, Trump answered a question about a possible arms race on the Korean peninsula between North and South Korea by saying that the world is changing and, with respect to nuclear weapons, he said "It's not like, gee whiz, nobody has them." That may be true but the detonation of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula would have devastating effect on both North and South Korea regardless of where the nukes were dropped. Millions of civilians would die. No one would "win" such a war.
The nuclear triad of the U.S. consists of nuclear armed missiles, nuclear bombs and nuclear bombers, and submarines with nuclear tipped missiles. When questioned in depth about which of the three legs of the nuclear triad he would prioritize for modernization, his answer suggested that he had no idea what the nuclear triad even was.
An interviewer asked Trump about foreign aid to Pakistan and the fact that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Pakistan has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and has developed nuclear weapons because India, historically an enemy of Pakistan, has nuclear weapons. The interviewer was interested in getting Trump's thoughts on the use of the substantial foreign aid being supplied to Pakistan by the U.S. for leverage in getting them to reduce their nuclear arsenal. Trump's response suggested that he really had not thought about it and had no opinion on the subject.
Please read Part 2
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