While most Americans were turning their thoughts to the upcoming holiday weekend and a time of relaxation and reflection after a long year, it seems Donald Trump had other things on his mind. Like nuclear weapons.

With less than a month until his inauguration, Trump dropped a tweet (or what passes for a "press release" for his incoming administration) calling for the United States to "greatly strengthen and expand" its nuclear capabilities.

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Trump's bombshell, so to speak, came a day after he took part in a pair of meetings with top Pentagon officials to chat about defense strategy and trying to keep the cost down on several military projects.

Trump's wish also contradicts treaties going back decades designed by countries all around the globe, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which has been accepted by 191 countries, including the United States, the UK, and Russia.

The subject of the country's nuclear arsenal --- and how fit Trump is to be at its controls -- was a hot topic of debate throughout the campaign, particularly his opposition to President Obama's deal with Iran which set benchmarks for that country to reduce its nuclear program in exchange for lifted sanctions.

The Iran deal was just one part of Obama's actions on nuclear weapons from his presidency that he is scrambling to solidify before Trump takes office.

Throwing gasoline on the Trump fire was an August report from MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, citing an unnamed source, that Trump repeatedly asked why the U.S. can't use nukes.

"Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump," Scarborough said. "And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can't we use them."

Trump's comments on Thursday also follow similar comments made by Russian president Vladimir Putin, who said on Wednesday, "We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense systems."

Understandably, Trump's latest declaration has some nervous about a new arms race.

US and Russia are not in a nuclear arms race against each other. Instead, under Trump, shared willingness to use nukes against a third party

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) December 22, 2016

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