Donald Trump on if he could start war with North Korea: 'I don't know. I mean, we'll see'
independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-poli...
independent.co.ukPosted Apr 30, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC
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independent.co.uk"People are saying, 'Is he sane?' I have no idea,” Mr Trump added.
The thought of Trump trying to figure out what sane is using himself as a control is one part funny and one part unnerving.
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This is just bluster. He can't do it without Mattis and Mattis isn't going to sign off on anything like that. If Trump tries without going through the correct procedures, the military will refuse orders.
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If Trump wanted to launch a nuke, nothing can stop it, not even Mattis. As commander in chief, Trump can force Mattis to follow orders and start a war. I don't understand why people think Mattis somehow has a veto against the president.
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Under the UCMJ, officers have not only a right, but an obligation, to refuse illegal orders. So if Trump decides to let the nukes fly without sufficient legal justification, then Mattis (or, technically, anyone under him) most definitely does have a "veto".
Of course, translating theory into reality is often a lot more complicated. Officers are generally inclined to follow orders even if things don't look quite right, because they are usually operating under the assumption that their superiors know what they're doing.
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SecDef is a civilian presidential appointee, not a military officer. If he refuses to confirm an order to launch nukes, the president's main recourse is to fire him and try again with the next person in the line of succession.
I'm confident Mattis would rather lose his job than confirm an unjustified order for a nuclear attack. The scary question is what Trump would do in that situation - whether Mattis would be able to talk him down by threatening to quit. It better not come to that.
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This is a very good point; I obviously wasn't thinking clearly when I wrote that. :)
However, whatever orders the President passes down the chain do eventually have to be carried out by military officers, and they are most definitely subject to the UCMJ. Of course, they're also more junior than the President and the SecDef, so that would make it more difficult for them to refuse to follow orders. It would be a nail-biter, that's for sure.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some legal mechanism in place that allows (or even requires) cabinet-level officials to refuse clearly illegal orders from the President. But I'm certainly no expert.
Either way, let's hope to hell that we don't have to find out.
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The entire process to launch a nuke is designed to prevent anyone from interfering. During the cold war, it made sense that we'd want to be able to launch at a moments notice (MAD). Somebody waiting to figure out if an order was legal or not could doom the entire nation.
The rules haven't changed much since then, but there has been a recent push to add safeguards.
If you have time, I recommend listening to Radiolab's recent show in this very topic.
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You are in for serious pain if you think that slurring jackass willing to whore himself out for Trump and Russia is going to do anything but follow orders. He already showed us he has no morals or principles.
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How did he show us this?
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This may be his idea of negotiating 'brilliantly', as part of his 'art of the deal' bullshit. He could think he's being clever by keeping everyone in the dark until he makes a move doesn't do shit, but it's pretty obvious because his acting is garbage. His ways are incredibly basic, derived largely from folk theories conflating business, argument, and war.
Apparently he skimmed 'The Art of War' at Wharton as basic required reading. The fact that he conflates 'dealing' with warfare (which Sun Tzu states is 'based in deception') means we can expect deception whenever he is negotiating, which in his mind is pretty much always. His rudimentary understanding of strategy causes him to overvalue and overgeneralize Sun Tzu's maxim of deception, which makes him ironically predictable.
With that said, in this case he may have been advised to use obvious deception to index a 'war footing' in order to engage Kim Jong Un's imagination regarding US military intentions, keeping the dear leader and his generals up at night, nurturing paranoia, damaging morale, getting him fixated on the American carrier group. I would guess there's a chance that the naval 'armada' is a distraction from a land-based solution involving China and Russia, since both have been amassing personnel and resources at their respective borders with North Korea. A China-Russia-US humanitarian coalition to manage the dissolution of North Korea (deliberately excluding Europe) might be desirable PR for a faction intent on legitimizing ties with Russia, possibly resulting in the lifting of sanctions to 'enable Russia to do more to help'.
It's anyone's guess, though, eh?
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This is exactly not the attitude one should take to an apocalyptic scenario. Does he not grasp how terrible a nuclear war would be? It shouldn't even be considered, yet he has the temerity to treat it with such flippancy.
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"I Don't Know. I mean, We'll see."
-Me deflecting when my kid wants to add something new to the summer family agenda/Donald Trump talking about nuclear war
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He's so blocked from any domestic 'accomplishments' that his ego may drive him to war with No Korea.
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Make it a prime time TV special. Donny on one side of the table reps of Iran, North Korea, Syria on the other. They all give their 15 min. presentations and then the decision is made during the last commercial break. Donny, does a short spiel rips open the envelope and declares, "And the winner of total war with the US is ....".
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Iran, North Korea, Syria
what do all three of these have in common? ties with russia. add turkey to the list, too. could russia be intentionally provoking trump into a trap? i don't know. i mean, we'll see.
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you could be right, putin isn't an idiot and is playing the long game. in 4 years trump will be gone , in 20 years putin will still rule Russia
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What is with this "we'll see" crap, does he think this is a reality show and he is trying to boost rating for the next season? Someone should tell this man that he is a public servant, serving the people, not a king or god and is answerable to the people he serves and that this is not a reality tv show and words have real world consequences.
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Oh cool, a cliffhanger. We'll all tune in to find out who we're going to war with and when. ooh, Trump's gonna have the best ratings that week! Better than Celebrity Apprentice!
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Doesn't he need congressional approval to start a war with N Korea?
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I think we're still in state of war with them.
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Yeah we have the equiv of you don't shoot me we don't shoot you. The war never really ended. We just got the fuck out.
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Depends on how the impeachment process will be coming along. Watch out for sally yates hearing and what comes out of it - big news from north korea story is the only way he can and he is planning to get the attention away from the almost certain bombshells.
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That's what we get for electing a reality show host to the Presidency.
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Better hope for a nuclear exchange with Russia then, one with NK won't be enough for a global apocalypse.
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No but even a small scale nuclear war, like 100 warheads total, would leave millions of people dead, make a bunch of the world too irradiated to be habitable, and cause a little Ice Age via a small scale nuclear winter.
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Nuclear warfare with NK would not involve 100 warheads, not even close. You also have to take into account that these warheads are relatively low-yield (10-30KT) and more likely to be used in counterforce strikes on military installations and staging areas, reducing large-scale fires.
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You can't know what any of that, but let's say you are right and they only nuke SK and Japan a few dozen times and of course NK after in retaliation. Keeping aside the initial deaths, the fallout that will displace/kill millions in the following years, changing the world forever. And for what? Just so many baby trump can play with his military, it's a bad joke man.
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cause a little Ice Age via a small scale nuclear winter.
If that happened, he would take credit for stopping global warming.
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That would not make for much of a winter. And it definitely wouldn't push us into "a little ice age."
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As the nuclear fallout turns our planet into a wasteland, Trump supporters will still be talking about Hillary's emails.
http://i.imgur.com/MSAsJfw.gif
http://imgur.com/gallery/jrn0A
Pizza was actual a code word for suitcase nuke... Hillary was behind it all!!
A snuke!
In her snizz!
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In a nuclear vault somewhere in the dry mountains, they're limiting the space for Art and books in order to accommodate more chocolate cake.
But she was the warmonger! /s