Sunday, April 5, 2009

Degrading the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

This video was swirling around the web early last year. Some of you may remember it. A lot of conservatives bloggers posted it semi-permanently in their sidebars. Candidate Obama called for the denuclearization of U.S. defense policy, with the goal of the complete elimination of nuclear weapons on the planet. Obama's proposal was the worst kind of leftist idealism, the results of which would weaken U.S. security and put Americans at the mercy of sworn enemies of this country.

It turns out President Obama is making good on his campaign promise.

The Wall Street Journal discusses the administration's arms control discussions with the Russians:

The Obama Administration wants to replace the soon-to-expire 1991 START treaty with a new regime that would set a ceiling of 1,000 nuclear warheads apiece for the U.S. and Russia. That would dramatically cut the two countries' existing number of operational weapons, both strategic and nonstrategic, from a current estimated total of about 4,100 for the U.S. and 5,200 for Russia. It would also exceed the terms agreed by the Bush Administration in the 2002 Moscow Treaty, which committed each side to reduce their arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 strategic warheads by 2012.

As we learned in the 1970s, the devil of arms control often lies in the technical arcana of warheads and delivery systems, so we'll await the text before pronouncing judgment. But the devil of arms control also lies in the overall concept, with its implicit assumption that the weapons themselves are inherently more dangerous than the intentions of those who develop and deploy them.

We would have thought this thinking was discredited after the Second Lateran Council outlawed the use of crossbows in 1139, or after the Hague Convention of 1899 banned aerial bombardment, or after the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war. Nope. Mr. Obama has set the ultimate goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, and as one of his first official acts he pledged to "stop the development of new nuclear weapons."

What Mr. Obama wants to kill specifically is the Reliable Replacement Warhead, which the Bush Administration supported over Congressional opposition, and which Mr. Obama now opposes despite the support of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the military. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told us this week that "we do need a new warhead." When we asked about Mr. Obama's views on the warhead, the Admiral said, "You would have to ask him."

The RRW is not, in fact, a new weapon; it has been in development for several years and is based on the W89 design tested in the 1980s. It is said to be a remarkably safe and long-lasting warhead, a significant consideration given the gradual physical deterioration of the current U.S. arsenal, particularly the mainstay W76.

The irony is that Mr. Obama's opposition is making substantial reductions in the total U.S. arsenal that much riskier. In the absence of actual testing, which hasn't happened in the U.S. since 1992, the only real hedge against potentially defective weapons is a larger arsenal. Naturally, arms-control theologians are instead urging the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and ban the production of weapons grade uranium and plutonium.
The entire essay is available at the link.

See also, "Obama calls for 'world without' nukes" (via Memeorandum).

4 comments:

