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nuclear war
The Nuclear Trump Factor
The threat of nuclear war has never been greater than today. The self-proclaimed peacemaker in Washington is to blame.
May 31, 2025
Hardly a day goes by without the phrase "Donald Trump is a danger to the world" being given new life. The threat posed by the U.S. president applies of course to the U.S. itself, which is in danger of sliding into fascist authoritarianism, and to the planetary boundaries that the billionaire cabinet is enthusiastically trampling all over with its "drill, baby, drill" policy.
What is less noticed is another global threat being driven by the MAGA insurrection movement in the White House, which has declared war on democracy, the state, and the planet. It is the risk of nuclear war. Although Trump is calling for an end to the fighting in Ukraine, which would reduce the threat of nuclear weapons being used in this crisis hotspot, the overall dangers have increased with the new administration.
First of all, it should be kept in mind that in the U.S., the president has sole authority, without restrictions or consultation, to order a nuclear attack against any target at any time, for any reason. He does not have to consult with anyone, and the decision is beyond any control. This is made possible by the so-called "nuclear football" (officially called the "presidential emergency satchel"). Military personnel who carry it accompany the president wherever he goes.
Trump's hara-kiri and doomsday politics, which destroy trust and rely on macho gestures instead of nuclear restraint and international cooperation, are a permanent source of instability and escalation.
The U.S. president can therefore carry out nuclear strikes at any time, which would mean hundreds of millions of deaths and probably the end of humanity. Experts and some politicians in Congress warn that this is a risky, vulnerable, and undemocratic procedure, established by the Eisenhower administration in the late 1950s, which places the decision about the possible end of the world in the hands of a single person. On the other hand, this arrangement is a central element of the U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy, which is intended to send a frightening message to the world.
The mere fact that Donald Trump has once again concentrated this power in his own hands is a danger in terms of the possible use of nuclear weapons. The reasons for this are obvious. Trump has shown himself to be unpredictable, erratic, and emotionally unstable as a person and political leader. His endless lies, provocations, humiliations, and calls for violence are widely known. When he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, he initiated and supported an attempted coup on January 6, 2021. As the new president, he ultimately pardoned 1,500 convicted violent criminals, including neo-Nazi leaders who participated in the storming of the Capitol. He also faces multiple charges, including for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in his favor, and was convicted of rape by a New York court last year.
In October 2024, over 200 mental health experts warned before the election that Donald Trump was dangerous due to his symptoms of severe, untreatable personality disorder, which they diagnosed as "malignant narcissism." This makes him completely unfit for leadership, according to the health experts. Mary Trump, Donald Trump's niece and a clinical psychologist, also warned against his reelection. In her book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, she calls her uncle a sociopath. In it, she describes his upbringing in a dysfunctional family that promoted greed, cruelty, and racist and sexist behavior.
At first glance, it may seem reassuring that Trump declared during his first term that nukes were "the biggest problem in the world" and that his goal was to get rid of them. In February 2025, after taking office again, he said, "There's no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many." Unfortunately, this is just rhetoric. Trump has done nothing in this direction so far and has actually increased the nuclear risks through his actions.
In 2018, during his first term as president, Trump announced his withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran, which had successfully limited the uranium enrichment of nuclear fuel in exchange for sanctions relief. Since then, Iran has accelerated its nuclear weapons program. Estimates suggest that Iran could produce several bombs in a matter of months or even weeks. Shortly thereafter, following a series of escalating threats, Trump suggested that North Korea had agreed to denuclearization. Talks followed, but an agreement never materialized.
Furthermore, the first Trump administration indicated to the U.S. Congress that if deterrence against China failed, the U.S. would have to "win" militarily. Peter Kuznick, professor of history and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, toldTruthout: "U.S. politicians seem so panicked about China's enormous growth and the way it is challenging U.S. hegemony in the Pacific that they are willing to risk nuclear annihilation to prevent it."
Researchers at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientistswarned earlier this year, as they moved the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds before midnight—midnight means "game over" for humanity—that the United States has "embarked on the world's most expensive nuclear modernization" and that "the 2024 election results suggest the United States will pursue a faster, more expansive nuclear investment program. It is possible that the United States will expand its nuclear efforts to include more nuclear options, rely more on nuclear brinkmanship to advance its security and deterrence goals, and shun proven efforts to reduce nuclear dangers. The United States is now a full partner in a worldwide nuclear arms race."
This is taking place amid chaotic DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) attacks led by Elon Musk against the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), in which hundreds of scientists and experts responsible for the country's nuclear security were fired. It is unclear whether all of them have returned to the agency after the layoffs were reversed and whether security gaps are to be feared.
