Nuclear Trump

Since 1945, the world has lived in the shadow of nuclear weapons. And we have been incredibly lucky. After the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have never been used in warfare.

But we have come close. In 1962, the world teetered on the edge of the apocalypse, as John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev threatened to take the human race with them in their showdown over Cuba. We were very lucky to see out 1983, when a NATO test of its nuclear response systems was seen by the USSR as cover for an attack. For months, fear and mistrust nearly killed us all. And in 1995, the test launch of a Norwegian rocket was mistaken for an incoming missile by Russian radar. Boris Yeltsin, the Russian President, activated the Russian computer that would send out the signal to fire. Had the missile not landed very shortly, you probably would not be reading this today.

It seems obvious that a world with too many nuclear weapons is unsafe. Without any at all, now that's a different question for another time. But for half a century, there have been moves to limit the spread and number of atomic bombs. The near miss over Cuba led to the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the first attempt to set a limit on nuclear weapon use. Since then, despite many false starts, delays and dead ends, the number of nuclear weapons has decreased dramatically. Only a handful of countries have them, and those that try to add them to their inventory are given incentives to come in from the cold, such as Iran. Those that defy this trend, like North Korea, end up as international pariahs.

This idea, that to reduce and eventually abolish nuclear weapons, is so ingrained into geo-politics that it seemed obvious. And then enter Donald Trump.

Trump is not an abolitionist. He isn't even a reductionist. Instead, the Donald wants to allow countries to develop their own nuclear stockpiles, to reduce the need for America to protect them.

To that end, he wants to see a nuclear Japan and South Korea, to stand up to North Korea and China. He has also spoken recently about supporting a Saudi Arabian atomic weapons programme.

But Trump went further. He has suggested that the use of nuclear weapons should be normalised. For example, when asked recently whether he would use them in a conflict in Europe, Trump responded with a yes, adding the justification 'it's a big place.'

That is terrifying. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been no realistic chance of a nuclear war in Europe, or really anywhere in the world. And here is a candidate for the US Presidency, suggesting he wants to encourage states to arm themselves, and even advocating the use of nuclear weapons in conflicts.

I still don't think that the Donald will even be the Republican Party nominee, let alone the President. But if he does get anywhere near the White House, there is a good advert from the last nuclear nutter to run for President that they should dust down and reuse:

These are the stakes: to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark