Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 10 April 2026
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column, Founded 1932
85 seconds to doomsday
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – No other American president has ever spoken this way, vowing to “end civilization” if they did not get their way. Not Harry Truman when he gave the order to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not John F. Kennedy when he negotiated the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962, when the doomsday clock, created by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), moved to two minutes before midnight.
The BAS number is now 85 seconds before midnight, with the clock ticking as Russia is keying off of President Trump’s rhetoric in his pressure campaign to bring the war against Iran to an end.
Trump backed off at the eleventh hour in his social media post, wildly swinging in a matter of hours from threatening to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age” to declaring a new “Golden Age” for the Middle East where “money will be made’ and peace will spread across the region.
A fragile truce is in place for two weeks and the worst of what Trump threatened has been averted, at least for now.
But Trump cannot unsay what he said – not that he would want to. And his bombastic words have repercussions.
The Russia-Ukraine war is a good example. The war has gone on far longer than Russian President Putin intended, and he is frustrated that he cannot bring it to a close on his terms. Former Russian President Demitry Medvedev, head of Russia’s Security Council, last year floated the idea that Russia could use a tactical nuclear weapon to settle the war in Russia’s favor, and the threat has been reiterated in the last several days.
Trump responded to Medvedev, saying “the ‘n word’ should not be treated so casually,” indicating his aversion to the idea of introducing nuclear weapons in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Yet Trump had no qualms saying he could bomb the Iranians back to the Stone Age, a threat that invoked the specter of a nuclear weapon to the point where the White House had to put out a statement explicitly denying such a use.
The frenzy spread with reports alleging Russia told three cities in Southern Ukraine to evacuate, which they did not do. Russia has no fear of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) with non-nuclear Ukraine, a country with many friends and no allies.
Would Putin drop a bomb on a neighboring country? The rational mind says no, but then there’s that 10 percent chance that Putin at the end of his patience with Ukraine might just do it.
It’s the Madman’s theory of foreign policy, and Trump is its star student. He practices it all the time, keeping friends and adversaries guessing whether he will or won’t follow through on his threats. Ten percent uncertainty is all it takes, he boasts.
The problem for Ukraine is they can’t afford to guess wrong. Ukraine has no defense against such a weapon. They gave up their nuclear program to Russia in 1994 on the promise of security guarantees that didn’t hold up.
Trump’s apocalyptic rhetoric opens a door that hadn’t been opened before. And is Russia racing through that door to make Ukraine tremble and nothing more? But Ukrainians must take threats from Russia seriously, and so should we.
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
© 2026 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc
Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND