Trump national security adviser calls for first nuclear weapons tests since 1992 and wants to send the ‘entire’ US Marine Corps to Pacific to counter the threat from China

If Donald Trump wins re-election, he will have to resume nuclear testing after a 30-year hiatus, completely decouple the economy from China and deploy the entire US Marine Corps to the Pacific to counter the threat from Beijing.

That’s the advice of his latest national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, who laid out a possible blueprint for a second Trump term in a 5,000-word essay.

If you want peace, prepare for war is the theme of his message, especially when it comes to abandoning China, which has doubled the size of its nuclear stockpile since 2020.

“The United States must maintain technical and numerical superiority over the combined Chinese and Russian nuclear stockpiles,” he wrote. Foreign Affairs.

“To do this, Washington must test new nuclear weapons for reliability and safety in the real world for the first time since 1992 – and not just using computer models.”

He also says the US should resume production of uranium-235 and plutonium-239, the raw materials for weapons, “if China and Russia continue to refuse to engage in good faith arms control talks.”

O’Brien says he remains in touch with his former boss and is widely expected to return as a senior official in a new administration.

As a result, his manifesto is being passed on to Washington’s defense and national security establishment as an opportunity to gather clues about what Trump might do in a second term.

Much of the focus is on China. The word ‘China’ appears 37 times and ‘Beijing’ 12 times.

“As China seeks to undermine American economic and military strength, Washington should return the favor — just as it did during the Cold War, when it worked to weaken the Soviet economy,” he writes.

His recommendation is to completely disconnect the US from the Chinese economy.

And he says the US military should turn its gaze away from the Middle East and focus on the Indo-Pacific region, increasing the size of the Navy from fewer than 300 ships to 355 (a target from Trump’s time in office). , and the fleet also needs to be refurbished. ships for the Philippines.

The Navy should also move one of its aircraft carriers from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the Pentagon should consider deploying the entire Marine Corps to the Pacific, especially relieving it of missions in the Middle East. East and North Africa,” he writes.

O’Brien was installed as national security in 2019 and stayed in the White House until Trump left office in January 2021. He says he still keeps in touch with his former boss

A recent test of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile

Xi Xinping has increased his country’s nuclear stockpile from 410 to 500 in one year (file image)

“U.S. bases in the Pacific often lack adequate missile defense and fighter jet protection – an egregious shortcoming that the Department of Defense should remedy by quickly transferring resources from elsewhere.”

Congress should also help strengthen the armed forces of Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam by offering the kind of aid, loans and arms transfers “that the United States has long offered to Israel.”

For all the fire and fury, there are some notable flaws in the policy that may reassure Trump critics.

There is no mention of a withdrawal from NATO, a usual Trump threat.

And O’Brien, who founded a consulting firm after leaving the White House, has taken an aggressive stance on Ukraine and scrutinized Russian President Vladimir Putin, while underscoring the former president’s desire for a negotiated solution.

Trump and O’Brien outside the White House at St. John’s Episcopal Church in 2020, flanked by U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr and Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany

A Titan II nuclear ICMB in a silo at the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley, Arizona

“Washington must ensure that its European allies understand that America’s continued defense of Europe depends on Europe doing its part – including in Ukraine,” O’Brien wrote.

‘If Europe wants to show that it is serious about defending Ukraine, the country must immediately be admitted to the European Union, abandoning the usual bureaucratic accession protocol.

Such a move would send a strong message to Putin that the West will not cede Ukraine to Moscow. It would also give the Ukrainian people hope that better days lie ahead.”

The Trump campaign cautioned against interpreting the essay as a statement of official policy.

“Let’s be very specific here: Unless a message comes directly from President Trump or an authorized member of his campaign team, no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be considered official,” top advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said. in a statement to Bloomberg News.