What Donald Trump means for South Asia and the nuclear Red Button
As I write, Pakistan and India are engaged in a violent show of military and diplomatic muscle. Citizens and elected officials alike from both countries are flippantly advocating for the launch of nuclear warheads in what is both alarming and dismally comical. The fuel nuclear weapons run on is fear. The proverbial red button is wielded both as armour against attack, and as a blunt sword that shouts “fear me!” loud and clear from the rooftops.
Global Zero’s No Red Button campaign targets the fear at the very heart of the nuclear threat. The fear that one person could press one of the nine red buttons that exist and destroy the world as we know it. History is proof of human fallibility. As long as these red buttons exist, we are not safe.
With tensions running high in South Asia, America’s ability to convince India and Pakistan to de-escalate, or to play a constructive role in global diplomacy at all will be strongly impacted by who is in the presidential hot seat come November. If Donald Trump takes office, Prime Minister Modi in India and Prime Minister Sharif in Pakistan are only more likely to clutch their red buttons closer.
Trump has played the politics of fear -alienating groups based on religion, sexuality, gender and ethnicity, labelling them blatantly as “other” and pitting them against one another. Indians and Pakistanis are falling prey to the same debilitating mindset, conveniently forgetting that the only barrier between them ultimately is a line on paper. It’s the line Donald Trump uses to differentiate friends and enemies and a line that is utterly meaningless when it comes to nuclear winter, lethal radiation and toxic drinking water. Nuclear weapons do not recognize these lines.
At a time when we need all nations at the negotiating table and real tangible solutions to the nuclear problem, Trump is a threat and an obstacle. At a time when America must lead the non-proliferation movement, Trump represents everything that could go wrong. We, the people, must together refuse to allow our leaders to play on our fears and to rile up hate, and stop basing our survival on the threat of mass destruction. In South Asia, in the United States, and all over the world- the suicidal red button must be replaced by something that truly makes us secure.
