An unconventional solution to the nuclear paradox: madness! | Guest Commentary | Commentary

That’s what I had written on my protest sign against the Minuteman III ICBM launch test on the evening of Feb. 18 at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Unbeknown to the general public, there were seven protestors standing at the main gate of the base, beginning at 11 p.m.

The launch went off at 1 a.m. The missile looked like a spear of fire in the sky. It headed for the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, 4,200 miles away. The Air Force Global Strike Command titled its article covering the “successful” event as, “Minuteman III test launch showcases readiness of U.S. nuclear force’s safe, effective deterrent.”

One wonders, how 400 armed Minuteman III missiles deployed in Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota on “hair-trigger alert,” have anything to do with safety.

According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, each ICBM could cause over 580,000 instantaneous fatalities if it were dropped on a city like New York.

And for the Air Force to “showcase” such a monstrous weapon? Isn’t this boasting more appropriate for a fireworks performance?

If any of the nine countries possessing nuclear weapons were to fire off one of them, it could readily lead to a global conflict resulting in the annihilation of humanity.

Numerous multinational, nuclear arms control treaties have been adopted over many decades, beginning in 1968 with the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and most recently with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which came into force in 2021.

The nonproliferation treaty called for stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. It has failed. The prohibition treaty calls for their elimination. The U.S. and other nuclear powers have refused to join it.

So nuclear Armageddon still hovers over our heads.

This raises a pressing question: Why aren’t people screaming from rooftops, alarmed by this most immediate, existential threat?

A short answer, is that the human race has gone mad. The world populace has become comfortable with nuclear weaponry. And although I regularly protest against the U.S. nuclear arsenal, I admit I am mostly unconscious of it. I am complicit in the madness.

But lately I’ve come to believe that it’s madness that may lead to nuclear disarmament.

Here, despite what I find to be his numerous grave shortcomings and indiscretions, I look to our current president to pull humanity out of its nuclear quagmire.

If there is a global leader who can navigate madness — unimpeded by regret or conscientiousness — it’s Donald Trump. The man minimally operates out of principle. His key modus operandi is transactional. Trump is about callous quid pro quo: making the deal.

For example, what other world leader but Trump would dare call for transforming Gaza, a land devastated by U.S. bombs and still containing many uncovered bodies, into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” displacing 2 million desperate Palestinians in the process?

Is this not Trump seeking a return on the American monies that have financed the Israeli assault on Gaza?

Now consider nuclear weapons.

Practically speaking, if one sees value in life and infrastructure, these weapons are unusable.

Yet, they cost a fortune to build, maintain, and modernize. Nukes are a no-win venture.

That’s madness in Trump’s world. So thinking transactionally, blatantly calling for denuclearization as he did publicly in the Oval Office on Feb. 13 — to begin with agreements with Russia and China — may have promise.

On top of that, were Trump to successfully lead global society into a nonnuclear world, he’s bound to gain more positive international acclaim, even a Nobel Peace Prize. Imagine how that will feed his ego and boost the value of the Trump name!

In the meantime, I’ll keep protesting with others and questioning what Donald Trump claims and does. But if he pulls off the nuke deal, I may be compelled to respect him.