Here is part of that new essay (‘ Little Boys and Blue Skies: Drones through post-atomic eyes‘):
I first discussed this in my presentation of ‘ Little Boys and Blue Skies‘ at a wonderful symposium ‘ Through Post-Atomic Eyes‘, and I’ve now revisited it for the long-form version (which you can at last find under the DOWNLOADS tab). Trump has happily inherited that programme, without, of course, crediting his predecessor.Īgainst this wretched backdrop, it’s worth revisiting America’s history of nuclear narcissism.
Although he achieved the nuclear agreement with Iran, averting a potential war, and expressed symbolic atonement on his visit to Hiroshima, he also oversaw a programme of nuclear modernisation, with a commitment to a trillion dollars in extra spending over thirty years, increasing America’s ability to crush its opponents in a first strike. (A president can only grab a pussy: he can’t be one.) When Obama tried to discuss a no-first-use declaration, his cabinet quickly dissuaded him. When Obama said that he wouldn’t consider using nuclear weapons against Pakistan at a presidential debate in 2008, Hillary Clinton scolded him: ‘I don’t believe any president should make blanket statements with regard to use or non-use.’ The right to annihilate one’s enemies (or frenemies, as in the case of Pakistan) is a right no American leader can afford to relinquish, for fear that he or she would be accused of being a pushover, an appeaser – a pussy. Democratic politicians – presidents, and would-be presidents – have spoken with no less gusto of their willingness to ‘keep all options on the table’. What’s really terrifying about Trump’s control of the bomb is that it’s no aberration: in fact, it’s utterly normal. For background, I recommend Adam Shatz‘s essay in the LRB, ‘ The President and the Bomb‘: As Donald Trump‘s grotesque unfitness for office becomes ever clearer – though to most of us it was as plain as a pikestaff long before the election – a central vector of concern has been his proximity to the nuclear codes.