Abstract
In this chapter, Thomas MacManus provides an examination of nuclear weapons in the age of Donald Trump. Through examining Trump’s reckless language and dangerous nuclear posturing toward North Korea, MacManus questions the legality of these threats as codified in international law. Moreover, MacManus discusses the legal mechanisms in the USA that provide a modicum of constraint for the deployment of nuclear weapons by the Trump regime.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Screenshot available with Author.
- 2.
Merriam-Webster (undated) The Real Story of ‘Fake News’, undated, https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-real-story-of-fake-news.
- 3.
‘Grave breaches’ of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I.
- 4.
Tactical weapons are used on the battlefield to kill enemy soldiers and destroy enemy assets.
- 5.
“Force without War” is the title of a 1978 Brookings Institution Press book by Barry Blechman and Stephen S. Kaplan.
- 6.
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.
- 7.
See “Presidential Actions” on Whitehouse website, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/.
- 8.
Interviewed by Christopher Wallace on Fox News Sunday, recorded at Trump Tower, NYC Friday, April 1, 2016. Broadcast Sunday, April 3, 2016 (referred to in Yuhas 2016).
- 9.
A triad (3) of nuclear weapon systems on land (intercontinental ballistic missiles), sea (submarine-launched ballistic missiles), and air (nuclear-capable heavy bombers).
- 10.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (UK, 1964) Director: Stanley Kubrick.
- 11.
For the sake of clarity, it should be noted that the meeting concerned opioids and not that the president was on opioids (as far as the Author is aware).
- 12.
The “Martens Clause” (extract), which was first included in the Hague Convention II with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 1899. A modern version can be found in Article 1, paragraph 2, of the 1977 Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions (1949).
- 13.
Letter dated June 20, 1995, from the Acting Legal Adviser to the Department of State, together with Written Statement of the Government of the United States of America, p. 2, http://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/95/8700.pdf.
- 14.
“A rifle may be lawfully aimed at the enemy or it may be employed indiscriminately against civilians and soldiers alike. Bombs may be aimed at specific military targets or thrown at random. The indiscriminate use of the weapon will be prohibited, not the weapon as such” (Blix 1988).
- 15.
Letter dated June 19, 1995, from the Ambassador of the Russian Federation, together with Written Comments of the Government of the Russian Federation, at p. 5, http://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/95/8796.pdf.
- 16.
Letter dated May 18, 1995, from the Permanent Representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Permanent Mission to the United Nations, at p. 1, http://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/95/8668.pdf.
- 17.
While running for re-election, the president made this “joke” while doing a sound check prior to his weekly radio address. For the audio file, see http://www.npr.org/news/specials/obits/reagan/audio_archive.html.
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
United Nations Security Council Meeting no. 474. Resolution Code: S/1511 (Document) Subject: Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea. UNSC, June 27, 1950. https://undocs.org/S/RES/83(1950).
- 23.
2018 Gridiron Club and Foundation Dinner at Renaissance Washington Hotel on Saturday, 3 March, quoted here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2018/03/04/at-a-white-tie-media-dinner-president-trump-tries-joking-i-like-chaos/.
References
Adams, Sherman. 1961. Firsthand Report: The Story of the Eisenhower Administration. New York: Harper & Brothers.
BBC. 2017. North Korea Conducts Ballistic Missile Test. BBC Asia, February 12. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-38947451.
Biden, Joe. 2017. Remarks by the Vice President on Nuclear Security (as prepared for delivery). Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, January 11. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=121419.
Blix, Hans. 1988. Means and Methods of Combat. In International Dimensions of Humanitarian Law, ed. UNESCO, 1998, 144–145. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.
Bump, Philip. 2016. Are Donald Trump’s Fingers Weirdly Short? An Investigation. Washington Post, March 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/01/are-donald-trumps-fingers-weirdly-short-an-investigation/.
CBS. 2016. Face the Nation Transcripts January 3, 2016: Trump, Morell & Donilon. CBS News/AP, January 3. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-the-nation-transcripts-january-3-2016-trump-morell-donilon/.
Dingman, Roger. 1988. Atomic Diplomacy During the Korean War. International Security 13 (3): 50–91.