The Trump administration is meanwhile pursuing a "peace through strength" strategy in its foreign policy. This is the motto of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, under which the U.S. launched a historic wave of rearmament. Republicans in the U.S. Congress also support this concept. They want to fuel the arms race by increasing the already historically high U.S. defense budget. There are calls on Trump to demonstrate to Russia that the U.S. holds global supremacy. And there is pressure to resume nuclear testing in order to win the arms race, which observers view as very worrying. The military establishment is even calling for the reintroduction of tactical nuclear weapons into the U.S. arsenal, which can be used in regional wars, which would mean further dramatic destabilization.
But what increases the nuclear risks above all is that, just months after taking office, the Trump administration has triggered "potentially the fastest and most dangerous acceleration of nuclear arms proliferation around the world since the early Cold War." His repeated "America First" statements, saying that the U.S. no longer feels bound by partnerships and would not come to the rescue of allies in an emergency, have left them feeling abandoned by the United States.
This has sparked a debate in European capitals about whether the U.S. nuclear umbrella can still be relied upon. France and the U.K. have offered to fill the gap. In an interview in March before his election as Germany's new chancellor, Friedrich Merz did not even rule out the idea of developing his own nuclear bomb. And in Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk is now talking about his country "must reach for the most modern capabilities also related to nuclear weapons." In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is openly considering reintroducing a nuclear deterrent.
The risk of nuclear weapons spreading further across the globe is greatest in East Asia. During his 2016 election campaign, Trump said that Japan and South Korea might have to develop nuclear weapons. "It's only a matter of time," he said. Former South Korea's right-wing president, Yoon Suk Yeol, finally welcomed the deployment of U.S. tactical weapons in South Korea and intended to arm his country with nuclear weapons. Even though Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung, who is leading in the presidential election polls (official vote is on Tuesday, June 3), is skeptical about South Korea going nuclear, the debate continues in the country. Political scientists Jami Levin and Youngwon Cho see this as a fatal development:
While Trump has been busy burning bridges in Europe and North America, his allies in East Asia—South Korea and Japan—have been watching the implosion of the U.S.-led international order in dismay. They have no alternative to the American nuclear umbrella but to build their own deterrent capabilities.
Polls show that more than two-thirds of South Koreans support their country acquiring nuclear weapons independently of the U.S.
Above all, the increasing confrontation with China is viewed with concern. The tariff war that Trump started against Beijing could exacerbate the security crisis in the Pacific and end in a military conflict, according to fears. Trump's trade attacks are reinforcing the trend toward "decoupling," i.e., the economic disentanglement of the two economies from one another. This, in turn, could lead to a rivalry in which both sides are tempted to harm each other through proxy conflicts and attacks on national security. At the same time, strategy papers from the Pentagon show how easily an economic war can escalate into a military conflict (which would put the nuclear option on the table between the two nuclear powers), according to Jack Werner of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in the U.S.:
In a context of mounting economic pain on both sides, with surging nationalism in both countries becoming a binding force on leaders, both governments are likely to choose more destructive responses to what they regard as provocations from the other side. A single misstep around Taiwan or in the South China Sea could end in catastrophe.
Trump's economic and military advisers in the White House are geared toward confrontation with China. That is also the purpose of the presidential order to build a new space-based missile defense system, known as the "Golden Dome." Since Reagan, there have been repeated attempts to initiate such programs. U.S. President Barack Obama wanted to build ABMs (anti-ballistic missiles) in Eastern Europe, but it was only in the wake of the Ukraine war that the Czech Republic gave the green light.
However, all these missile defense systems are not about the possible interception of nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, i.e., self-defense, which cannot work technically, as military analysts have determined. ABM is, as the Rand Corporation, among others, explains, "not just a protective shield, but an enabler of U.S. actions." Lawrence Kaplan, professor at the U.S. Army War College and former senior editor of The New Republic, sums it up as follows: "In other words, missile defense is about preserving America's ability to exercise power abroad. It's not about defense. It's about offense. And that's exactly why we need it."
Even if such defense systems are incapable of preventing nuclear first strikes, they have the advantage of theoretically intercepting retaliatory strikes by enemies in response to a first strike. This means that there would be no threat of self-destruction, which could encourage military planners in the U.S. to launch first strikes while other nuclear powers lose their deterrent capability. And the message of Trump's "Golden Dome" has been received by those who were targeted. China, like Russia, has described the announcement from Washington as a "destabilizing" initiative.
While Trump has initiated negotiations in the Ukraine war that could reduce the nuclear dangers between NATO and Russia, he is simultaneously increasing them in the Pacific in an economic and military confrontation now focused on his main adversary, China, which increases the likelihood of a nuclear conflict.
The same applies to the Middle East. The Gaza war waged by Israel's Netanyahu government, a nuclear power, continues to be enabled by the U.S. with weapons and diplomatic blockade, while Trump has promoted the ethnic cleansing of the completely sealed-off enclave with his "Riviera Plan" remarks. The massacre of Palestinians, which has been going on for over a year and a half, has the potential to set the entire region ablaze. This is evident from the military exchanges with the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran. Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu even suggested in an interview that dropping a "nuclear bomb" on the Gaza Strip was "an option."
Israel is also regularly indicating that one prepares for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Tehran has declared that it will hold Washington responsible if this happens. This could spark a full-scale war in the region that would draw the U.S. into the conflict, with all the dangers that this entails. At the same time, Trump is exacerbating the conflict himself. Although he wants to negotiate with Iran, he has announced military action if Tehran does not agree to his deal and end all uranium enrichment—which experts consider a dangerous hardline demand that will ultimately lead to war. They argue that it is unnecessary and unacceptable for the country because it would also rule out the civilian use of nuclear power for Iran. Trump threatened that if Tehran did not completely shut down its nuclear program, there would be "all hell to pay," while "all options are on the table"—which is an implicit threat of a nuclear strike.
A similar threat was directed at Russia. On social media, Trump stated on May 28: "What Vladimir Putin doesn't realise is that if it weren't for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened in Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He's playing with fire." Putin's confidant and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, replied: "Regarding Trump's words about Putin 'playing with fire' and 'really bad things' happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing—WWIII."
It is at this point a war of words between two nuclear powers. But Trump's hara-kiri and doomsday politics, which destroy trust and rely on macho gestures instead of nuclear restraint and international cooperation, are a permanent source of instability and escalation. It is therefore important to raise public awareness of the existential threat once again as civil society pressure on governments especially in countries that possess nuclear arms has to increase by seeking ways to revive the policy of détente—i.e. negotiations on disarmament and arms control, as took place in the 1970s under U.S. President Richard Nixon and in Germany with Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik. Even under President Bush senior, there were initiatives launched that reduced the risks. These deescalation efforts are the results of organized peace movements that made a difference. Even in the dark times today there are still possibilities for addressing the dangers of atomic annihilation.
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Ukrainians Need (and Want) an End to War
It’s time to end the suffering of the Ukrainian people, so they can heal and rebuild.
May 28, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump’s expressed exasperation over Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine seemed to temporarily lift the spirit of pro-war European leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron, who said he hopes Trump’s anger “translates into action.” The U.S. isn’t likely to resume the massive military support it provided under former President Joe Biden. Under one scenario, however, it could conceivably sell weapons to NATO for Ukraine’s use.
The abandonment of peace efforts in Ukraine would be disastrous—especially for Ukrainians.
American citizens and those of other NATO countries have a moral obligation to demand peace—a just peace, but an urgent one.
Americans’ support for the war has softened somewhat, according to recent Pew polling, with 44% saying the U.S. has a responsibility to aid Ukraine’s defense and 52% saying it doesn’t. Sixty-nine percent, however, still believe the war is “important to U.S. interests.”
They don’t seem to understand the situation in Ukraine, the harm it is causing, the threats it poses to the United States—or the wishes of the Ukrainian people.
What Ukrainians Want
Chances are, most Americans didn’t see last November’s Gallup news report headlined, “Half of Ukrainians Want Quick, Negotiated End to War.” Or the Ukrainian poll which found that only 16% of Ukrainians wanted their country to “continue fighting until it wins the war.” This important information went all but unreported in American media.[1]
Their war-weariness is easy to understand. Ukrainians have already suffered more than 400,000 casualties. Two million Ukrainian residences have been destroyed or damaged, and nearly one-fourth of Ukraine’s population has been displaced, including 15% who have fled their homeland. Nearly 900,000 Ukrainians (the equivalent of 7 or 8 million Americans) are serving in the military.
Ukrainians are reportedly the poorest people in Europe. Today, one-half of Ukraine’s households reportedly live at a basic subsistence level; roughly 1 in 4 must “scrimp” for food. The government’s decimated finances have led to cuts in services, usurious tax hikes, and ever-worsening corruption.
To put it bluntly, they’re living in hell.
