“I am the first one
that would like to see ... nobody have nukes, but we’re never going to fall
behind any country even if it’s a friendly country, we’re never going to fall
behind on nuclear power. It would be wonderful, a dream would be that no
country would have nukes, but if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going
to be at the top of the pack” ~
Donald Trump, February 24th, 2017.
Trump’s recent comment about nuclear weapons wasn’t his
only foray into that topic.
There was the December 2015 interview with
Hugh Hewitt in which Trump was asked about the nuclear triad. Trump’s answer was sheer gobbledygook because
he had no idea what the triad is and so he sounded like the high school kid who
is called on to describe the previous night’s homework assignment when he
didn’t even crack the book. (For the
sake of clarification, the triad includes ground based ICBMs, submarine
launched ICBMs and strategic bombers).
There was the suggestion, made
several times by Trump that he wants to be “unpredictable” as regards a first
strike.
In March of 2016 he suggested
that he wouldn’t rule out the use of nukes against ISIS.
Two months later Trump declared
that he would see no problem with a nuclear arms race in Asia.
Trump has made other statements about nuclear weapons and
suffice to say that they all fluctuated between nonsense and terrifying.
Trump’s proclamation may have been lost on many
Americans. After all every day presents
a new chore of sorting through another one of Trump’s toxic spills. It’s easy
to lose track of one of Trump’s turds floating by when you have to deal with his
daily massive release of crap.
It didn’t get by me though. You see I lived through much of the Cold War.
Many, many Americans either have forgotten about or never experienced those
years when the world was on a razor’s edge of destruction. I lived through that period in history of
brinkmanship; of nations (particularly The United States and The Soviet Union)
contending for the biggest arsenal with the most potent yields.
