Recently, White House representatives have compared President Obama’s nuclear posture to that of the Reagan Administration; President Reagan must be rolling in his grave.
Obama has indeed reaffirmed Reagan’s commitment to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” During his presidency, Reagan worked toward a reduction in nuclear stockpiles. He also recognized that America was faced with the international instability of the Cold War, and he introduced his “Star Wars” program prior to taking these actions. End result: the USSR succumbed to the pressures of American military strength, and we were able to reduce our nuclear arms supply at the same time.
President Obama, however, has taken a large step away from Reagan’s successful policies. President Reagan built America up as a world leader in defense technology, and Obama is simply dismantling this image. The Cold War fortunately is a thing of the past, but our current enemies — namely Iran and North Korea — are stronger than ever. As a result, weakening our defense systems will not galvanize any positive change.
If anything, President Obama is channeling President Carter. At the height of the Cold War, President Carter promised the defense and security of America, yet to the shock of Americans and to the world, he cancelled the promising B-1 bomber program without warning. During the four years of his administration, Carter projected an image of weakness while still trying to suggest an image of strength.
President Obama possesses the same errors in reasoning. He fails to realize that the leaders of these nations are illogical and irrational. They hate America with a passion, and any hint of weakness will only strengthen their resolve. Obama’s proposed sanctions against these nations will not solve any problems, and will only make us more susceptible to attack. As Iranian President Ahmadinejad reconfirmed, “The more hostile you are, the stronger an incentive our people will have.” As we have learned in the past, these dangerous leaders do not respond to reason; they respond to power.
The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed by President Obama and Russian President Medvedev, most notably calls for a 30 percent reduction in American and Russian nuclear arsenals over a period of seven years, as well as a combined reduction in missile development programs. Obama’s Nuclear Posture likewise restricts America from “using nuclear weapons on any country that has signed and is abiding by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attack the U.S. with chemical or biological weapons.” Surely, Obama wants to set an example, but why do we need to tell everyone that we will be unresponsive to attack? This is no time to mimic Ghandi; we are in the midst of an international crisis.
President Obama has promised to “preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure the American people are safe and secure.” At the same time, however, he has blatantly advertised the fact that we intend to reduce our military prowess. Obama seems more concerned with advancing his nuclear reduction agenda than with discouraging terrorists and terrorist-sponsoring countries.
Moreover, if we are setting an example for other nations to follow (as Obama hopes), we are likewise weakening our allies. On Monday and Tuesday, Obama held a Nuclear Security Summit with world leaders from 47 other nations to “raise awareness” about terrorist procurement of nuclear weapons, and to encourage countries to “lock down their nuclear weapons.” We indeed need to work together to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, but it seems counterproductive to concurrently reduce our defense technology.
If this does not seem crazy enough, a large number of liberals have complained that Obama is not doing enough to reduce nuclear arms. I think we can all agree that we would rather live in a world without nuclear weapons, but quite simply, we don’t.
We need to cope with the realities of the world and send a message to our enemies. America is fighting a war on terrorism; if anything, we need to build and maintain our defense shield — not deconstruct it.
Strategic nuclear weapons are inherently useless against terrorists. So, if anything, reducing the number of strategic nuclear warheads we have to maintain means we can put more of our resources into weapon systems we can acctually use. Fewer strategic warheads also means that it’s harder to steal one, if you are a terrorist attempting to do so.
The ‘no nuclear response to chemical or biological warfare’ is a bit more troublesome. But, notice the condition. Iran and North Korea either 1. Never signed the non-proliferation agreement. Or 2. are actively flaunting it. So, the treaty is a non-issue with regards to these countries. If anything, it might convince them to sign on to these treaties and cease atomic weapons development. Although, I will admit you are correct to point out that their leaders are not necessarily rational and probably wouldn’t make such a deal.
History has a way of repeating itself and we can either learn from it or dare to relive the experience.
Treaties are only as good as the folks who honor them and taking a Jimmy Carteresque approach to foreign affairs proved to be unsuccessful if not sadly naive. For example, the Iran we have today is of Jimmy Carter’s making.
I am reminded of a story told by Albert Spear (Hitler’s ‘architect and much more) concerning Foreign Minister Von Ribontrop. The story goes that as Von Ribontrop was being presented with a fancy wooden box to hold all of the treaties that he himself negotiated with various countries, everyone began to laugh when they realized that every one of the agreements had been violated and ignored!
Roger Freberg
You make a perfectly valid point. Governments may agree to a treaty and then turn around and ignore it. In fact, your point shows a flaw my initial argument. I made my argument under the assumption that we could detect someone violating the Non-Proliferation agreement, which may not necessarily be true. A rouge state could still have a hidden nuclear program. It’s hard to do, but certainly not impossible.
On the question of Iran, I would blame Dwight D. Eisenhower for authorizing ‘Operation AJAX’, which overthrew Mohammad Mosaddegh, the then elected Prime Minister of Iran. This is ultimately what lead to the revolution in 1979, when Carter was in power. Not that I particular like Carter… I just don’t think he can be blamed for the revolution in Iran.