The Nuclear Scenario
And speaking of hell: This war also carries the very real risk of the first wartime use of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As Germany’s new chancellor has confirmed, all NATO countries have lifted their restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles against Russia. That increases the risk of nuclear confrontation, which was already at an unacceptable level.
The New York Times recently published an investigation which revealed that the United States actively planned, armed, and helped carry out direct military actions against the world’s only other nuclear superpower—actions so reckless they even alarmed U.S. intelligence, which sharply raised its assessment of the nuclear threat.[2]
A War That Can’t Be Won
The Times report should have dominated the news cycle and changed the conversation about this war. It should have—but it didn’t. But then, little attention was paid back in November 2022 when Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that the war was essentially unwinnable and that it was time to negotiate.
Journalists and war-promoting politicians have collaborated in downplaying both the horrors of this war and the impossibility of Ukrainian victory. That’s allowed the United States and its Western allies to extend this exercise in futility, while offering false hope to the Ukrainian people and expending their own resources on weapons abroad. It’s time to stop claiming we can help Ukraine fight until it “wins.”
It won’t win—not ever. To believe otherwise is to help NATO countries use Ukrainians as cannon fodder.
That’s not to deny that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a war crime. It is, and any decent person should abhor it. But we must also recognize the real-world concerns and provocations that preceded it.[3]
Facing Reality
It was unwise—not to mention criminal—to mark the start of U.S.-Russian negotiations by murdering a top Russian general with a car bomb in a Moscow suburb, an act that appeared to be a deliberate “F— you” to both negotiating parties. Ukraine’s role in that attack—also illegal under international law—was affirmed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s comments afterward.[4]
Graham Allison, professor of government at the Harvard Kennedy School, writes:
Rather than attempting to deny brute facts... Zelenskyy should now focus on what he and his brave compatriots have won. They have defeated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to erase their country from the map. Ukraine’s army has fought the second-most powerful military on Earth to a standstill.
Allison writes, “Zelenskyy’s team should make its best efforts to use the few cards that it has left to negotiate an ugly but sustainable peace.”
Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft writes:
Most of the peace plan for Ukraine now sketched out by the Trump administration is not new, is based on common sense, and has indeed already been tacitly accepted by Kyiv.
Lieven adds that, given the details yet to be worked out, “it was unwise and thoughtless of Zelenskyy to declare immediately that ‘there is nothing to talk about here.’”
A Different Future
Ukraine needs and deserves more reassurances than it has been given so far. To be sure, any negotiated outcome will be painful, portending what Allison calls “an ugly but sustainable peace.” But these negotiations are Ukraine’s best hope. They are, in fact, its only hope. The only alternative is an even uglier procession of days, weeks, months, and years containing only death and destruction, with nothing to be gained and no end in sight.
Ukraine can still have a bright future someday, free of war and poverty. One possible future can be glimpsed in Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1989 proposal to the Council of Europe for a “common European home” that “replaces the traditional balance of forces with a balance of interests.”
As long as the war continues, however, Ukraine can’t move forward at all. American citizens and those of other NATO countries have a moral obligation to demand peace—a just peace, but an urgent one. That obligation extends to the many Democrats whose hostility to Donald Trump has deepened a needless partisan divide over this issue.
The United States must lead the West in shifting its focus—and its spending—from war to peace. Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction costs were last estimated at $524 billion over 10 years. It’s time to end the suffering of the Ukrainian people, so they can heal and rebuild.
We must help them in that recovery. But first, all Americans—Democrats as well as Republicans—must call for peace now.
________________________________________________________
[1]. The Gallup poll represented a dramatic change in Ukrainian public opinion: 73% wanted to fight until “victory” in 2022, and 63% the year after. By November 2024, 52% of Ukrainians wanted to end the war. I only found these polls mentioned once in The New York Times’ news section—a reference to Gallup’s poll in the 23rd paragraph of a story headlined, “Ukrainians Fear Peace May Strand Them Forever From Lost Homes.” (It also appeared in an op-ed.)
[2].The New York Times’ investigation of the U.S. military in Ukraine is a must-read. It documents the U.S.’ leadership role in planning, arming, and carrying out direct military actions against the world’s only other nuclear superpower.
“Until that moment,” the Times reports, “U.S. intelligence agencies had estimated the chance of Russia’s using nuclear weapons in Ukraine at 5-10%. Now, they said, if the Russian lines in the south collapsed, the probability was 50%.”
Ukraine is also the home of 15 nuclear reactors housed in four power plants.
