Feddit.onlineTrump wants denuclearization talks with Russia and China, hopes for defense spending cuts
NightOwlapnews.com/article/trump-china-russia-nuclear-b…
78 Comments
Comments from other communities
It's because they fired all the people in control of the US nukes and can't figure out how to contact them.
Why? Is he suddenly running scared and realizing just how badly he has crippled the US military and national security, not to mention any hope of counting on our allies to back us up when the threats start coming?
Then again, Trump is gullible enough to actually *believe* other countries were disarming and would shut down our entire program without a hint of assurances. And then he'd have to tell his MAGAts to be shocked when a few of our cities got nuked because how could anyone have predicted this could happen.
AndyDude...
As the expression goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Sure, he's a morally bankrupt wildly corrupt autocrat. But sometimes his enemies happen to be people I hate too.
Why is he doing this? I can't say for certain, but my guess is that the military-industrial complex is on the wrong side of his kleptocracy. If they'd given the right bribes and flattery I'm sure he'd be saying that we gotta build more nukes, but apparently the CEOs of Raytheon et. al. didn't back the right horse. Plus, Trump likes the dictator club. He'd rather he, Putin, and Xi spent those dollars on presidential yaughts and focused on locking up dissidents than having an arms race among buddies.
Even still... fundamentally he's fuckin right. It makes no sense for us to give billions and billions and billions to these companies so that we have the capacity to exterminate the human race a fifth time or something. Killing our whole species once is fuckin stupid to begin with, but planning on doing it multiple times is just advanced levels of stupid, and it's dangerous as hell to incentivize other countries to get into this red-queen race.
Sure, his reasons are almost certainly evil as hell. But wherever they are... he's right that we should cut our military budget in half and negotiate disarmament.
Plus, Trump likes the dictator club. He’d rather he, Putin, and Xi spent those dollars on presidential yaughts and focused on locking up dissidents than having an arms race among buddies.
This is my read too.
Holy shit... I did not have that on my bingo card.
Fine. Who knows if it'll happen, but when he's right, he's right. I don't think he'll ever be able to make me like his fascist ass, but if he cuts the military budget and sets up a new arms control treaty I'll give him the credit for it.
We'll see.
2 quick thoughts :
- They are genuinely concerned about the debt all of a sudden.
- Nukes actually cost the government a lot - because they have to control the production themselves. Meaning less money for the arms industry.
Xi and Putin will probably just say “You first”. If trump can just pretend that is reasonable and unilaterally does the cut, that will be one good thing for humanity (albeit make some Americans uncomfortable).
ChozoAs an American, that idea makes me *very* uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, I hate the fact that we have as many nukes as we do, and I hope to never live to see them used. But many of our national alliances exist *only because* we have as many nukes as we do; either to protect the ally, or to ensure they *stay* an ally. When you remove the threat of a military retaliation, the US doesn't really have a whole lot of *true* friends in this world. Should China or Russia fail to uphold their end of such a bargain, I doubt many would come to our aid if things went bad, and I'm just not built to live in a post-nuclear wasteland.
BagginsShould China or Russia fail to uphold their end of such a bargain
And they will, have no doubt about it.
Now that you put it like that this whole thing is sounding a lot better. More isolated US? Sign me the fuck up, though unfortunately I don't think it's that simple.
I appreciate your honesty. The fact you got many upvotes confirmed my previous guess that this type of insecurity, the fear of not being loved is quite popular among Americans. Been to many global south countries and Europe, I think that sentiment was very far from facts, so many people around the world just love the American culture, at least in Obama years, and even first year of Trump I.
Now with Trump, who himself apparently has this insecurity personally and remaking America in his own image, this insecurity is being established nationally and internalized and getting reinforced.
melpI feel like there's a lot more context to this than is being reported
Yes, he'll chop the US stockpile and let Putin carry on as usual. Because Putin suggested it to him as a way of saving money.
