Nuclear security

Donald Trump's Call for 'Arms Race' Boggles Nuclear Experts

Donald Trump's zest for making offhand quips about his intentions on serious policy matters has launched the United States on a grand experiment: What happens when the world doesn't understand what the American president is trying to say?

In the hours after President-elect Trump tweeted about his desire to expand American nuclear weapons capability — seeming to upend decades of consensus that fewer nukes is better — experts puzzled about what he meant, his own aides seemed to walk his comment back, and Trump himself weighed in to suggest that the most extreme reading of his tweet was the right one.