Donald Trump's nuclear nihilism

[Cyborg Girl]

I'm posting this separately from the other Trump corruption stuff, because people need to pay attention to it:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... inevitable

Wondering about the Fermi Paradox? IMO there's your answer.

[geonuc]

There's no doubt that Trump doesn't know jack about military matters and his views on the use of nuclear weapons are amateur at best. But the Mother Jones article isn't real persuasive. For example, someone's views on the inevitability of nuclear war in 1990, when the Soviet Union had not quite yet disintegrated, are not translatable to today's world. Hell, I believed in the 1980's that my death would most likely be caused by nuclear war. Things change. His later pronouncements are still naive, however. It would be better to just stick with what Trump has said lately and ignore his stupid(er) statements made when he was younger.

The other thing I object to is the notion that the US president has this unlimited authority to launch nuclear weapons on a whim. That's just not the case.

[Cyborg Girl]

Yeah, other friends of mine have raised the 1990s vs. now thing. I think that's a good argument for almost anyone else, but not sure it applies to Trump; the main difference between 1990s Trump and 2010s Trump seems to be that 90s Trump produced longer and more coherent sentences.

Re launching nuclear weapons at whim. I thought that was very much the case, as described by VP Cheney under Bush Jr.? In practice of course you need people to actually follow through with the order; but I had been informed that the order was given by the President and only confirmed by the SecDef, and that refusing such an order was illegal (like, on the level of treason).

[geonuc]

Consider Percent Trump wakes up one day and sees that the president of the Philippines has called him an ignorant coward (if you know the Philippine president, this isn't entirely unlikely). Trump gets pissed, calls his SecDef and tells him to drop a nuke on Manila. Does it happen?

No, it does not. Even if the SecDef went along with it, there's no way the US military carries out a nuclear strike on a nation that we are not currently engaged in hostilities with. There's no way the general in charge of the US strategic command issues that order. I believe that. I believe if it came down to it, the US military would depose Trump before they dropped a nuke on a non-belligerent country.

Of course, a much more credible situation can arise if Trump decides to build a case for how the Philippines is plotting with North Korea/Pakistan/Whomever, has obtained a nuclear weapon and is planning to blow up a US city. In other words, what Bush/Cheney did to get the Iraq war authorized.

[SciFiFisher]

Part of the problem with all of this is that Trump appears to be unpredictable, petty, and capricious. This is a bad combination to have in the leader of the what is probably the most powerful and influential country in the world. He tweeted about the Union President at Carrier being a liar because the man had the unmitigated gall to tell the truth. Within hours of his tweet the union official was getting death threats. He calls the president of Taiwan and sends a message to mainland China that 40 plus years of the status quo has just been called into question.

Unpredictability makes for very uneasy world leaders. I don't believe that Trump can unilaterally order a nuke dropped on someone. But, I can see him escalating world tensions to the point where someone is going to start war gaming first strike scenarios. No one wanted WWI, WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam, The First Gulf War, or the GWOT. But, what we wanted and what we got dealt are two different things. What happens if we get credible intelligence that someone, North Korea for example, has a nuclear device and is planning to use it? A sane and rational president would consider the nuclear option in that situation. The problem is that a sane and rationale president would also be competent enough to decide if the credible intelligence was truly something he or she should act on or if it was really credible. I do not trust that Donald Trump has that level of competence.

[vendic]

Is this what we've come to?

When Obama was elected we had all sorts of crazy talk about what he was going to do.
Anyone remember the death camps?

Is this what's in store for the USA? Where regardless of who gets in, FUD follows?

I'm thinking yes. Welcome to the new age.
Spread the FUD because people swallow that stuff day in day out regardless of political views.

[Cyborg Girl]

@vendic

Obama said nothing indicative at all of death camps. Trump wants to deport over a million people per year, including sending refugees back to Syria (where they'll probably be killed).

[vendic]

Trump has said nothing about wanting to destroy the world with nuclear weapons either.

Hence the comparison.

On another note, please don't make me defend Trump again. It makes me ill.

[Cyborg Girl]

@vendic

What Trump has demonstrated is an apparent willingness to use nuclear weapons in first strikes, plus a shocking ignorance of how the US nuclear arsenal and MAD actually work. Destroying the world is not his intent, but it could definitely be a side effect.

[SciFiFisher]

Trump has said nothing about wanting to destroy the world with nuclear weapons either.

Hence the comparison.

On another note, please don't make me defend Trump again. It makes me ill.

You present me with a very interesting dilemma. Bwahahahahahahaha!

[vendic]

@vendic

What Trump has demonstrated is an apparent willingness to use nuclear weapons in first strikes, plus a shocking ignorance of how the US nuclear arsenal and MAD actually work. Destroying the world is not his intent, but it could definitely be a side effect.

Sounds like most Presidents to me.

Personally I wouldn't want a President who admits to the enemy that they will not consider a first strike option. I can feel JFK turning in his grave.

[vendic]

Trump has said nothing about wanting to destroy the world with nuclear weapons either.

Hence the comparison.

On another note, please don't make me defend Trump again. It makes me ill.

You present me with a very interesting dilemma. Bwahahahahahahaha!

lol

[SciFiFisher]

@vendic

What Trump has demonstrated is an apparent willingness to use nuclear weapons in first strikes, plus a shocking ignorance of how the US nuclear arsenal and MAD actually work. Destroying the world is not his intent, but it could definitely be a side effect.

Sounds like most Presidents to me.

Personally I wouldn't want a President who admits to the enemy that they will not consider a first strike option. I can feel JFK turning in his grave.

Frankly, I am not concerned about any president or presidential nominee stating that they would not take a first strike option off the table. My concern with Trump is that he is petty, venal, vengeful, and unpredictable. He has shown a marked tendency to seek revenge against people who oppose him. I have no reason to believe that he will treat other nations with anything less than the same callous contempt that he shows to anyone he feels he is competing against.

He has already started taking a very hard line towards China. In some respects I might even agree that we need a harder line against China and other countries of their ilk. He has shown that he can be duplicitous. He has formed a very interesting relationship with Russia. One might even argue a treasonous relationship.

The fact that he is so duplicitous and unpredictable means that other world leaders will be less likely to trust him. If they don’t know what he is likely to do and they don’t trust him that makes the world a less safe place. If tensions start escalating it doesn’t long before shooting starts happening. Shooting leads to more shooting. And we have way too many players in the world who have the capability to produce a dirty bomb when it come to nukes. Not to mention the ones who have nukes outright such as China, Russia, Pakistan, and North Korea.

IMHO Donald Fucking Trump as president of the U.S. makes it more likely that someone will use those nukes or a dirty bomb.

[geonuc]

It's probably important to realize that during the Cold War the term 'first strike' generally was taken to mean a massive nuclear attack designed to eliminate or substantially reduce an opponent's ability to retaliate. It was not generally taken to mean the first use of a nuclear weapon. So, presidents who stated that they would not launch a first strike meant that they wouldn't attempt to obliterate the Soviet Union's nuclear capability without warning. It was always part of NATO war planning to keep the option of battlefield first-use nuclear response open, especially given the Warsaw Pact's conventional weapon superiority in Europe.

So, use care when comparing the nuclear weapon policies of Cold War administrations with the present day.