Trump will spout it as one of his bigly clever plans, because he has common sense and is such a brilliant business man. Lot of people tell him. Very clever people.
didn't Trump pull out of the last denuclearization treaty?
Since this actually sounds like a good decision... Over/under on Trump promising to double the amount of nukes and turn China into a nuclear wasteland unless they do something for him, by the end of next week?
I don’t know gambling metrics and terminology, so I’ll just answer “yes.”
USA have absolutely abysmal records of upholding nuclear disarmament so IF it is even a serious proposition, the reason for it it's the quickly incoming time when Minutemen missiles will have to be decomissioned while its replacement is so much overbudget and overtime that it seriously risk scrapping of entire project. Meaning the perspective USA will lose main part of its strategic armament is real.
Also you never, ever trust USA on any nuclear deals.
Also let's not forget that the US is literally hiring Elon Musk to help then "win" the nuclear war, their words not mine.
How anyone can think their denuclearization proposal is in good faith is beyond me.
I'll believe it when I see it. Military spending increased in his first term and talk is cheap.
If he actually followed through on cutting the military budget by half, it'd be an incredible move and I'd start considering him the lesser evil. But it's all for show, it's triangulation to appeal to certain groups. End of the day, he's a right winger and right wingers won't cut the military.
🫨
Like lining the pockets of me and my owners while systematically weakening the country
That's the sad part. They only get the first half right. 😂
So what's gonna happen when a finger on the monkey's paw curls for this?
As much as I hate it, the doctrine of mutual destruction seems to work. The removal of it might lead to immediate hot world war
I was gonna make a joke about this being the thing that finally makes Democrats fight Trump... But then I saw all the pro-nuke .world comments. We're so cooked
Denuclearization is a good thing.
Yes it's a good thing, but the US is utterly devoid of honour and trustworthiness and there's no chance they will actually follow through with denuclearizing their own arsenal, so this proposal is meaningless and no country should take it seriously.
True. The US is the only country that ever used them and the only country where politicians regularly threaten to use them. Somehow though they get to act as if they are the only ones that can be trusted with them.
I'm sure they will denuclearize in the same way North Korea did after Trump negotiated.
Why would North Korea denuclearize when the US still hasn't?
But Trump made a deal. The best deal in the history of deals.
Did the US uphold its end of the deal?
As far as I remember, the US interpreted "their end of the deal" differently than NK did.
That's exactly my point: Trump will "negotiate" the same way, will brag about a "deal" in the same way, and nothing will change in the same way, because both sides aren't really interested in substantial change in the same way.
And they will do it again. And again and again and again.
Deals with the US aren't worth the paper they're written on.
It is nominally a good thing. In the real world, however, I'd be working as hard as possible to ensure I had a nuclear program to discourage *specifically* Donald, Putin, and Elon
Those three aren't as bad as Netanyahu and he too has nuclear weapons.
No it's not. Maybe you haven't heard but there is a war in Ukraine. They gave up nukes in exchange for pinky swear promises that their sovereignty would be respected.
I dont care if you think Ukraine couldn't use them or if they would have been invaded if they didn't agree. The Ukraine war is a giant fucking advertisement for owning nukes.
The only thing psychotic hairless apes understand is immense violence. We are not civilized. We are cavemen with atom bombs and spaceships.
Every country should own nukes. Every country without nukes doesn't matter and is ripe for exploitation or invasion.
I agree with this.
I refuse to believe trump will do anything decent like this
Everyone's perspective is the same on Lemmy it seems or close and its getting old so much snide comments and negativity. We all should consider this a win regardless of how goofy any side is, its the thought that this approach is reaching the decision makers. Planting the seed.
I think this is likely one of the smartest things Trump has ever persued if it comes to fruition even partially a mere slither. The modern battlefield is fought with technology. Using drones/robots and infosec psyop and the list goes on and on.
Conventional war has more risk than worth now days leaves nothing but a pile of rocks nothing to claim but dirt.
