North Korea and the State of the Union

"North Korea and the State of the Union"

In an article posted by, "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists," John Mecklin discusses the newest President's first State of the Union address. Right away it is clear in the article that the author is not impressed with Trump's speech. The speech was filled with praise of heroes specifically placed in the audience to allow for shorten timed on policy talk, especially in regards to international relations. While not much actual talk about the outlook of our country went on last night, Trump did mention a little bit about our global nuclear tensions and of course our "main geopolitical rivals," Russia and China. Trump stated, "As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal. Hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and so powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else. Perhaps someday in the future, there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, sadly." Overall, I think this message isn't really all that reassuring for the American people or the type of intellectual response you would wish to here from your President. The response seems very vague and the audience cannot really gauge a clear understanding of what will happen to our nuclear forces.

Besides the nuclear tensions we have been facing lately, Trump also briefly brought up Russia and China, but in a quite frank manner. He more so focused his attention towards North Korea, but only on its "depraved character" of their regime and how the United States is a much stronger figure. Some people are out to believe that Trump was attempting to rally public support for a military strike against North Korea, whether or not this is true it will take time to see what his true hidden plans. 

In conclusion, I think that when Trump gives certain speeches, a common theme for him is to be very vague and inconclusive and this State of the Union address was no exception to that. I believe if he keeps going down this path more and more people will realize this and be aware of the state he is leading our country to and the path it is going to go down. The way he sees and treats other countries is a representation of the type of person he is and Americans need to question if that is what they really want. 

Link to article: https://thebulletin.org/north-korea-and-state-union11475