Trump’s Nukes Tweets

Some brief observations by Raymond Lotta

December 26, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Trump says he wants to 'strengthen and expand' nuclear capabilities. To do what, against whom?

» This kind of open, brazen, fascistic threat of nuke expansion and use, and the obscene casualness of it (again, “Trump to humanity and planet Earth: fuck you”), is not only a cold statement of aims—but imminently escalates the nuclear danger...of expansion and use by nuclear powers—use by design or accident.

» The roots and dynamics lie in the intensification of geopolitical rivalry and a view on the part of a section of the U.S. ruling class that the perception of U.S. “weakness” and “lack of resolve” is reaching a precipitous inflection point, i.e., China and Russia on the move, Islamic fundamentalism emboldened. In particular: China as the fundamental strategic adversary—geo-economic and geostrategic—but also a Russia-China connection (Shanghai Cooperation Organization, trade ties, military) and Trump saying “no tolerance for that.” Trump wants some cooperation with Putin to defeat “radical Islam” and perhaps push back China; Putin is seeking to cement a Russian military presence in strategically significant areas—notably the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East—that challenges the U.S. So there is considerable complexity in Trump’s inter-imperialist “courtship” with Putin (and vice-versa).

» On the dialectic between continuity and discontinuity. Yes, Obama once again providing the “loaded gun”—the trillion-dollar nuclear weapons “modernization” plan, no real dismantling of arsenals, etc. Truly outrageous—and nakedly imperialist. But this is a qualitative ratcheting up and shift.

» The “lunacy” and “unpredictability” of Trump and his circle. On the one hand, it serves a strategic calculus (see the Kissinger Face the Nation interview, and others about “madman”); on the other, a real aspect of lunacy and unpredictability that literally threatens humanity and the planet.

 

 

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