During his spine chillingly terrifying speech to the United Nations yesterday, Donald Trump, the US president, openly demonstrated he is becoming the biggest threat to world peace since Adolph Hitler – and with a haircut almost as ridiculous.
He has revealed himself to be not a leader of the free world but its biggest liability.
By openly threatening to ‘totally destroy North Korea’, he has managed to give much-needed credibility to Kim Jong-Un and his North Korean dictatorship in protecting themselves from any perceived threat, by owning a nuclear arsenal of its own.
Nuclear weapons are abhorrent but let’s not forget the only country that has ever used them in anger is America. In the decades that have followed since 1945 there has been an ever-increasing demand for their ownership.
Of course, the Russians were the first to respond by developing their own arsenal and as the technology leaked – as it always would – others followed. It fast became a nuclear arms race. The theory being, that owning nuclear weapons would be the ultimate deterrent to being attacked. To do so would mean instant retaliation and almost certain annihilation of the attacker. It was the Doomsday scenario known as MAD – mutually assured destruction. No sane world leader would take the risk of a launch as the collateral damage would be immeasurable.
All was relatively secure in the world until Trump v Kim Jong-Un. Both are becoming increasingly aggressive in their rhetoric and are heading ever closer to a world-changing disaster.
In reality, the US would struggle to ‘totally destroy North Korea’ by using conventional warfare and without involvement in a long drawn out costly offensive. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese would be likely to sit idly by while watching their own borders.
So the question is: would either Kim Jong-Un or Donald Trump press the button for a nuclear strike? It seems it is fast becoming a likely scenario, as neither man has left any room for an alternative solution.
While experts from across the globe agonise over the various possible scenarios, it is worth remembering that Trump was once reported (and has since denied) asking a foreign policy advisor: “if we have them, (nuclear weapons) why can’t we use them?”
The lights are on but I’m not certain anyone’s at home!