Trump Says U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Must Be Greatly Expanded
Source: Bloomberg
President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday the U.S. should enlarge its nuclear arsenal, an apparent reversal of a decades-long reduction of the nations atomic weaponry that came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin said his countrys arsenal should also be strengthened.
"The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to it senses regarding nukes," Trump said in a Twitter post.
Putin said in a speech earlier on Thursday that his country should also bolster its nuclear forces: "We need to enhance the combat capability of strategic nuclear forces, primarily by strengthening missile complexes that will be guaranteed to penetrate existing and future missile defense systems," he said.
...
President Barack Obama has both reduced the U.S. nuclear arsenal, in an agreement early in his presidency with Russia, and sought to modernize it to replace thousands of bombs and missiles. His modernization plan -- which the Arms Control Association said would cost as much as $1 trillion over 30 years -- has come under criticism from proponents of denuclearization, who warn it may prompt a new arms race with Russia and China.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-12-22/trump-says-u-s-nuclear-arsenal-must-be-greatly-expanded
So, lots more weapons, and profits for the Military-Industrial Complex (lots on that in the Bloomberg story), while the 2 countries with the huge arsenals decide to expand them even more - despite saying they trust each other and are BFFs.
What worries me is that "coming to its senses regarding nukes" for Trump could easily mean "starting to use them".
femmocrat
(28,394 posts)Now are you paying attention to us?
Wounded Bear
(58,773 posts)like us "coastal elite" liberals. They probably think they're safe from nukes.
Generator
(7,770 posts)I know that's disgusting. But this is where we are and he's not even in there yet. Talking about using nuclear power. The world has lost it's mind. AGAIN. HELP.
Wounded Bear
(58,773 posts)and I'm in the US major city closest to NKorea, Seattle. So when he develops his missiles, I'll be in range.
cstanleytech
(26,349 posts)lastlib
(23,366 posts)Missouri has a large number of ballistic-missile silos, as well as being home to the B-2 bombers and other strategic aircraft. Don't know much about the deep south, but a huge number of the deplorables between the Rockies and the Appalachians ARE going to be in the nuclear bullseye.
cstanleytech
(26,349 posts)phase atm and do pose as potential threats.
Thats simply reality, I wish it wasnt but it is.
canetoad
(17,214 posts)That DFT's jobs plan is to start a few wars and put all the coal miners to work in armaments plants. Make Halliburton great again.
tinrobot
(10,927 posts)What a stupid, stupid man.
This is scaring me.
Botany
(70,639 posts).... many times over. We don't need anymore.
Trump might very well get us all killed. He really is a mad man.
100 H bombs would all but end human life on earth. And not only would many living things be
killed by the blasts, radiation sicknesses, and the loss of most of all of the world's crops and livestock
but some of the radionuclides would reach the world's ocean and kill off the plankton that produces
about 1/2 of the world's oxygen.
cstanleytech
(26,349 posts)Botany
(70,639 posts)Although under Obama the # of nuclear weapons we have and the other nations have has
gone down a lot.
cstanleytech
(26,349 posts)though they do close to the other site that you mentioned.
Jacob Boehme
(789 posts)His quote: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to it senses regarding nukes..." is absurd beyond all comprehension because the old maxim from the 1960's is still true: Fighting for Peace Is Like Fucking for Chastity.
C_U_L8R
(45,035 posts)Please somebody, for the love of humanity,
disconnect that atomic 'football'.
lastlib
(23,366 posts)We have signed a few of them--even gotten the Senate to ratify a few. Is this human shitstain going to unilaterally abrogate those treaties? Does he have a f*gging CLUE what he is subjecting humanity to??!?
Wounded Bear
(58,773 posts)He doesn't honor business contracts. Why should he give a shit about treaties?
cstanleytech
(26,349 posts)Reason I asked is I checked but as far as I could tell there arent any Trump would be breaking if he actually goes through with updating the nuclear arsenal of the US unless of course he deploys them into orbit which is a no no and would violate a treaty.
lastlib
(23,366 posts)(a priori, albeit) that it would be a violation of SALT I and II (and maybe START as well). Can't cite specific provisions, and I don't know if his buddy Vlad would call him on it, but I sure as hell would!
cstanleytech
(26,349 posts)and 1 addressed other areas like any new missile couldnt exceed 5% of the performance of past missiles in the arsenal.
mopinko
(70,337 posts)the keys to the white house, you idiot. you dont get to come in and just rearrange the laws and treaties of this county to suit your idiot followers.
he's gonna be so upset when he finds out there is no magic wand included.
tclambert
(11,087 posts)He has done that with contracts many times, refusing to pay what he agreed to. And those are contracts he signed his own self. Surely, you don't expect him to honor a treaty signed by somebody else.
C_U_L8R
(45,035 posts)look who will be in charge of our nuclear arsenal...
Rick Fucking-Ooops Perry !!! This is insane.
Snotcicles
(9,089 posts)mahatmakanejeeves
(57,727 posts)C Moon
(12,226 posts)They're damn good at spending other people's money, with no intent of paying back.
Wounded Bear
(58,773 posts)when Repubs are in charge.
world wide wally
(21,760 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)He is the WW1 cavalry officer who believed horses would win every war in the face of industrialism. Except in this case, the horses can blow up the good and the bad. Or the British officer in the colonies who thought marching his battalion in a straight line through the woods was the safest route to to town.
Thirty years in, and the traditional strategists still believe a conventional war or nuclear threat will defeat global insurgencies. Bless their idiot hearts.
titaniumsalute
(4,742 posts)I think it is more that Trump and Putin hopped on the phone and told each other "Hey we'll both profit from building more bumbs and ICBS. Let's DO THIS!!"
Generator
(7,770 posts)will just steal us blind and not nuke the planet. Good times.
titaniumsalute
(4,742 posts)moondust
(20,025 posts)"Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can't we use them," Scarborough said on his "Morning Joe" program.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/03/trump-asks-why-us-cant-use-nukes-msnbcs-joe-scarborough-reports.html
Maybe he gets a sinister ego boost from scaring the shit out of people, from dangling that kind of super power over people. Like an evil clown in a horror movie.
Judi Lynn
(160,662 posts)A president like Trump would enjoy going full bull goose looney, send people running for cover all over the world. If the American people didn't want him to do that, they would have already retired the electoral voting system, which he managed with such "sophistication."
BumRushDaShow
(129,950 posts)30 seconds before midnight.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,411 posts)during his term (just): http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2968/066004008
Since 1965, the number of American nuclear weapons has basically been decreasing - apart from a bit of an increase in Nixon's later years. And now Trump wants to "greatly strengthen and expand" it.
And I bet some Republican will call this "infrastructure spending".
Vinca
(50,326 posts)all efforts to make the world safer evaporate. We're in deep trouble, people.
pbmus
(12,422 posts)jpak
(41,760 posts)Be Afraid.
pfitz59
(10,412 posts)We don't need no stinking State Department, lets negotiate the end of the world in 140 characters or less....