Eisenhower, Dwight D. 1963. The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953–1956. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Falk, Richard. 2018. Book Launch: Revisiting the Vietnam War: The Views and Interpretations of Richard Falk. Ed. Stefan Andersson. Global Justice in the 21st Century (Blog), March 2. https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2018/03/02/book-launch-revisiting-the-vietnam-war-the-views-and-interpretations-of-richard-falk-edited-by-stefan-andersson/.
Gavin, Francis J. 2018. Must we mean what we say? Making sense of the nuclear posture review. War on the Rocks, February 15. https://warontherocks.com/2018/02/must-mean-say-making-sense-nuclear-posture-review/.
Gray, Colin S., and Keith Payne. 1980. Victory Is Possible. Foreign Policy 39 (Summer): 14–27 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148409.
Gronlund, Lisbeth. 2018. Nuclear Posture Review Policies Increase Risk of Nuclear War. February 2. https://www.ucsusa.org/press/2018/nuclear-posture-review-policies-increase-risk-nuclear-war.
Kershner, Isabel. 2018. Netanyahu, Visiting U.S., Is Stalked by Legal Troubles at Home. New York Times, March 5. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/world/middleeast/israel-netanyahu-corruption-scandal.html.
Kimball, Daryl G., and Kingston Reif. 2017. Trump Questions U.S. Nuclear Policies. Arms Control Today, March. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-07/news/trump-continues-obama-nuclear-funding.
Kline, Naomi. 2017. No Is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics. UK: Penguin Random House.
Kube, Courtney, Kristen Welker, Carol E. Lee, and Savannah Guthrie. 2017. Trump Wanted Tenfold Increase in Nuclear Arsenal, Surprising Military. NBC News, October 11, 2017. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/trump-wanted-dramatic-increase-nuclear-arsenal-meeting-military-leaders-n809701.
MSNBC. 2016. Donald Trump Won’t Take Nukes Off the Table. MSNBC Hardball, March 31. http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/donald-trump-won-t-take-nukes-off-the-table-655471171934.
NBC. 2008 [1999]. NBC Meet The Press. NBC, October 24. https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/flashback-trump-says-negotiate-like-crazy-with-north-korea-1020367939707.
Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). 2018. Nuclear Posture Review Final Report. USA Department of Defence. https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF.
Pach, Chester J., Jr. n.d. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Foreign Affairs. The Miller Center, University of Virginia. Available at https://millercenter.org/president/eisenhower/foreign-affairs.
Panda, Ankit. 2018. US must be wary of Kim Jong-un’s ‘olive branch’ offer to South Korea and its Winter Games. South China Morning Post, January 3. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2126594/opinion-us-must-be-wary-kim-jong-uns-olive-branch-offer.
Perry, Mark. 2018. Trump’s Nuke Plan Raising Alarms Among Military Brass. The American Conservative, February 2. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trumps-new-nuke-nuclear-plan-npr-raising-alarms-among-military-brass-war/.
Shwayder, Maya. 2013. Adelson: US Should Drop Atomic Bomb on Iran. Jerusalem Post, October 24.
Tobias, Manuela. 2017. A Trump nuclear strike against North Korea: constitutional or not? Politifact, August 10. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/aug/10/nuclear-strike-against-north-korea-constitutional-/.
Vitali, Ali. 2017. Trump’s Tweets ‘Official Statements,’ Spicer Says. NBC News, June 6. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-s-tweets-official-statements-spicer-says-n768931.
Wagner, John, and Anna Fifield. 2017. Trump: ‘All Options Are on the Table’ After North Korea Launched Missile Over Japan. Washington Post, August 29. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/08/29/trump-all-options-are-on-the-table-following-north-korea-missile-launch-over-japan/.
Wolff, Michael. 2018. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump Whitehouse. London: Little, Brown.
Yuhas, Alan. 2016. Trump contradicts himself on nuclear weapons—as it happened, US elections 2016 The 2016 campaign, minute-by-minute. The Guardian (UK), April 3. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2016/apr/03/donald-trump-ted-cruz-republicans-wisconsin-sanders-clinton-live/.
Zeleny, Jeff, Dan Merica, and Kevin Liptak. 2017. Trump’s ‘Fire and Fury’ Remark Was Improvised But Familiar. CNN, August 9. https://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/09/politics/trump-fire-fury-improvise-north-korea/index.html.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
MacManus, T. (2019). Trump and Nuclear Weapons. In: Kowalski, J. (eds) Reading Donald Trump. The Evolving American Presidency. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93179-1_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93179-1_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-93178-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-93179-1
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)