US President Donald Trump touted his upgrades to the military that cost billions of dollars but said he never wanted to use them, despite the fact that…he already did.
“We are totally revamping and improving and in some cases getting brand new nuclear weapons – never wanna have to use them – but we have the most and the best in the world,” he told American soldiers, sailors and marines at the Osan Air Base near Seoul, South Korea, on Sunday.
“It’s getting to a level where it wasn’t even close,” Trump said. “Hopefully we’ll never have to use it,” he said, speaking about the military’s capacity in general.
Though Trump repeatedly stressed that he never wants to use nuclear weapons, some of his administration’s recent actions have raised the threat of nuclear confrontation in Europe. Washington’s decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia earlier this year raised fears of a Cold War-style nuclear buildup in Europe.
n addition, the US military’s Missile Defense Review – released in January – revealed plans for space-based missile defense systems, plans that Russia has warned could lead to a new arms race in space.
Trump certainly seems to be a believer in ‘peace through strength.’ A scathing opponent of America’s wars in the Middle East during his campaign, then-candidate Trump called the Iraq War “a tremendous disservice to humanity,” and promised to bring American troops home from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and to embrace a more isolationist foreign policy.
However, Trump also promised to enlarge the military’s already astronomical budget, and followed through on that promise, hiking the US’ military spend to around $700 billion last year. Next year’s budget is slated to increase to $716 billion.