Between Donald Trump’s words and his actions fall the nuclear shadow.
Yesterday speaking in the Oval Office, President Trump was fantastic about cutting the US military budget half and emphasized the need Remove from nuclear weapons. “There is no reason for us to build completely new nuclear weapons, we already have many,” he said. “You could destroy the world 50 times more, 100 times. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they build nuclear weapons.”
He is not mistaken, but listening to him to say that it made blood to pull out of my ears. There is a strong argument that no individual has made the world more dangerous in nuclear weapons than Trump. He has spent much of his first presidency to tear the last traces of cold war treaties and standards that have maintained nuclear weapons for decades.
Total global nuts peaked in 1986 about 60,000 weapons. Most of these belonged to the United States and the Soviet Union. Then a long row of world leaders, starting from Ronald Reagan and Mihaail Gorbachev, started. A series of treaties, talks and mutual cooperation through the plant – but especially between the United States and Russia – has reduced the number of nuclear weapons in the world.
Experts estimate that it is now around 12,100 nuts. As in 1986, most of these weapons are in Russia and America. And the stressful trend is reversing. China, which has sat about 300 nuts for decades, is building more. Russia is building new and different types of nuclear weapons. The United States spends $ 2 billion to “modernize” its nuclear forces, a project that will involve new nuclear armed submarines and expensive new missile silos.
Trump didn’t start these trends, but he overloaded them.
President Obama negotiated an agreement with Iran to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons. Under the common comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would have access to Iranian nuclear areas and Tehran would destroy its nuclear weapons ambitions. America, on the contrary, would reduce sanctions and living weapons will embarrass after a few years.
When Trump became president, he pulled out of the deal. Tehran is now far less interested in making a deal with the United States and is much more interested in getting a nuclear weapon. Israel, emboled by recent military victories, is In view of a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Trump transformed diplomacy into violence.
Not happy, Trump then on one side pulled out of the intermediate range of nuclear forces (INF) treaty. The Reagan-Era Treaty limited the amount of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles that the United States and Russia could deploy with ranges from 310 to 3,420 miles. It covered both nuclear and conventional heads. Trump said he pulls out because Russia breaks the rules. Now no one supports the treaty. It died.
Then Trump withdrew the United States from the open sky -treaty. Established in 1992, open skies allows rival nations to fly aircraft over a rival country to make sure they are not preparing for war. It was an invitation to spy on each other, outdoors, to ensure that everyone fulfilled their promises. It was “trust but check out“Encoded in a pact between nations. Again the risk of nuclear war has grown.
The last remaining treaty on weapons control between the United States and Russia is the new weapons reduction strategic treaty. Like the inf, it set a limit to deployed strategic nuclear heads. It will expire next year unless both sides agrees to renew it, but it is effective. Russia suspended its participation In the treaty in 2023. Trump, as was typical of him at the time, spent his first presidency discarding it. He called it a bad deal and said it was not good, unless China is part of it.
Nuclear weapons are world weapons. Limiting their use and reducing their number requires a delicate and extraordinary trust among rival countries. The treaties were not only oral agreements, but complex documents that created monitoring regimes. Russia would send experts to the United States to ensure that it supports its end of the barge and vice versa. There was a call between opponents to make sure everyone plays fair.
Trump has consistently complained that China is not part of these treaties, and it is important to remember that the United States and Russia have more than 5,000 nuts each. China has about 500. Beijing has fulfilled Trump’s request for them to join weapons reduction with the same repeated sentiment over the last 10 years: “You first. ”
This mode of checks and balances between nuclear countries have sent signals to other nations on the planet: the risk of nuclear fire reduces. A country or boss is pursuing a nuclear weapon program because it doesn’t want someone else to launch a neck against it and it doesn’t want anyone else to conquer it.
A nuclear armed country invaded Europe. The US president says he will spend less on defense and he has spent his entire political career tearing nuclear treaties. No one looks at the nucleus until. Russia and the United States no longer inspect each other. Both countries are free to spend as much for nuclear weapons as they want and are in the process of it.
No matter what Trump says, away from his hand, sitting behind the resolution desk. It is important what he does. And all he has done is to make the world safer for nuclear weapons and more dangerous for the people living in it.