While I don't think anyone will give them up soon sure even bad actors will hodl old means eventually the value prop and cost to maintain will sputter out, we all should know we have been heading that direction for a very long time. Progress no matter how small is a step in the right direction.
You can trust Lemmy for serious and well informed political analysis!
But seriously though,I agree with you. Lemmy doesn't seem to have heard of SALT treaties and act as though there is no precedence. While not perfect, it is better than nothing.
Looking at these comments: so now liberals love nuclear weapons?
Americans are ruled by a politics of opposition. Anything Trump does, the opposite must be good. Anything Biden does, the opposite must be good. Nobody thinks about anything from scratch.
Not trusting Russia used to be bipartisan.
Bilateral denuclearization agreements with Russia used to be bipartisan, too.
Russia hadn't started invading it's neighbors to steal resources.
wat...
This isn't something you should be proud of lol
I mean the distrust was shown again to have been true.
Not really, you people just killed and imprisoned anyone that wasn't racist towards Russians for years until there wasn't anyone outwardly neutral or positive towards Russia.
Big debt panic .
Idiots thought can fool the other 2. 🤣
Denuclearizing worked out so well for Ukraine.
Having less nukes is not the same as disarmament it's not even comparable. They dropped two nukes and did that much destruction in Japan, 2, and those were 1940s nukes, even with this change the US would still have thousands of nukes.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-many-nuclear-weapons-exist-and-who-has-them/
Ukraine went to 0 nukes, the US has 5000+ nukes, how would that even be comparable if the US let's say went down to 1000 nukes. That's still 1000 nukes more than 0.
Nukes wouldn't have saved them from being couped
Seems like a good deal to me.
Yeah because we're both super duper good at keeping our promises.
What he actually wants is denuclearization for *only* China and Russia so the US can use its unchecked nuclear force to threaten the world.
love me a foreign asset president.
This is why I blocked .world
so he is about to sell america out. good luck, voters
i guess ill look forward to /conservativeMemes about how bending the knee is is a good thing.
“hUrRr rUsSiA sTaNdS fOr PeAcE iN eUrOpE”
Yeah with all the ways he seems to be actively trying to ruin the country I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to see him have the US do it first and then the others "can follow" after they see we did it.
Except what they'll follow with are nukes aimed at us to ensure we can never get in their ways again. :/
As long as he gets a few million Rubles and Yuan in his pocket, he would absolutely do this.
downvote? how about explaining.
America has already been sold out. Almost every year, no matter who's in charge, the military gets bigger while everything else gets cut. The only people who benefit from it are military contractors and politicians. Of all the many wars since WWII, not one of them has actually benefitted ordinary people, and a lot of them have made the lives of ordinary people much worse for no reason. But because it's what the rich want, there's complete bipartisan support for it. People are struggling more and more every day to access education, healthcare, even basic necessities, while even our infrastructure is falling apart, but we have an endless supply of bombs and weapons, spending more on that than the next 9 countries combined.
If you actually care about US security, you should support cutting the military in favor of domestic spending, because at this point, who's going to stick their neck out to protect such a dysfunctional system? But no, even the supposedly "left-leaning" party is fully on board with militarism and jingoism while the core rots. To the point of attacking conservatives from the right over it!
As I say in my other comment in this thread, Trump isn't actually going to cut the military, he increased military spending in his first term and will most likely do so again. However, because of insane liberals who somehow still believe in "benevolent interventionism" even after Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump is able to triangulate and pick up antiwar, libertarian types who can't see through his act. Liberals do everything in their power to help him by openly supporting militarism and denouncing anyone who opposes it as a "Russian bot" (or similar), regardless of their reasons.
The bizarre thing is how someone can square the circle of angrily opposing military cuts while not recognizing that they're a right-winger.
Not the downvoter, but how about *you* explaining how restarting nuclear disarmament talks is selling out the American people?