This piece is a reflection of the recent outcry from nearly all Conservative media outlets, which have taken tidbits from recent documents such as START and NPR and vastly misconstrued them to the public. A simple investigation into the actual wording of the documents and press releases directly from the White House (i.e, not Fox News) reveals that the U.S. does reserve the right to take both preemptive and defensive nuclear action against countries such as Iran and North Korea that have not signed the nonproliferation treaty and are in violation of U.N. sanctions. You have inferred that Obama is sending them message that we will not respond to an attack, when in fact he himself has stated the precise opposite. Let’s keep the facts separated from the Fox.
Hey, Ben, I think you’ve just done what you’ve accused Mr. Pringle of doing. If you applied your own standard, “a simple investigation into the actual wording”, you’d see that Mr. Pringle’s article, concerning the aspect of nonretaliation, specifies those who HAVE signed the agreement, not those who HAVEN’T; quote, “Obama’s Nuclear Posture likewise restricts America from “using nuclear weapons on any country that [has signed] and is abiding by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attack the U.S. with chemical or biological weapons.”” It would appear that you should maybe go after the part of the quote that says “is abiding by…even if they attack us” if there is any merrit, of course. I don’t know what you’re up to, but it appears like a (typical) leftist distortion spin. You don’t happen to go by the nic name, Foxy, do you? ;0)
Come on now, you can do better than this. As others have pointed out, nukes don’t help against terrorists and your interpretation of the treaty’s restriction of using nukes is flawed.
Why is reducing the number of nuclear weapons a bad thing? we still have enough to destroy earth many times over. The cold war and the insane concept of MAD are not very relevant in the global political theater these days. Shouldn’t our defensive capabilities change with the changing times?
I agree that the recent nuclear treaty and strategy are an unnecessary change, however, the noise being made by fox news is unjustifiable.
My biggest point to those saying we should reduce our nuclear stock pile because nukes are ineffective against terrorists is that perhaps in another decade our biggest threat will be a nuclear power like China or Russia. Just because there is no reason to have thousands today doesnt mean they will be irrelevant a few years from now.
Hey, Scott, did you read Brian’s response? Well said, Brian. I don’t play chess, but from what I know of it the strategies are long term, which is what the government needs to be considering with each strategic move in the present; there are more players on the board than today’s terrorists. And Scott, you are right, we “have enough.” However, much of it is obsolete in todays game, so let’s disarm the old stuff while keeping our ability to stay ahead of potential threats. It’s in having the advantage that keeps bully’s with weapons from using them; we must engage at their level, and hopefully the higher enlightenment of “Peace out” will be achieved by their next generations. Do you think?
Your representation of Reagan using our military might ended the cold war is a bit of an exaggeration. The USSR was in it’s last days regardless, Reagan probably sped the process up a bit, but probably only by a few years.
To say we are in the midst of an international crisis is a bit of an overstatement. Honestly, while Iran and N Korea are a concern, N Korea hasn’t proved they have any means of launching anything successfully that could reach us or that they have a successful nuke. They Are rather broke as a country and while they talk big, don’t really have the resources to be that much of a threat to us directly if at all. Suggesting that north korea is strong, is laughable at best.
Iran is a larger concern but one can suspect that the primary reason they want nukes is because pakistan has them as does india. The bomb isn’t really tool anymore as much as it is a strategy to try to keep others from attacking you, and even if we reduce our almost 10000 weapon stock pile by 30%, we will still have more weapons then almost everyone combined (excluding russia). Truthfully, we probably only need about 10 to end the world.
By reducing our stock pile and signing on, we are not showing how weak we are, we are showing how strong we are that we don’t need massive amounts of fire power to make peace and be a world leader as well as showing that we do not want conflict. Isn’t that what we all really want?
AM,you gotta give credit where it’s due. Reagan’s strategy was to bankrupt the Russians knowing that, yes, they were on the verge of ecomomic disaster, but also knowing that without a balance of power (as in our Constitution)tyrants do what they want in order to satisfying their perceived needs at the expense of others. If it wasn’t for Reagan’s understanding, concerning the potential consequences immanent in the scenario of Russia’s ideology and desperate economic circumstances, the international scene may have a much different face to it today. As was Russia, North Korea is desperate despot nation that is not to be ignored or even considered less of a threat than Iran. But, concerning Iran’s “primary reason” for achieving nuclear capability, it’s because Israel has it, not because Pakistan and India do; there have been no Iranian hate speaches of destruction directed at either Pakistan or India.
Your last paragraph shows your [apparent] lack of comprehension regarding the ideologies of some nations with which we and others have to negotiate; nations that operate in a Neaderthal mentality, at best, which effects a need to be strongER if we want to maintain that which we enjoy. It’s very simple actually.
I hadn’t thought about Israel, valid point but I doubt that is the only reason. The USSR and North Korea can hardly be compared, the USSR had money, planes, lots of nukes, resources; NK on the other hand has few resources, an unsuccessful nuke, and no air force to speak of. Just saying.
Also, seeing as how most countries have less then 500 nukes, being stronger isn’t hard even if reduce our arsenal to 10% of what it currently is.
One can also suspect that this decision also comes with increasing pressure from the nuclear power industry who relies on old nukes for fuel, their current source is almost depleted (world wide)
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