Trump’s nuclear escalation and the Netherlands

This 23 December 2016 CBS TV video from the USA says about itself:

Trump on nukes: “Let it be an arms race”

President-elect Donald Trump expanded on his tweet about the United States’ nuclear arsenal Friday. He told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program “Let it be an arms race, because we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.” Reuters correspondent Timothy Gardner spoke to CBSN about what to make of this reversal in world policy.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

D66

One of the four parties in the Dutch right-wing coalition government. D66 is not the most right-wing of these four.

remains against equipping the Joint Strike Fighter with nuclear weapons. Party leader Rob Jetten said in a radio show that nuclear weapons on aircraft do not lead to a better world. He responds to a report from the Advisory Council on International Affairs that appeared earlier this week.

The Council, chaired by former CDA leader and former NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, wants the F-35 to take over the nuclear weapons task of the F-16. …

A majority of parliament supported in 2013 a motion of the Socialist Party stating that the JSF (F-35) should not be equipped with nuclear weapons. The current government parties CDA, D66 and ChristenUnie also supported that motion. However, Ministers Hennis

of the right-wing pro-Big Business VVD party. Ms Hennis had to resign in a scandal about Dutch soldiers killed by defective United States ammunition in the Mali neocolonial war.

and Timmermans

of the social democrat PvdA party. Then the junior partner in a VVD-PvdA coalition government; which led to the PvdA losing three-quarters of its voters. Mr Timmermans is now deputy boss of the European Union’s European Commission in Brussels.

ignored this motion, because the Netherlands has a nuclear weapon task in the NATO context.

One should hope D66 will continue to oppose nuclear weapons on ultra-expensive and dodgy F-35 warplanes. However, one might fear that continuing as ministers in the right-wing coalition government may turn out to be more important for D66 politicians.

A half-century after the Cuban Missile crisis that brought human civilization to within a hair’s breadth of destruction, Washington is fueling a global nuclear standoff that is, if anything, even more dangerous. Last month, the White House announced that the United States would leave the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which prohibits the deployment of land-based missiles with ranges of up to 5,000 miles: here.

After US withdrawal from INF nuclear treaty with Russia. France conducts dry-run simulation of nuclear weapon strike: here.

Within hours of the official withdrawal by the United States on Friday from the world’s most important nuclear treaty, the Pentagon made clear that it intends to ring China with missiles amid a rapidly accelerating nuclear arms race: here.