Donald Trump's Nuclear Tweets

DONALD TRUMP HAS released many bizarre and disturbing tweets in recent months, none more alarming than his statements in December that the “U.S. must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability” and “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”

Commentators were dumfounded by the messages, which seemed to come out of nowhere, and dismissed them as bluster not to be taken seriously. The tweets were deeply troubling, however, and indicate that the new president is ignorant of nuclear realities and intent on ratcheting up nuclear spending and challenging others to keep up.

Thankfully, the potential competitors in such a contest seem uninterested. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced during his annual press conference the day after Trump’s messages that Russia will reduce military spending next year as it adjusts to economic recession at home. China has indicated no change in its longstanding policy of maintaining a small but capable nuclear force. Trump may be ready for an arms race, but as of now his rivals seem to have no interest in running.

Nuclear bravado can change these calculations, however, especially if it is accompanied by substantial increases in spending for new weapons. Trump has promised to give more money to the military and bolster nuclear capability. U.S. weapons makers Boeing and Lockheed are competing for multibillion-dollar contracts to replace and upgrade the U.S. land-based missile force. Former Defense Secretary William Perry has argued that the plan to rebuild nuclear missiles is wasteful, unnecessary, and dangerous.

It’s a risky game Trump wants to play. If the U.S. actually proceeds to “greatly expand and strengthen” its nuclear arsenal, Russia and China could shift their stance from forbearance to reaction. This is the history of the arms race that Trump seems to want to replay. When one side increases its nuclear capacity, the other side follows suit. It’s an action-reaction cycle that during the Cold War reached absurdly dangerous levels.

As for the claim that the U.S. can “outmatch” and “outlast” others, it may be helpful to recall that during the peak of the Cold War, the Soviet Union surpassed the U.S. in estimated total numbers of weapons—topping out at an insane level of 40,000 nukes, compared to a peak U.S. level of 31,000 weapons, enough on each side to destroy the world many times over.

It was in the mid-1980s that a miracle of history happened. The nuclear freeze movement emerged in the U.S. and massive disarmament campaigns swept through Western Europe. Political leaders in Washington and Moscow finally came to their senses and began negotiations leading to nuclear reductions and an end to the Cold War.

Trump’s tweet about expanding nuclear weapons included the curious closing phrase “until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, and the elder George Bush showed what that means. They sharply reduced nuclear-weapons levels and began to establish a more cooperative relationship between East and West. Gorbachev and Reagan even discussed the complete elimination of nuclear weapons at the Reykjavik summit in 1986.

The hopeful vision of those halcyon days is gone, but the example of what Reagan and Bush accomplished through nuclear disarmament with Russia still stands, and it could be a model for sensible nuclear policy today.

Here’s a new tweet for Trump: “Nuclear weapons expensive, unnecessary, dangerous. Cancel.”