It just never stops. Every day, he comes up with some nonsense to spout off about. Every day, he manages to yap about something that the United States needs to do, whether it’s actually possible or it’s hot air. And we have a rebuttal within 24 hours to say “no, that can’t be done” most of the time. Today, it’s about our nuclear program, and we had so many responses to smack that one down. From AlterNet:
A wide array of national security and intelligence community experts is strongly criticizing President Donald Trump’s new nuclear policy, announced on his social media website, which effectively orders the U.S. Department of Defense to halt a 33-year-old ban on nuclear weapons testing and begin the process again. “The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country,” Trump declared — wrongly, according to experts. “This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice!”
“Nuclear testing isn’t something you greenlight in a post,” they wrote, “but turning national security into a fear show is how authoritarians rule.”
Holy cow. Trump thinks he has come up in the world to restart something else that isn’t possible, not in his time frame. He wants to do all these things “immediately,” yet doesn’t think them through. His dementia-addled brain is clueless. People rebutted his “request” left, right, up, down, and sideways, just for that added flair. Truth comes through. Yes, it does.
Tom Nichols, professor emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught for 25 years, is an expert on international security, nuclear weapons, and Russia. At The Atlantic, Nichols wrote that Trump’s “reasoning is a bit confused: In the space of one short announcement, he managed to get a lot wrong, which is worrisome, because he’s the only person in America who has the authority to order the use of nuclear arms.” He wrote that Russia, not the U.S., has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. And while China is third, Nichols appeared skeptical that they could reach parity with the U.S. in five years. Doing so would require 1,000 new nuclear warheads a year, when they have only constructed 100 in the past two years, he wrote.
Yikes! That’s eye-opening! Russia has more. China really can’t catch up in that amount of time. Yet Trump thinks he’s all badass with this. We can be sure Russian intel is laughing at us. This is not going to throw off Putin, far from it. It’s just going to give him more ammunition to keep Trump under his thumb. It’s not going to deter them. It just … isn’t. To close:
The Washington Post’s lead global security analyst Josh Rogin, speaking on CNN overnight, said: “Trump’s brain probably thinks he’s acting tough, and then, by testing nuclear weapons, he’s showing American strength.” He also noted that “the U.S. did sign a treaty to promise not to test nuclear weapons, and this would violate that, or at least abrogate that.” Rogin added that “testing nuclear weapons has its own risks. Once we start testing, a lot of other people are gonna start testing.”
WHAM. This is going to do exactly the opposite of what Trump thinks it will. One example we can think of immediately is North Korea. They’re doing a little bit of that now. And with this? They’ll start doing more. That’s just one example. There are many more. Deterrence is a pipe dream. What will we do then?
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
His ‘Fission Mission’ is miss’n sound logic, safety and riddled with dangerous repercussions. The only fission is the pathological slow-burn of his cerebral structures and thought processes. The pathology from burger and coke fed glycation is realized as in the harmful and spontaneous, uncontrolled and pathological, self-obsessed and delusional, grandiose and horse-hole megaphoned megalomania. He’s gotta be imploding in more ways than one, surely. Careful what you wish for, Donald.
Given what we know about the corruption in Russia, and the incentives to sign all the paperwork saying that their weapons are still OK and operational, while pocketing the money for it, instead of doing the actual testing and maintenance, It’s probably more accurate to say Russia doesn’t have as many nuclear weapons as China.
Atomic weapons require a lot of maintenance and replacement of degrading materials, it’s much easier to say you’ve done the maintenance than do it and divert the money to pay for nice houses and a better lifestyle for the people in charge.