海角大神

President Trump doubled down聽on his earlier tough talk on nuclear-weapons policy in an interview on Thursday, standing by a January tweet calling for the strengthening and expansion of the nation鈥檚 nuclear capacity.

"We've fallen behind on nuclear weapon capacity,"聽, according to a transcript. "And I am the first one that would like to see 鈥� nobody have nukes, but we鈥檙e never going to fall behind any country even if it鈥檚 a friendly country, we鈥檙e never going to fall behind on nuclear power."

More than 90 percent of the world's nuclear warheads belong to Russia and the United States, according to the , with聽Russia recently surpassing the number of those held by the US 鈥� though most arms-control experts say that the US probably has greater capability. The total US holdings of 6,970 warheads聽聽is well down from the 1967 peak of 31,255.聽

Mr. Trump offered little clarification this week of how his stewardship of nuclear weapons would break with that of previous presidents.

鈥淚t鈥檚 ambiguous,鈥� says Vipin Narang, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.,聽who studies states鈥� use of nuclear weapons.

That vagueness in signaling, he tells 海角大神 in a phone interview,聽and聽tends to be a recipe for escalation, as rivals and allies alike often assume the worst-case scenario.

鈥淭hese words matter. In nuclear jargon, there is a very calibrated language for signaling uses,鈥� he says.聽

But the president鈥檚 remarks may also turn a spotlight onto the unresolved questions of the Obama administration鈥檚 鈥� one likely to absorb much of the new president鈥檚 enthusiasm for arms escalation.

Nearly the entirety of US nuclear systems, from warheads to the missiles, submarines or bombers that deliver them, date back to the eras of former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e all at different points, but all need to be replaced more or less at the same time,鈥� says Jeffrey Lewis, an arms-control expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif. 鈥淪o that leads to the question of, how much is that going to cost, and can we replace them fast enough?鈥�

Before leaving office, former President Barack Obama authorized $1 trillion for the project over 30 years, in a move that was widely panned by weapons experts as unserious, and a way of passing the decision off to his successor.

鈥淚n short, the current nuclear spending plans are a fantasy,鈥� of the Arms Control Association last February.

Only with big, long-term increases to military spending over the next decade, or shifts in funding away from other military and national-security modernization programs, could the plans be achieved, he argued.

鈥淭he most likely outcome is that the current plans will collapse under their own weight and force reductions in U.S. nuclear forces,鈥� he added.

鈥淢ost of us don鈥檛 believe that the modernization plan is executable,鈥� Dr. Lewis tells the Monitor. 鈥淎nd the Obama people were very clear鈥� that they were glad that the problem would not be theirs to solve, he adds.

In the interview with Reuters, Trump also criticized New START, the arms-control treaty with Russia that led to funding for the modernization-project, as 鈥渏ust another bad deal鈥� and 鈥渙ne-sided.鈥� But it may well be that any push for build-up would come within the parameters of the treaty.

Rebeccah Heinrichs, a nuclear-deterrence specialist and fellow at the Hudson Institute, applauded Trump鈥檚 vow to expand and strengthen the nuclear arsenal arguing that Russian violations of the treaty meant that the US 鈥渕ust do exactly what Mr. Trump said it ought to do.鈥�

鈥�This does not mean the United States must expand its numbers beyond the treaty limits; rather, it should expand in number within the boundaries of the treaty, because although the Russians are above New START Treaty limits, the United States is below them,鈥� she wrote.

Dr. Narang, the MIT political scientist, says there has been 鈥渁 lot of continuity鈥� in how previous presidents ended up stewarding nuclear force because of political and bureaucratic resistance.聽

For now, there are a few clear red lines.

鈥淚t becomes different if [Trump] is talking about building new warheads. And testing is a red line. If we start, that opens the door for China, India, North Korea鈥� and others, he says. 鈥淎nd we lose.鈥