Trump and Kennedy warn of nuclear war risk

Washington should open direct talks with Moscow right away and stop mistaking Russia’s restraint for weakness, the Republican presidential nominee’s son Donald Trump Jr. and former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy have said.

RFK Jr, the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, endorsed Trump senior last month and cited the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its potential to escalate into a nuclear war as one of the main reasons.

The US and its allies allowing Ukraine to use their weapons for long-range strikes into Russia “would put the world at greater risk of nuclear conflagration than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis,” Trump and Kennedy wrote in an opinion piece published by The Hill on Tuesday.

Titled “Negotiate with Moscow to end the Ukraine war and prevent nuclear devastation,” the article argues that the US must focus on finding a “diplomatic off-ramp to a war that should never have been allowed to take place,” accusing the White House of pursuing a policy that Russia has explicitly said would amount to open war.

“Some American analysts believe Putin is bluffing, and favor calling his bluff,” Kennedy and Trump wrote. “These analysts are mistaking restraint for weakness. In essence, they are advocating a strategy of brinkmanship.”

Noting that the US has steadily expanded weapons deliveries to Kiev, from HIMARS rocket artillery and cluster munitions to Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter jets and long-range ATACMS missiles, Trump and Kennedy said that each step “draws the world closer to the brink of Armageddon.”

“Their logic seems to be that if you goad a bear five times and it doesn’t respond, it is safe to goad him even harder a sixth time,” they said. “Such a strategy might be reasonable if the bear had no teeth.”

The Biden-Harris White House seems to have “forgotten” that Russia is a nuclear power and has said multiple times it was ready to use such weapons if endangered, the authors argued.

“Imagine if Russia were providing another country with missiles, training and targeting information to strike deep into American territory. The US would never tolerate it. We shouldn’t expect Russia to tolerate it either,” they said.

Firing US missiles into Russia would inevitably lead to a nuclear exchange, Trump and Kennedy argued, warning that “this game of nuclear ‘chicken’ has gone far enough.” 

No American interest is at stake in Ukraine, they argued, calling it “madness” to risk nuclear war for the sake of “the neoconservative fantasy of global ‘full-spectrum dominance’.” Such a war would end civilization and maybe even humanity, so de-escalating the Ukraine conflict is “more important than any of the political issues our nation argues about.”

The American public must “demand, right now, that [Vice President Kamala] Harris and President [Joe] Biden reverse their insane war agenda and open direct negotiations with Moscow,” Trump and Kennedy concluded.

Peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine broke down in the spring of 2022, with both sides accusing each other of making unrealistic demands. The US has since insisted that a peace deal can only be on Kiev’s terms, and repeatedly pledged to support and arm Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”