John Bolton: ‘I Don’t Want to See Anybody Else Get Nuclear Weapons’ — Even Our Allies

With talk of nuclear proliferation heating up within the Republican presidential primary, Former UN Ambassador and AEI scholar John Bolton made his position very clear to Breitbart News Daily host Stephen K. Bannon: “In terms of letting other countries get nuclear weapons, I have a very clear view and that is, I don’t want to see anybody else get nuclear weapons, whether they’re friends of ours, or not.”

As for nuclear weapons, their deployment and command and control, Bolton also expressed strong feelings, saying, “The reason people are even talking about countries like South Korea or Japan getting nuclear weapons is because they think under Obama, our nuclear umbrella is disappearing and that, if we’re not going to provide that deterrent capability, they need to provide it for themselves. The strongest argument against other countries getting weapons is, we’re going to take care of that. Underneath that umbrella, countries like Japan and South Korea do have an obligation, I think, to do more than they’re doing now. Obama doesn’t push them, or encourage them to do that because he doesn’t care about our national security, or that of our allies, either.”

As for command and control, Bolton stated: “With the issue of tactical nuclear weapons that we possess, I think this is still got to be a decision by the President himself, and it’s a last ditch response. … Since the end of World War II, we have withheld the use of any kind of nuclear weapons, relying on it for its deterrent power, than actually using it. And certainly, if you’re in some context like the War on Terrorism, it’s difficult if not impossible for me, frankly, to see when we would need to use them. I don’t rule it out because I don’t think a President should rule anything out given the circumstances. But in terms of the prudential decision whether or not to use … I think it should be extraordinarily rare and only at the President’s own decision. I don’t favor having lower level commanders having the discretion, at least in present circumstances, to do that.”

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Listen to the interview below: