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Trump Is No Peace President. Call Him the Proliferation President
Weapons contractors could not be happier, but for the rest of us the state of world affairs is beyond alarming.
Apr 23, 2025
Much to my astonishment, some voters thought Donald Trump might be a “peace president.” I never bought it, so won’t outline the case for such magical thinking here, but his major increase already excessive U.S. weapons transfers to Israel as it continues its illegal genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and recent, contradictory statements by Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio regarding working to end Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, or throwing in the towel on diplomacy, should by now have disabused anyone that Trump is a consistent peace advocate.
In the wake of his and Elon Musk’s taking a sledgehammer to all manner of government programs, in both domestic and foreign policy, there is real concern more countries than the current nine—the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea, which are all upgrading their nuclear arsenals, at an exorbitant opportunity cost to be paid in unmet human and environmental needs—might decide to build their own nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the view is one of unpredictability, rather than stability, coming from Washington. That should frighten us all. So Donald Trump looks now to be more of a Proliferation President than a Peace President.
In an interview last fall with Fox News personality Sean Hannity, President-Elect Donald Trump stated, “nuclear weapons are the biggest problem we have.” Were he prone to reflection and self-accountability (admittedly a laughably far-fetched notion), Trump might admit he exacerbated the problem in his first term in office.
Trump petulantly pulled the U.S. out of the multilateral Iran anti-nuclear deal, which had effectively capped Iran’s nuclear program well short of the ability to produce The Bomb. Now his administration is exploring a new agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program, and/or threatening to bomb Iran if it doesn’t agree to whatever he proposes. To Trump’s credit, he recently told Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, which it would need U.S. military assistance including in-air refueling to do, though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hasn’t given up on the idea. The world, already aflame in too many places, holds its breath.
Moreover, Trump ditched the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and the Open Skies Treaty. He infamously threatened North Korea with “fire and fury” before embarking on failed, bizarre bromance summits with Kim Jong Un. Just last week the U.S. flew nuclear capable bombers over North Korea on the birthday of its founder, Kim Il Sung. The North Korean government understandably viewed the U.S. war drills with South Korea as a “grave provocation” and threatened unspecified retaliation. Meanwhile, nuclear weapons and overall Pentagon spending soared, under Biden and now Trump, to over $1 trillion per year. Weapons contractors could not be happier, but for the rest of us, the state of world affairs is beyond alarming.
After four years in which former President Joe Biden did little to correct these problems, the world faces Trump anew with considerable trepidation. Might he reverse course and embrace an historic opportunity to halt the new arms race and pursue nuclear cuts? He can’t just be trusted to do so, though perhaps his ego (desire for a Nobel Peace Prize?) and whatever strange symbiotic authoritarian relationship he has with Russian President Vladimir Putin might factor in. Trump is planning a military parade in Washington on his birthday in June, and wants to build Golden Dome, a Star Wars-type missile defense system over the U.S., which again might well spur other countries to increase their nuclear weapons in order to overwhelm such a system, whether it would work to protect the United States (highly unlikely) or not.
Regardless, history shows us that progress toward peace, disarmament, and enhanced global security for all only happens with sustained public pressure. It can’t be left only to capricious politicians. The wild card of Trump aside, there needs to be a two-track strategy to advance an anti-nuclear, pro-disarmament agenda.
On the one hand, those who have realistic ideas about increasing world peace need to continue advocating prudent steps to reduce the nuclear danger via international disarmament diplomacy; rejecting Sole Authority for any president to launch a nuclear first strike; declaring a No First Use of nuclear weapons policy for the United States, regardless of who is in the White House; cutting funding for the New Arms Race (the estimated $1.7 trillion over thirty years “nuclear modernization” scheme, especially the Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, which doesn’t work and is absurdly over budget, and other new nuclear weapons systems); and building support for the UN’s Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
On the other hand, while President Trump is unpredictable—and could possibly leverage several factors to pursue nuclear weapons reductions with Russia, China (very doubtful), and possibly other states—the Dr. Strangeloves in the “defense establishment” are pushing hard for the possible resumption of full-scale nuclear weapons explosive testing, which the U.S. has eschewed since 1992, and possibly exceeding New START deployment limits of 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads for both Russia and the U.S. That treaty, the only one remaining that limits U.S. and Russia’s deployed nuclear arsenals, is set to expire February 4, 2026, with no talks to extend or improve it ongoing. The Nukes Forever crowd propose increasing funding for and accelerating new nuclear weapons systems and warhead factories, and limiting congressional oversight while streamlining approval for such unproven programs, and more.
