The nuclear education of Donald J. Trump

ABSTRACT

During the 2016 American presidential campaign, Democrats and Republicans alike repeatedly raised concerns at the prospect of Donald Trump being in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal based on his seemingly unstable personality. Unfortunately, this emphasis on Trump’s character distracted attention from any in-depth investigation into his long-standing interest in nuclear issues. This article seeks to remedy this shortcoming by highlighting the nuclear legacy Trump will inherit from Obama, surveying his statements on nuclear issues over more than three decades, and providing an analysis of constraining factors on his administration’s nuclear agenda, particularly domestic institutions. It finds that most of Trump’s views on nuclear issues are relatively consistent with past Republican presidents. Where he is unique, however, is in his use of social media, which has potential implications on nuclear signaling.

KEYWORDS:

• Trump
• nuclear weapons
• Twitter
• U.S. defense policy

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Sir Lawrence Freedman, Wyn Bowen, Andrew Futter, and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jeffrey Michaels is a Senior Lecturer with the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, and concurrently a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Changing Character of War Programme. He has also worked as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Egmont Institute in Brussels and as a Research Associate in the Department of War Studies at King’s. His earlier experience includes working for the U.S. Defense Department and NATO.

Heather Williams is a Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, and a co-convenor for the Master’s programme on Arms Control in the School for Security Studies. Until January 2015, she was a Research Fellow on Nuclear Weapons Policy at Chatham House, and previously worked for the Institute for Defense Analyses and the U.S. Department of Defense. She has a Ph.D. from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, a BA in International Relations and Russian Studies from Boston University, and an MA in Security Policy Studies from the George Washington University.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was kindly supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation [grant number G-108975-0].