With a few notable exceptions, Democratic and Republican presidents alike have generally tried to restrain if not reverse nuclear proliferation since atomic weapons came into existence. But in the era of Donald Trump, that history may count for nothing. President-elect Trump apparently has little time for his country\u2019s fragile nuclear weapons deal with Iran, and his alarmingly permissive statements about the wider proliferation of nuclear weapons fly in the face of United States nonproliferation policy since 1945.<\/p>\n
U.S. presidents have been trying to contain the spread of nuclear weapons since the dawn of the atomic age. There were missteps along the way: Dwight Eisenhower\u2019s ill-considered \u201cAtoms for Peace\u201d programme ended up distributing nuclear technology around the world, contributing in particular to India\u2019s pursuit of \u201cthe bomb,\u201d which it eventually acquired in 1974.<\/p>\n
Successive presidents\u2014including Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon\u2014failed to halt Israel\u2019s undeclared nuclear programme. Despite Jimmy Carter\u2019s sincere efforts to restrain Pakistan\u2019s nuclear ambitions, an uptick in the Cold War in 1979-80 and the sheer determination of Pakistani leaders were too much to overcome.<\/p>\n
For Trump, the madmen reside in Tehran.<\/p>\n
Despite these failures, the overall thrust has been towards nonproliferation. The prospect of a West German bomb and China\u2019s ascent to nuclear status in 1964 saw genuine moves towards an international nonproliferation regime, resulting in the landmark 1968 Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to this day the cornerstone of nuclear weapons control.<\/p>\n
In the 1970s and 1980s, American leaders helped persuade Argentina and Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan that national nuclear programmes were not in their interest. The anti-proliferation mood continued into the 1990s, as South Africa voluntarily dismantled its six bombs, while Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine all gave up their Soviet-era weapons under the Lisbon Protocol, which the U.S. was directly involved in brokering.<\/p>\n
U.S. nuclear weapons policy, then, has broadly tended towards antiproliferation. And while it\u2019s far from the sole global arbiter of nuclear status, Washington wields immense power. But it seems Trump knows little of this history, and cares even less about it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Throughout his campaign, Trump seemed unconcerned about the further spread of nuclear weapons. When asked about the prospect of Saudi Arabia going nuclear, he casually said that they would get a bomb anyway. This was a retrenchment to the alarmist predictions of the 1950s and 1960s, which deemed the widespread attainment of nuclear capability virtually inevitable.<\/p>\n
At the same event, Trump supported the notion of Japan and South Korea gaining nuclear capability to defend themselves against China and North Korea, seemingly ignorant of both history, and the Japanese constitution\u2019s prohibition of \u201cthe bomb.\u201d\u00a0This effectively abrogates U.S. support of the NPT.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Like much of his rhetoric, Trump\u2019s statements on proliferation are often contradictory. Shortly after winning the election, he denied via Twitter that he had said that more countries should have nuclear weapons. And a year ago, he declared nuclear proliferation \u201cthe single biggest problem our country faces right now.\u201d\u00a0However, that was in reference to \u201chaving some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon\u201d. To whom was Trump referring? Of course, \u201csome madman\u201d is not just anyone. For Trump, the madmen reside in Tehran.<\/p>\n
But on Friday, when he was asked to clarify a Tweet stating he thinks the U.S. \u201cmust greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability,\u201d Trump doubled down and said he was interested in a nuclear arms race.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
By any reasonable standard, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more commonly known as the \u201cIran nuclear deal,\u201d\u00a0is the most important nonproliferation agreement of the 21st century. It blocks Tehran\u2019s routes to \u201cthe bomb\u201d and allows the Islamic Republic to begin reintegration into the international mainstream.<\/p>\n
Trump, on the other hand, considers it \u201cone of the worst deals I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d\u00a0During the campaign he incorrectly claimed that the deal only made it easier for Tehran to eventually gain nuclear capability, and alluded to abrogating or redefining the deal when he takes office.<\/p>\n
He is not alone: Many House and Senate Republicans lambasted Obama over the agreement when it was struck, and vowed to do all they could to make sure it would never come to fruition. This tendency on the right is now in control of Congress, and will be ready to work with Trump once he takes office.<\/p>\n
Under the Trump administration, the one nation that has done more to restrain proliferation than any other might yet destroy the entire fragile edifice.<\/p>\n
These views could throw off the world\u2019s nuclear balance. For decades, scholars, politicians, and intelligence analysts predicted a \u201cnuclear tipping point,\u201d\u00a0a situation where if one more nation obtained the bomb, the dam would burst and the world would go nuclear. None of these prognostications came to pass\u2014but if Trump gets what seems to be his way, a tipping point might not be needed.<\/p>\n
The nonproliferation regime is flawed, sometimes unfair, but ultimately functional. Under the Trump administration, however, the one nation that has done more to restrain proliferation than any other might yet destroy the entire fragile edifice.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Malcolm M Craig, Lecturer in History, Liverpool John Moores University<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.<\/p>\n Twitter screenshot of nuclear inventories via Ploughshares fund.<\/p>\n Preview image via EPA\/Andrew Harrer.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With a few notable exceptions, Democratic and Republican presidents alike have generally tried to restrain if not reverse nuclear proliferation since atomic weapons came into existence. But in the era of Donald Trump, that history may count for nothing. President-elect Trump apparently has little time for his country\u2019s fragile nuclear weapons deal with Iran, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}