Maybe it’s the phallic thing, but we love us some nuclear warheads around here. Seriously, we’re licking our lips right now just thinking about them … which is why the news that U.S. President Barack Obama has scaled back America’s nuclear arsenal to a new post-Cold War lows has our founding editor railing against “Shrinkage!”
With the stroke of “the One’s” pen yesterday, America lopped off 30% of its arsenal – which truth be told is simultaneously emasculating and insignificant.
From The Christian Science Monitor:
The two presidents issued a “joint understanding” that commits the two countries to reducing strategic warheads to a range of 1,500 to 1,675 – down from the current ceiling of 2,200 – and to a maximum of 1,600 launch vehicles. The goal is to reach an agreement in time to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires on Dec. 5.
We say “emasculating” because the elimination of thousands of warheads and launch vehicles is obviously nothing to shake a stick at.
But we also say “insignificant” because America and Russia will still hold over 90% of the world’s nuclear weaponry.
The real problem is that Obama is rushing to get something in place by the end of the year – and as a result, for the first time ever is putting missile defense on the table as a bargaining chip. In fact, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev clearly stated that the “linkage” between nuclear arms reduction and missile defense would be what defined U.S.-Soviet (sorry, U.S.-Russian) relations moving forward.
That’s a scary thought.
A scarier one, however, is the message this agreement sends to countries like Iran and North Korea, which are both aggressively pursuing nuclear programs and missile technology.
Obama has made it clear that he’s not interested in stopping either regime, and his goal of a “world without nuclear weapons” – while commendable – is one that these nations obviously do not share.