  1. Before Obama carries out his full plan to leave America unprotected against countries that cannot be trusted to not build nuclear weapons and then try to ban gun control and take over the country and people's freedom to defend themselves and their way of life, he's going to get nuked by some right wing conservative extremist who may live a lot further from the nearest nuclear arsenal or naval weapons station than I do. I am no extremist but I will do whatever I have to in order to protect my current lifestyle (and I'm not super-rich by the way) because I have an obsessive fear of change every bit as much as people who truly have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder have an obsessive fear of germs (look up Howard Hughes).
    If Obama wants to make it through his four years of presidency, tell him that there will be NO nuclear disarmament until the current communist and socialist countries become FREE. A country that is unwilling to give its citizens basic human rights (such as the right to vote, the right to relocate, the right to bear arms, a free market society and the like) would NOT be willing to DISARM. Think about it: Would a serial killer like Ted Bundy who was not willing to stop murdering people be willing to agree to obey a new law passed on "gun control" because he had respect for the law?? Would he then say, "Well, I've got to respect the law and it says not to carry a gun? I guess now I'll have to stab people with a pocketknife to kill them??" If Obama is unwilling to allow ME to remain unprotected either against HIM or ENEMY COUNTRIES, there will be no protection for HIM against ME. Hitlers antics caught up with him in the end, Napoleans antics caught up with HIM in the end, Chowchesku's (the brutal dictator of Czechoslovakia in 1989) caught up with HIM, and Obama's antics will catch up with HIM unless I happen to die within the next few years.
    I'm NOT agaisnt PEACE TALKS but first, a country has to be willing to give ciitizens the basic human rights we enjoy in this country BEFORE it can be trusted to DISARM. After all, who is it that honors disarmament agreements?? It is certainly not the dictatorship countries; that would not be consistent with their moral character. The same moral character that makes them rule over their country with an iron hand (which is the definition of totalitarianism) would make them be dishonest about keeping agreements to disarm.
    Supposing that inconsistency WAS a possibility: Let's say that they had respect for International Agreements. But if they don't respect their fellow human beings (and this accusation would be PROVEN TRUE if they were not willing to let the people go free eg. North Korea, Afghanistan), they would NOT stop building weapons because in order to stay in power, they would NEED those weapons to use against their own citizens so therefore, they would NOT be willing to stop building weapons. Obama is wrong and he knows it. If he really does NOT know, then he has no business being president. In addition, it is certain that his advisors DO know but are corrupt and want to stay in power. The electorate are ill-informed, on average WHEN IT COMES TO ISSUES LIKE "TRUSTING DICTATORSHIP COUNTRIES TO HONOR AGREEMENTS TO DISARM". You must FIRST make them agree to give their own people FREEDOM like WE have in THIS country BEFORE even thinking about disarming.
    But no. Not even THEN can you disarm because even if all COUNTRIES became free and could therefore be trusted not to use weapons against other countries, you can never (as long as human nature remains what it is: absolute power corrupts and power corrupts absolutely- that does not ALWAYS happen but we all agree that SOMETIMES it does and as long as that SOMETIMES exists, you can never be sure that there is no "ENEMY WITHIN"), be sure that individual power-hungry people WITHIN the country can influence others and rise to power and round up followers. Then the government will use its power against the citizens and take over and the end result will be no different than if another country took it over. Look at Hitler. I think that it was around 1933 when he started to have an influence. Germany became totalitarian because regardless of whether or not there were external enemies, there was an enemy WITHIN. Look at the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 (see the movie "Dr. Zhivago). The people's freedom was taken away by the enemy from WITHIN (Lenin) and then STALIN. And look at Uganda. Free and prosperous BEFORE Idi Amin rose to power (an enemey from within) and now in ruins since 1979, when Idi Amin was finally ousted.
    And now, Obama wants to eliminate nuclear weapons and leave us defenseless?? And ban gun control that's been around for 233 years under the second amendment (the right to bear arms)? Immediately that's a red flag warning that we have a potential dictator in power who, if he had the means, would take as much freedom away from the citizens of the U.S. as Hitler did from Germany, as Idi Amin did from Ugandans, and as Saddam Hussein did from the Iraqis. As long as I'm here, Obama's administration needs to know that this is NOT going to happen.

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  2. Nuttin' better 'n strategic defense policy that is based on pure story-book fantasy.

    Of course, a real president and CIC would have ordered that Nork rocket blown into suspended particles right after it was launched, then told the Norks that the next rocket launch would be assumed to be carrying a nuclear warhead aimed at America, regardless of its direction of flight.

    Sadly, we haven't had a real CIC in over twenty-one years.

    And can anyone tell me why we continue to fund the Useless Nations, which is apparently is so limp and impotent that they couldn't prevent children in Sri Lanka from obtaining water pistols, much less a rogue nation from obtaining nukes?

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  3. Buchanan = No Longer America's Worst PresidentApril 5, 2009 at 9:46 PM

    Somebody ought to tell Oblahblah what Nicolae Ceauşescu got for Christmas in 1989.

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  4. Amen, Buchanan! That's exactly one of the examples I put in my post. Yes, tell Obama about Chowchesku right away. Somebody. I don't care who.

    The Same Anonomous that posted the first comment

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