(My post a couple of days ago on Facebooka aimed at the alarmists who were decrying Trump's nuclear weapons messages)

Good grief - use your brains people! Have you never heard of "The Art of the Deal". Do you not recognize an opening gambit when you see one? Did you not see what Trump has done with Carrier, Ford and others to keep them from moving their factories and jobs? Did you not observe Trump's gambits to reduce the cost of the Air Force One program and the bloated, behind schedule F35 fighter plane program? Did you not see that Trump's tweets were in response to Vladimir Putin proclaimed hours previously that Russia needed to upgrade and increase their nuclear weapons? And did you not see the last words of Trump's tweet about upgrading and increasing our nuclear weapons "until the world comes to its senses regarding nukes"?

Trump does not want more nukes or another arms race any more than most of us do. He finds nuclear weapons abhorrent and would like to reduce or eliminate the world's nuclear weapons. However, under present day realities, the world does not become a safer place if other countries build up their nuclear arsenals with no response from us. And the fact is that our nuclear weapons have deteriorated under Obama. That would be fine and good if the same were true about Russia, China, and the rest of the world. But such is not the case and it is the last thing we can afford to let happen if those countries are intent on increasing their nuclear capabilities.

Thus, what Trump is actually doing is signaling that as long as there are nuclear weapons he is not going to sit back and let other countries increase their weapons while ours become degraded. He is pointedly reminding Russia, which is teetering on the brink of a recession, that we have the most powerful military in the world and an economy which can outspend and outproduce them to the point that they cannot keep up. That is what happened when Russia tried to outdo the United States in the 1980's and Reagan upped the ante, leading to the dissolution of the old Soviet Union. Trust me: Trump, who has often repeated Reagan's philosophy of "peace through strength, is counting on Russia remembering that painful lesson.

Granted, we spend far, far too much in military expenses. What we should do is eliminate waste (one report estimates a whopping $125 Billion in wasted military expenses) and concentrate on having a powerful defense and an offensive force so strong that no one dares attack us but not one which polices the entire world with 900 installations in 130 countries like we have now - and that is a conversation we desperately need to have. But we are talking defense here and nuclear weapons are mostly about defense. True, they can be used as intimidation, but their main purpose is to continue to have mutually assured destruction, insane as that concept is, in the event that Russia or China dared attack us. And assured annihilation if a lesser nuclear power such as North Korea or Iran dare attack us.

Thus, "until the world comes to its senses regarding nukes", we need to make sure that we maintain superiority or at least parity and Trump's tweets indicate the willingness to do whatever it takes to insure that. But the likely true goal is preventing an arms race and hopefully some day getting the world to truly come to its senses and reducing the world's nuclear arsenals.