Anyone who cares about U.S. and global security needs to oppose, and in some cases work to pre-empt, such steps toward the nuclear brink. Stopping any move to resume nuclear weapons testing might well be key to reviving broad domestic and global opposition to nuclear weapons.
A clear eyed analysis shows Trump has never shown genuine interest in peace except for possible political gain. Then there is his bizarre bond with his tyrannical counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the expense of Ukraine's (and Europe's) independence. This Trump-Putin relationship, along with Trump's fanciful yet terrifying imperialist goals (including possible conquest of Panama, Greenland, Gaza, and maybe Canada) and the high stakes economic, political and possibly military competition with China, make him seem much more militaristic than pacific.
So those expecting Trump to be a Peace President are likely to be sorely disappointed. The rest of us should remain vigilant and advocate opportunities for real progress toward peace and disarmament.
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Close the US Military Bases in Asia
With America’s 750 or so overseas military bases in around 80 countries, it’s high time to close these bases, pocket the saving, and return to diplomacy. Our bases across Asia are a good place to start.
Apr 22, 2025
President Donald Trump is again loudly complaining that the U.S. military bases in Asia are too costly for the U.S. to bear. As part of the new round of tariff negotiations with Japan and Korea, Trump is calling on Japan and Korea to pay for stationing the US troops. Here’s a much better idea: close the bases and bring the U.S. servicemen home.
Trump implies that the U.S. is providing a great service to Japan and Korea by stationing 50,000 troops in Japan and nearly 30,000 in Korea. Yet these countries do not need the U.S. to defend themselves. They are wealthy and can certainly provide their own defense. Far more importantly, diplomacy can ensure the peace in northeast Asia far more effectively and far less expensively than U.S. troops.
The U.S. acts as if Japan needs to be defended against China. Let’s have a look. During the past 1,000 years, during which time China was the region’s dominant power for all but the last 150 years, how many times did China attempt to invade Japan? If you answered zero, you are correct. China did not attempt to invade Japan on a single occasion.
You might quibble. What about the two attempts in 1274 and 1281, roughly 750 years ago? It’s true that when the Mongols temporarily ruled China between 1271 and 1368, the Mongols twice sent expeditionary fleets to invade Japan, and both times were defeated by a combination of typhoons (known in Japanese lore as the Kamikaze winds) and by Japanese coastal defenses.
Japan, on the other hand, made several attempts to attack or conquer China. In 1592, the arrogant and erratic Japanese military leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched an invasion of Korea with the goal of conquering Ming China. He did not get far, dying in 1598 without even having subdued Korea. In 1894-5, Japan invaded and defeated China in the Sino-Japanese war, taking Taiwan as a Japanese colony. In 1931, Japan invaded northeast China (Manchuria) and created the Japanese colony of Manchukuo. In 1937, Japan invaded China, starting World War II in the Pacific region.
Nobody thinks that Japan is going to invade China today, and there is no rhyme, reason, or historical precedent to believe that China is going to invade Japan. Japan has no need for the US military bases to protect itself from China.
The same is true of China and Korea. During the past 1,000 years, China never invaded Korea, except on one occasion: when the U.S. threatened China. China entered the war in late 1950 on the side of North Korea to fight the U.S. troops advancing northward towards the Chinese border. At the time, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur recklessly recommended attacking China with atomic bombs. MacArthur also proposed to support Chinese nationalist forces, then based in Taiwan, to invade the Chinese mainland. President Harry Truman, thank God, rejected MacArthur’s recommendations.
South Korea needs deterrence against North Korea, to be sure, but that would be achieved far more effectively and credibly through a regional security system including China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, than through the presence of the U.S., which has repeatedly stoked North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and military build-up, not diminished it.
