Donald Trump’s nuclear fixation – from the 1980s to now

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Donald Trump’s warning that North Korea could face “fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen” has been widely interpreted as a threat backed by the destructive power of the US nuclear arsenal.

In case that message wasn’t clear, the following morning the president boasted that US nuclear weapons were “far stronger and more powerful than ever before”.

“Hopefully we will never have to use this power,” he tweeted, “but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!”

The president’s recent nuclear sabre-rattling shouldn’t be viewed as an isolated incident, however. Mr Trump has displayed a keen interest in the utility of atomic weapons for decades.

Published at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40879868