Melissa Fares and Timothy Gardner at Reuters explain the recklessness of Donald Trump’s policy pronouncements via tweet:
In his Twitter post, Trump said, "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes," but gave no further details.
It was not clear what prompted his comment. However, earlier on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia needed to "strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces." [...]
"It is completely irresponsible for the president-elect or the president to make changes to U.S. nuclear policy in 140 characters and without understanding the implications of statements like ‘expand the capacity,’" said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, a leading proponent of arms control based in Washington.
"He must have leaders around the world trying to guess what he means," Kimball said in an interview. "This is bush league."
Betsy Woodruff at The Week:
“‘Expand our capabilities?’” [Jeffrey Lewis, Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies] added. “Maybe that means more weapons, maybe that just means the capabilities are better. Policymaking by Twitter is a pretty freaking weird endeavor.”
Trump is not a nuclear weapon wonk. He struggled mightily to answer a question about the nuclear triad in a Republican primary debate last December.
After saying he thought nuclear proliferation was the “biggest problem we have today,” moderator Hugh Hewitt asked him what his priority would be for upgrading American nuclear capabilities.
“I think to me, nuclear, is just the power, the devastation is very important to me,” Trump answered somberly.