President Trump, North Korea and a Brief History of Nuclear Threats

During his first presidential speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, President Trump cited the “strength and patience” of his nation before telling the audience that “if [the U.S.] is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” This is not, as it happens, the first time a nuclear power has openly threatened another state with destruction — but the previous episode does not bode well for President Trump, or for the world. In 1956 only the United States, the USSR and Great Britain had nuclear weapons. It turns out that Russia was quite a ways from a real ICBM capability at that time — in other words, they had nuclear weapons but no way to deliver them to overseas targets — but Nikita Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet Communist Party, claimed otherwise. In the fall of that year, in the midst of a U.S. presidential election in which Dwight Eisenhower was re-elected over Adlai Stevenson, the British, French and Israeli governments decided to attack Egypt in an effort to oust its leader, the Arab nationalist Gamel Abdul Nasser. The British could not forgive Nasser for nationalizing the Suez Canal, the French blamed him for the revolt against their rule in Algeria and the Israelis saw an opportunity to expand their territory into the Sinai Peninsula. Suspecting quite rightly that Washington might not back the adventure, they did not inform the U.S. government before the attack began....
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Nuclear Opinion United Nations USSR Source Type: news