[3]. The Geopolitical Economy website has done an excellent job laying out the United States’ shameful role in provoking conflict between Russia and Ukraine. (See, for example, here, here, and here.)
[4]. Zelenskyy celebrated and took credit for the killing, writing on Telegram that a Ukrainian intelligence official had “reported on the liquidation of persons from the top command of the Russian armed forces.”
Zelenskyy added: “Justice inevitably is done... Good results. Thank you for your work.”
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How Can We Resist the Indifference to life?
What if we started collectively seeing weeds and discarded plastic straws not as simply an assault on our sense of order—clean sidewalks!—but as minute particles of the living planet?
May 25, 2025
What does mowing the lawn have to do with world events?
Well, one of my life skills is the ability to make minimal and possibly absurd connections, linking the trivial and the profound. Thus, a few years back (when I still mowed my own lawn), I wrote this poem. It’s called “Buddha’s Lawn”:
I mow the lawn and feel gratitude
my neighbors
haven’t pigeonholed me as a crazy old coot.
I’m stalled in my transition
from a lifestyle and sense of order based on
killing things,
like weeds, mice, whatever,
to one based on reverence for all stuff,
however weird.
It’s a cool day but
I work up a sweat.
On the lawn, I pick up a shred
of burst red balloon, a used napkin,
a transparent plastic juice container.
This stuff is all just litter
and the weeds are still weeds.
If I really let myself
see them differently,
I’d be the crazy neighbor, right?
You know, value everything, including the disposables of life. I guess I’ve always had this wacky inner protest going on, not against order and cleanliness per se, but against the clank of the trash can: “throwing stuff away,” then assuming it’s permanently gone from our universe, rather than floating in a river somewhere or buried in a landfill.
Is it possible, I quietly (secretly) ask myself, to actually value... somehow... trash, weeds, mice, bugs, or anything—everything—else that doesn’t fit into a properly civilized, middle-class universe? This secret question is mixed with confusion, even shame, because, well, I’m sort of a slob, indifferent to dust and disorder and the like, but also, at the same time, a participant in and benefactor of humanity’s exploitation of Planet Earth.
So, I tell myself: Just mow the damn lawn, toss out (or maybe recycle) the litter, and do your best to fit in. I try, I try, but my strange, soul-deep uncertainty persists. And a larger, far more troubling question quickly emerges. Where do we draw the line between valuing and dismissing... whatever?
And my uncertainties turn social. They turn political. I grew up in the Christian church, and heard its values espoused: “Do unto others as you would have them do un o you.” And, oh yeah: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
Could anything resonate more clearly? This was deep, unyielding: Don’t submit to simplistic anger but dig, when you are hurt and offended, for understanding, for healing. Love is not a simple concept—a sploosh of kumbaya and the problem’s solved. It may well be life’s deepest challenge.
But as Christianity became a world religion, its cross got turned upside down and became a sword. And along came the Crusades. Let’s retake the Holy Land, man! Loving thy enemy apparently meant killing him—and his family, his children. Millions of people died. And the wars rolled on and on. Conquest and dehumanization became fully embedded as the religious values of the powerful. Human ingenuity—scientific progress—mostly fed the urge for war, culminating in the creation, and use, of the atomic bomb. And 12,000 or so nuclear bombs now sit here and there around the planet, continually upgraded, patiently waiting to end the world.
But even as ending the world remains on hold, non-nuclear wars continue, making the news virtually unbearable to read. For instance, over 50,000 Palestinians,—maybe 100,000 or more—have died in Israel’s genocidal assault.
And, as Truthout reports:
Many Palestinians say that the starvation is even worse than Israel’s bombardments, having been starved by varying levels of Israel’s blockade for 19 months and with food costs constantly on the rise. The total aid blockade ushered in the worst conditions of the genocide so far; one Palestinian reporter said in March that children in the region are so hungry that they’re drawing pictures of food in the sand.
...According to an assessment by the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, nearly 71,000 children are expected to experience acute malnutrition in the next year due to Israel’s blockade.
This is humanity’s flow of indifference to much—or all?—of life. I can’t let go of it. And I can’t stop noticing it at the miniscule level of “weeds” and “litter” and every other aspect of nature that doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is not, oh gosh, be good to the weeds, be good to the discarded cigarette butts and plastic straws—but rather, notice them and ponder, with deep wonderment, the meaning of nature, the meaning of life.
What if we started collectively seeing that discarded plastic straw not as simply an assault on our sense of order—clean sidewalks!—but as a minute particle of the living planet? How far upward might this awareness flow?
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