This N.Y. Times article just breaking, Trump Forges Ahead on Costly Nuclear Overhaul, Sweeping Aside Doubts , certainly is more comprehensive than mine — but five day’s later. Trump’s words grabbed my attention, (not reported elsewhere) which is why I wanted to write about it here. The Times article provides details to what I could only allude to, but with the same outrage at this man, mindlessly as usual, reversing decades of decreasing the chance of nuclear catastrophe.
Trump Boasts in Speech: -- Under My Administration Vast Amounts More Spent on our Nuclear Arsenal (Posted 7/22/17 Reprinted below)
Under my administration, many billions of dollars more is being spent on our military, and this includes vast amounts being spent on our nuclear arsenal and missile defense. In every generation, we have faced down evil, and we have always prevailed. We prevailed because we know who we are and what we are fighting for
The cold war, the ideology of free enterprise against communism was spearheaded by two super-powers, the United States and the U.S.S.R, Russia being the largest country. If there were a metric that defined this geo-political—ideological conflict it was the development and production of weapons of mass destruction based on nuclear and then thermo-nuclear devices, ( both now included in the term “nuclear”) This included both offensive and defensive categories, with raw numbers of “nukes,” first a measure of each side’s power, and then the subject of treaties to reduce them, the understanding being that beyond a certain number, there was no increase of deterrence, but only the extent of catastrophic destruction of humanity were they to be released.
And so, even before the breakup of the U.S.S.R., the trend has be to reduce the numbers and lethality of these Weapons of Mass Destruction. However, in President Trump’s formal speech, not one off the cuff, but written and vetted by those who represent this administration, there is an atavistic boast of increasing, rather than reducing our nuclear arsenal. The United States is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Or Non Proliferation Treaty.
The NPT's preamble contains language affirming the desire of treaty signatories to ease international tension and strengthen international trust so as to create someday the conditions for a halt to the production of nuclear weapons, and treaty on general and complete disarmament that liquidates, in particular, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles from national arsenals.
President Trump’s pride in his increasing our nuclear arsenal is antithetical to the only international agreement that provided some justification for our invasion of Iraq, and further demands that North Korea does not proceed with their development of these weapons.
There is no rational reason for this country to increase its nuclear weapons, but it does fit the emotional needs of this most dangerous of human beings to possibly have the capacity to express his perverted need for power.
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Full video and transcript of speech