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Shortly after taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump raved on Twitter that the United States “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”
One year later now, the man infamously known for his bellicosity and recklessness calls for not just expansion of the U.S. nuke stockpiles but also broadening of the circumstances when he could press the “nuclear button.”
It is a dangerous move that could open the floodgates for arms race and deepen - not reduce - reliance on nuclear weapons.
On Friday local time, the Trump administration released its Nuclear Posture Review, calling for the introduction of “low- yield nukes” on submarine- launched ballistic missiles.
In a far more reckless and provocative step, Trump said in a statement that U.S. aims to strengthen the deterrence of major attacks against the United States and its allies, including those that “may not come it the form of nuclear weapons.”
In other words, Trump is blurring the distinction line between nuclear and conventional conflicts by bracing the world for possibilities that the United States may in the future use nuclear weapons in response to cyberattacks and other non- nuclear attacks.
For Trump and his underlings, the step this time to introduce lower-yield nuclear weapons and to lower the nuclear threshold is crucial to “enhance” and to “tailor” deterrence. To quote Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan’s words at a Pentagon briefing with reporters, “It lowers the risk of nuclear use by anyone.”
While the rationale behind the nuclear strategy is self- contradictory, it has systematically followed the Trump administration’s reckless mindset: We have present our threats. Now, the onus is on you to give in to our demands.
The new nuclear strategy is also a major break from the last time in 2010 when such a review was finished.
In the 2010 review, the U.S. administration under the leadership of Barack Obama sought to explicitly limit the roles for nuclear weapons in U.S. strategy. By contrast, Trump’s nuclear strategy shows the U.S. intent to use nuclear weapons beyond the deterrence of nuclear use by others to include countering non- nuclear threats too.
The dramatic change in U.S. nuclear strategy could lead to a significant “blunder,” Ernest Moniz, former Energy Secretary under Obama wrote in an op-ed.
“If a cyberattack took out a major part of our electrical grid, would we be able to quickly and confidently identify the attacking country?” Moniz wrote.
My question is, even if the United States could pin down the culprit for a cyberattack, how massive the cyberattack should be that could justify the use of nuclear weapons as retaliation?
The answer to this crucial question lies in the judgement and prudence of a U.S. president amidst crisis. Unfortunately, we are stuck with probably the least stable U.S. president in a century whose perceived volatility has raised concerns not nationwide but worldwide.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
