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Rambling Toward Chaos: Trump and the Nuclear Precipice

Louis Rene Beres, Jurist News, January 30, 2026

The author, Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue University, argues that President Trump’s unchecked nuclear command authority, combined with his demonstrated preference for ‘attitude’ over strategic preparation and his alignment with Russian aggression, has made an American president the principal threat of nuclear war for the first time in history…

“I tell you, ye have still chaos in you.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

On January 27, 2026, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the hands of its “doomsday clock” to eighty-five seconds before midnight. This unprecedented move signified that the world has never been closer to nuclear war. Ipso facto, there could be no more urgent metaphor for planet earth.

But even the Bulletin’s 2026 Doomsday Clock statement stopped short of drawing the most politically sensitive conclusion: For the first time in history, the principal threat of nuclear war is an American president. More precisely, during the continuously dissembling Trump presidency,[1] the immediate casus belli atomicum is apt to be presidential miscalculation, psychological breakdown, cognitive impairment (including transient dementia) or outright irrationality.

There are many pertinent details. Somehow, since the start of the Cold War, the notion that the constitutional commander-in-chief should be able to launch US nuclear weapons on his own authority has been widely accepted by Americans. This is the case even though any such presumed authority would be unconstitutional prima facie.

Legal issues aside, there are no convincing strategic arguments for assigning the president effectively unchecked nuclear command authority. Today, credible US nuclear deterrence lies less in “hair trigger” nuclear readiness than was the case during the Cold War. Now, at least with regard to expectedly-rational nuclear adversaries, the plausibility of an “assuredly destructive” US nuclear retaliation lies beyond any reasonable doubt.

There is more. At some point, if a no-longer defensible enlargement of presidential military authority were to remain in force, a triumvirate of Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller could have final say on both national and planetary survival.[2] Could such a scenario be anything less than a hideous caricature of American and human progress? A prophetic answer was supplied by the ancient Roman philosopher Tertullian: “Credo quia absurdum.” “I believe because it is absurd.”

What have been determinable trajectories? When Donald J. Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, prospects for a nuclear war were increased. Since the start of “Trump II,” the president has announced plans to resume nuclear weapons testing and enlarge America’s nuclear forces. Regarding his “plan for peace” in Ukraine, his proposal turned out to be an abjectly lawless surrender of a victim state to a Russian aggressor. In essence, Trump’s self-adoring plan was to reward Vladimir Putin’s Nuremberg-category crimes[3] (crimes of war; crimes against peace; crimes against humanity). Significantly, as an utterly incontestable principle of law and justice, no US president (or any other head of state) has the right to support an aggressor state over a victim state.

In a world afflicted by multiple and intersecting existential threats, nothing is more urgent than nuclear war avoidance. Accordingly, it is the responsibility of capable scholars and strategists engaged in supporting this goal to raise appropriate questions.[4] How could such thinkers best meet this indispensable goal? The answer lies in reason-based replies to the following interrelated questions:

• What intolerable nuclear hazards could arise under President Trump?
• How might these hazards involve US foreign relations, international law, national survival and stable world futures?

Looking ahead three more years, the always-underlying nuclear danger will be an unqualified American president who conspicuously values presumed personal advantage over authentic national security…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2026/01/rambling-toward-chaos-trump-and-the-nuclear-precipice/

January 2, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA