Trump Declares Nuclear Testing for Peace. Again.
President Trump announced, via Truth Social, the U.S. would resume nuclear weapons testing, citing other countries' programs and calling it a 'no choice' situation. This comes just an hour before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Conveniently, mainstream outlets like Axios present this as a 'reigniting of a superpower arms race,' often failing to mention the US's long history of
undermining international arms control treaties, from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019. The U.S. having 'more Nuclear Weapons than any other country' (as Trump boasts) didn't prevent past administrations from seeking new strategic justifications or, as some critics might argue, new defense industry contracts. One might wonder if this
'tough talk' is less about genuine national security and more about manufacturing perceived threats to justify the trillion-dollar defense budgets that keep certain lobbying groups very happy. How many 'deterrents' do we need before we're simply building more reasons to be afraid?