Is Trump Setting Off A Terrible Nuclear Domino Effect? – CleanTechnica

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Last Updated on: 23rd February 2025, 10:40 am

I know it’s cliche to say this, but it still holds true: those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. As the Trump Regime works both against renewables and against Ukraine’s sovereignty, the real history behind nuclear power has to become part of the discussion. If we fail to consider the relationship between nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and the American nuclear umbrella, we can easily set off a perfect storm that kills millions if not billions.

Nuclear Latency

In some ways, nuclear non-proliferation efforts are a lot like gun control. In theory, you can set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons and the largest countries can put great pressure on the smaller ones to achieve that goal. But, at the end of the day, whether a person or a country chooses to invest in weapons depends on more factors than just what the law or international law says.

The biggest factor is the question of security. When a country or a person feels safe, there’s no real desire to get strapped. But, when the world starts to look dangerous, minds can change faster than most people think. Just as theoretically anti-gun Democrats in California were lining up around the block to buy a pistol during the pandemic, countries start looking at their nuclear weapons options during uncertain times.

The United States is well aware of this, and often provides assurances of protection to countries in exchange for non-proliferation. This has worked out well over the decades, but just as assurances of police protection don’t prevent American citizens from wanting a gun for self-defense, some countries relying on the United States for security seem to have lingering doubts.

Abstaining from nuclear weapons doesn’t give countries a good way to change their minds. While an individual can always find a way to get ahold of a gun when a crisis unfolds (whether legally, through black markets, or via DIY instructions on the internet), nuclear weapons are far harder to not only come up with, but maintain. If U.S. assurances fail, a country would have weeks or months to do something that takes years or decades.

Technical barriers are only part of what keeps a country from going nuclear. Even relatively wealthy small countries simply don’t have the budget for a dedicated nuclear program without starving their citizens the way North Korea does. It’s also extremely difficult to build facilities to do things like enrich uranium without some satellite or spy plane/balloon getting pictures of it and causing geopolitical shitstorms. Anti-nuclear sentiments, especially in places that have been harmed by nuclear weapons, can also keep even good governments from pursuing nuclear programs for legitimate self defense.

But there is a way to get around all of these problems: nuclear latency. Instead of having a nuclear weapons program, some governments choose to have a nuclear power program that could produce weapons in weeks or months. By having the materials, technology, and expertise for weapons ready to go without actually building a weapon, governments can be ready to go nuclear without upsetting anybody or causing themselves geopolitical strife. Because money is being spent on affordable power that doesn’t pollute the air, civilian populations are comfortable with it.

Japan is probably the best known example of this fence-straddling strategy, but other examples include Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and Brazil. South Africa once had a nuclear program that likely tested a bomb with Israel. Taiwan is another country that could easily produce a nuclear weapon, and even conducted small-scale tests in the 1980s, at least one of which was detected by U.S. satellites. Pressure from the U.S. government, along with continued assurances of protection from China, resulted in the program being shut down.

That Time Ukraine Gave Up Nuclear Weapons

When the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, a number of countries found themselves free from control by Moscow and asserted their independence. When this happened, Ukraine even had Soviet nuclear weapons. However, the country wasn’t in a position to secure and maintain these weapons. Russia obviously was uncomfortable with the idea of a nuclear-armed neighbor, and the United States was very concerned about “loose nukes” falling into the hands of terrorist groups or rogue states.

To deal with this, Russia, the United States, and Ukraine came to a deal in 1994. Ukraine would give Russia the weapons for dismantling, and the other three agreed to respect Ukrainian sovereignty. The U.S. and the U.K. promised to come to Ukraine’s aid if Russia ever disrespected Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.

As we all know, Russia didn’t live up to the deal, invading Ukraine a little here and a little there during the 2010s, and launching a full-scale invasion in 2022. The United States and other countries provided military aid as promised, even if they didn’t directly enter the war. Now, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are working out a deal to end the war by giving large chunks of Ukraine’s land away and giving the United States mineral rights in perpetuity, effectively giving much of what remains away to the United States.

How This Broken Promise Can Lead To World War III

No matter how much leaders in Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan are trying to suck up to Trump and keep U.S. protection going, you can bet they’re watching what happens to Ukraine closely. Seeing another country that was supposed to be protected get carved up and sold off to the highest bidder will definitely have any sane leader in those places calling the gun shop.

While Japan and South Korea could probably go nuclear without kicking off a war, Taiwan would definitely be another matter. The moment any word got out that Taiwan was building a weapon, China would launch an invasion in hopes of getting in there before any weapons are completed, because Chinese leaders know that a nuclear Taiwan cannot be reunified in the future without making serious compromises that might end the Communist Party’s rule.

Even if the United States refused to get involved because Trump was angry about Taiwan’s unauthorized nuclear program, retaliatory strikes on Chinese infrastructure with conventional weapons would still have devastating results, causing up to 400 million casualties. Further retaliatory strikes (likely nuclear) on Taiwan would lead to near-total destruction. The global economy would be in shambles, and East Asia would likely go into a period of warlord violence and starvation.

If the United States chose to get involved (this would be hard to avoid once mass death begins and the world calls for it to stop), things could get much worse. Preventing Taiwan from going nuclear could lead to a desperate move against the United States, prompting a nuclear exchange that could draw in other nuclear powers like India, Pakistan, Russia, the UK, France, and more. There’s a real risk of global nuclear war.

Preventing This

The best thing the United States could have done is not put Trump in a position of authority. The fact that he can’t see that he’s playing with nuclear fire by carving up Ukraine shows us that he’s unfit to be president. But, that ship has sailed and we’re stuck with a self-serving madman in charge who’s out to make a quick buck no matter what it costs the rest of us.

The only thing we can hope for at this point is for the leaders of other countries to put the pressure on and stop this from happening. The European Union obviously has a big role to play here, but China really needs to step in and put some pressure on Putin for a better end to the war that maintains the status quo in East Asia, at least for now.

In the longer run, the world needs to start defusing all of these powder kegs. It’s easy to kick the can down the road in Korea, the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, Japan, Ukraine, and even in North America. Nobody wants to eat the turd and find resolutions to things these days. But a world full of problems that could kick in and kill us all isn’t something we should keep living with, especially if the United States wants to get out of the business of being global policeman.

This problem should also make us think twice about making nuclear power the answer over renewables. We don’t know what the next 100 years holds, but putting nuclear materials all over the planet could go wrong in ways we can’t possibly predict as borders inevitably move on maps.

Featured image by the United States Armed Forces (Public Domain).