General Discussion

* He has repeatedly expressed a personal fascination with nuclear weapons, although he seems to have little idea of what their actual use might mean. In March 2016, for instance, he told “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News that he might even consider using nuclear weapons in Europe, which he called “a big place,” as if some parts of it might be legitimate nuclear targets. And he added, “I’m not going to take cards off the table.” At an MSNBC town hall that same month, he proposed using nuclear weapons against the “caliphate” of the Islamic State. Nuclear weapons directed against guerrilla fighters? That makes so much sense!

When Chris Matthews suggested that Japanese citizens might be nervous on hearing a presidential candidate bring up the use of nuclear weapons, Trump responded by asking, “Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?” It might be a reasonable question, if someone other than Donald Trump had been asking it.

When word first surfaced that his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had called him a “moron,” some of us wondered which of Trump’s many displays of ignorance had occasioned the label. Now we know. It seems to have been the president’s suggestion, at a July 2017 national security briefing, that the United States should increase its current nuclear arsenal of around 4,000 warheads by a factor of 10.

* The advisers Trump seems to respect the most at the moment are generals or former generals, including his chief of staff John Kelly, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Commentators (including some on the liberal end of the spectrum) like to think of this coterie of military men as the “grown-ups” in the Trumpian room. I’m not convinced, but even if they are more temperamentally suited to governing than this president, they have a tendency, not surprisingly, to reach first for military solutions to diplomatic problems.

https://www.salon.com/2017/10/30/trumps-nuclear-dreams_partner/