The world is closer to nuclear war now then ever in history. It is now 89 seconds to midnight
Simple, without nukes we'll have war, real war, real dead Americans. Most of the reason the doomsday clock is so close right now, is because of Trump. His flippant bullshit about Gaza enraged the Arab world, stepping them closer to nuclear war. His attempts at peace in Ukraine, without involving the Ukrainians, is more likely to cause Ukraine to escalate. His defense secretary just told the Russian's they could defeat the US Navy. Definitely bullshit, but also makes Russia think they can start more shit, probably starting a wider war with NATO.
As opposed to dead everyone? Maybe consider that infinite war isn't the default state of a normal country.
Lmao not even fucking close. It was Obama who prepared this particular powder keg, it was Biden who set it off, it was Biden playing chicken with the nukes, and it was also Biden commissioning reports desperately looking for a scenario where he could let the fucking bombs fly.
I know libs like to pretend they live in a James Bond movie but Russia isn't interested in a protracted conflict with Europe, it's been trying to integrate their economy with them for over 30 years and the US keeps sticking its dick in the punch bowl.
If we draw down, between the number of nukes we have now, and 0, there will be a global war. The actual number of nukes won't matter, humanity will be at risk of extinction.
The only ones at fault for where we are now are the GoP and Trump. They've destabilized the Middle East by supporting Israels settlements, taken every dime from Putin to do his bidding for decades, tore up Pacific treaties to stop Xi, while doing every thing they can to get Iran to give them a pretense to invade.
Do you draw your theories from any actual school of geopolitics/international relations, or are you just winging it?
Because it seems like you’re your flying solo in your own paranoid mind palace, completely divorced from material reality.
What is this, noncredibledefense?
Really? How well did throwing away nukes go for Ukraine?
Irrelevant. This is about multilateral nuclear arms reduction, not unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Having less nukes is not the same as disarmament it's not even comparable. They dropped two nukes and did that much destruction in Japan, 2, and those were 1940s nukes, even with this change the US would still have thousands of nukes.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-many-nuclear-weapons-exist-and-who-has-them/
Ukraine went to 0 nukes, the US has 5000+ nukes, how would that even be comparable if the US let's say went down to 1000 nukes. That's still 1000 nukes more than 0.
Nuclear weapons didn't prevent Ukraine. We just got closer to annihilation than ever.
If you know even a single thing about Ukraine's history as an independent country, you know this comment is completely braindead and oozing with irony.
Russia was willing to risk nuclear war by fighting nuclear powers in Ukraine. If Ukraine had nukes maybe we'd just have the apocalypse.
They sure at shit would have.
Putin only invaded because Ukraine voluntarily disarmed after promises of protection from the US.
And the threat of all those Western nuclear powers in Ukraine didn't make Putin blink. Instead we just got closer to nuclear war than any time in recent memory.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a rush toward re-nuclearization after these last couple years.
What are the odds Ukraine would be invaded by Russia if they had nukes?
Would Trump be joking about making Canada a 51st state if they had nukes?
Trump and the rest of the American government is showing NATO and every other country that we're one election away from abandoning our promises to our allies. Nobody can be trusted.
Any country would be a fool to consider giving up their nukes after seeing the shitshow.
The man’s playing 4D chess with nukes again. Proposing to halve defense budgets while the world’s still a tinderbox—classic Trumpian audacity. Because inviting autocrats to a firesale on their only leverage is peak stability strategy.
Russia’s already ditched New START, China’s sprinting toward nuclear parity, and here we are, recycling the same failed playbook. Arms control via vibes and handshakes—because trusting Putin and Xi to pinky-swear their way to disarmament worked *so* well last time.
The math doesn’t lie: Cold War stockpiles could glass the planet a hundred times over. Modernizing them isn’t strategy—it’s a pissing contest funded by taxpayer dollars. But slashing budgets unilaterally? That’s not diplomacy; it’s naivety with a side of geopolitical Russian roulette.
Maybe focus on not setting the Middle East and Ukraine ablaze first. Priorities, folks.