In fact, the U.S. military bases in East Asia are really for the U.S. projection of power, not for the defense of Japan or Korea. This is even more reason why they should be removed. Though the U.S. claims that its bases in East Asia are defensive, they are understandably viewed by China and North Korea as a direct threat – for example, by creating the possibility of a decapitation strike, and by dangerously lowering the response times for China and North Korea to a U.S. provocation or some kind of misunderstanding. Russia vociferously opposed NATO in Ukraine for the same justifiable reasons. NATO has frequently intervened in U.S.-backed regime-change operations and has placed missile systems dangerously close to Russia. Indeed, just as Russia feared, NATO has actively participated in the Ukraine War, providing armaments, strategy, intelligence, and even programming and tracking for missile strikes deep inside of Russia.
Note that Trump is currently obsessed with two small port facilities in Panama owned by a Hong Kong company, claiming that China is threatening U.S. security (!), and wants the facilities sold to an American buyer. The U.S. on the other hand surrounds China not with two tiny port facilities but with major U.S. military bases in Japan, South Korea, Guam, the Philippines, and the Indian Ocean near to China’s international sea lanes.
The best strategy for the superpowers is to stay out of each other’s lanes. China and Russia should not open military bases in the Western Hemisphere, to put it mildly. The last time that was tried, when the Soviet Union placed nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, the world nearly ended in nuclear annihilation. (See Martin Sherwin’s remarkable book, Gambling with Armageddon for the shocking details on how close the world came to nuclear Armageddon). Neither China nor Russia shows the slightest inclination to do so today, despite all of the provocations of facing US bases in their own neighborhoods.
Trump is looking for ways to save money – an excellent idea given that the U.S. federal budget is hemorrhaging $2 trillion dollars a year, more than 6% of U.S. GDP. Closing the U.S. overseas military bases would be an excellent place to start.
Trump even seemed to point that way at the start of his second term, but the Congressional Republicans have called for increases, not decreases, in military spending. Yet with America’s 750 or so overseas military bases in around 80 countries, it’s high time to close these bases, pocket the saving, and return to diplomacy. Getting the host countries to pay for something that doesn’t help them or the U.S. is a huge drain of time, diplomacy, and resources, both for the U.S. and the host countries.
The U.S. should make a basic deal with China, Russia, and other powers. “You keep your military bases out of our neighborhood, and we’ll keep our military bases out of yours.” Basic reciprocity among the major powers would save trillions of dollars of military outlays over the coming decade and, more importantly, would push the Doomsday Clock back from 89 seconds to nuclear Armageddon.
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South Korean Parliament Votes 190-0 to Reverse Martial Law Edict
"The declaration of the martial law is now invalid—the people now can be relieved," said National Assembly Speak Woo Won Shik after the vote.
Dec 03, 2024
This is a developing story... Check back for possible updates...
Members of South Korea's parliament voted unanimously and across party lines on Tuesday to rescind a declaration of martial law by President Yoon Suk Yeol just hours earlier.
Following the 190-0 vote, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik declared that the president's declaration was no longer valid and vowed that the elected representatives of parliament would "protect democracy with the people."
"Through the passage of the motion through the National Assembly, the president must immediately lift the martial law," Woo said in a statement. "The declaration of the martial law is now invalid—the people [of South Korea] now can be relieved."
The effort by Yoon to impose martial law, reportsReuters, "which he cast as aimed at his political foes, was vocally opposed by the speaker of parliament and even the leader of Yoon's own [conservative] party, Han Dong-hoon, who has clashed with the president over his handling of recent scandals."
According to the Associated Press:
Police and military personnel were seen leaving the Assembly's grounds after Woo called for their withdrawal. Lee Jae-myung, leader of the liberal Democratic Party, which holds the majority in the 300-seat parliament, said the party’s lawmakers will remain in the Assembly’s main hall until Yoon formally lifts his order.
"Democratic Party lawmakers, including me and many others, will protect our country's democracy and future and public safety, lives and properties, with our own lives," Lee told reporters.
The AP was providing a live feed from outside parliament in Seoul, where some had gathered to protest the move by Yoon:
The South Korean military reportedly said it would not stand down until Yoon officially lifted the order, as members of the opposition, including Lee and Woo, vowed to remain inside the parliament until such an order was delivered.
According to the Korean Herald: "Under the Constitution, martial law must be lifted when a parliamentary majority demands it." The newspaper reported that martial law troops had dispersed following the request of the Speaker Woo.
The parliamentary motion was passed less than three hours after Yoon first declared martial law.
"I remind [the presidential office] clearly that they must carry out the process of lifting the martial law without delay," said Woo.
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