Last year, Barack Obama pledged to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the American arsenal. He made great speeches about it. He earned the Nobel Peace Prize.
This year, with prize in hand, and speeches made, Obama wrote a federal budget with 7 billion dollars for building new nuclear weapons and inventing new technologies to make nuclear weapons even deadlier (“reliable”). Many people are asking, what’s the big deal?
I am astounded that so many people still need to have that question answered, but if they do need an answer, then those of us who care need to do more than shrug our shoulders and bemoan their ignorance. We need to help provide those answers.
For that reason, I’ll be working over the next few weeks to provide text, links and videos that show the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. The United States is the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons, and so we Americans have a special duty to remember what has come as the result of our nation’s terrible invention – an invention that Barack Obama wants to make more powerful.
If you want to understand why that’s a problem, here’s a place to start: A sample of the testimony of survivors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yeah, and he professes to be a Chrisian too. Who would Jesus NUKE?
You’re twisting the facts. Obama is NOT going to increase our nuclear weapons stockpile. We’re going to build more reliable weapons so we need fewer of them. Less weapons = reduction. Less weapons = less fissile material to get into the hands of people who shouldn’t have it. Meanwhile, Obama is continuing multilateral disarmament efforts with the Russians. From the AFP a few days ago: “Recalling his commitment toward disarmament outlined in a key speech in Prague last year, Obama noted that United States and Russia were completing negotiations on a new START nuclear reduction treaty. US and Russian negotiators began their latest round of talks on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on Monday in Geneva.”
I had to follow your link to your link to your link to get to the actual story, and the actual story rebuts your claims.
“The investment would ensure a smaller stockpile will take care of the nation’s needs; the stockpile is safe and secure; and other nations aren’t cheating as the U.S. moves ‘from a Cold War nuclear weapons complex … into a 21st century, nuclear security enterprise,’ D’Agostino said.”
It also states the money is going to engineers, facilities, etc… at this point any stimulus money at all that’s going into something besides construction is a good thing.
“Los Alamos’ budget includes about $225 million for design work for a chemical and metallurgy research replacement building, known as CMRR, to replace a 58-year-old lab where scientists analyze samples of plutonium and other radioactive materials.
Watchdog groups contend CMRR positions the U.S. to build more nuclear weapons by giving Los Alamos the capacity to make large numbers of new plutonium pit designs — the triggers of nuclear weapons.
Los Alamos lab officials have said the facility would replace existing capabilities and would be needed for other science, even if Los Alamos didn’t do pit production.”
Advocacy groups are doing what the Republicans always do – say a fact isn’t really a fact, and the REAL whatever is this. Even though the *fact* is that the money is to replace an aging building, they’re saying what it REALLY is part of some secret plan that Obama’s never actually announced to make plutonium pit designs – while simultaneously working with the Russians to decrease the size of our arsenals – that devious man! I’ve got to reject this leap of logic the same way I rejected claims that even though the health insurance reform bill said “A”, it was really going to do “B”.
Obama never ran on a platform of unilateral disarmament, and I reject the belief that reducing our arsenal is an increase because I’m not innumerate.
Joseph, who is twisting the facts? You’re claiming that a program to make new nuclear weapons is a program to have fewer nuclear weapons.
You ask us to believe that the only way to cut our nuclear weapons arsenal is to make additional nuclear weapons first. If the subject matter weren’t so serious, your contention would be silly. Given the context, it’s obscene.
There is no need for the massive numbers of nuclear weapons the United States has now. Obama could cut the arsenal in half, save us money instead of placing us deeper in debt, and we would not be any less safe as a result.
“Joseph, who is twisting the facts?”
You, for a second time.
” You’re claiming that a program to make new nuclear weapons is a program to have fewer nuclear weapons. ”
See? I already challenged that catchphrase, and instead of rebutting my criticism, you just repeat it.
It’s not some crazy bit of logic. The new nuclear weapons will REPLACE the old weapons. There will be FEWER weapons replacing MORE weapons, leading to a net decrease. Recently I upgraded some business PCs. I replaced old single-core CPUs with new four-cores. No one screamed “How is buying new CPUs reducing our PC count and power usage?” If 2 quad-core PC servers can perform the same back-end crunching as 8 old single-core PCs, then we end up with 6 LESS computers, and less overall power drain. I’m not trying to bamboozle you here.
“You ask us to believe that the only way to cut our nuclear weapons arsenal is to make additional nuclear weapons first.”
Um, no, I never claimed that “the only way to…” part. You stated that Obama was going against his pledge to reduce nuclear weapons. I showed that what Obama was doing would lower our overall arsenal total, and that he was also negotiating a new round of arsenal reductions with the Russians, which kneecaps your claim he’s adding to our arsenal from the get-go. Now you’ve changed the argument to a straw man that I was arguing this is the only way to reduce the nuclear arsenal. No one said that, and I never argued anything at all, just rebutted your claim. You’re a smart guy, and you don’t need to do things like create straw men.
Regarding this plan of Obama’s though: if Obama doesn’t want to make cuts without Russian commitment to do the same (and a unilateral reduction on our part would undermine the incentive the Russians have to agree to their own reductions with the START negotiations) then this method does cut our arsenal but leaves us with the same strike capability, still requiring the Russians to reduce their own destructive capacity to get us to lower ours. It seems like a win-win… gain the other benefits of a lower arsenal while not trading away the carrot for the Russians to agree to the START proposals. And given Obama traded away everything good in his health plan before debate even began, leaving no room for compromise, I’m rather impressed with here. I’d have figured he’d have announced total unilateral disarmament and then tried to negotiate with the Russians.
” If the subject matter weren’t so serious, your contention would be silly. Given the context, it’s obscene.”
Again, it’s only these things if you – bafflingly – continue to ignore that the new weapons replace many old ones, both in the original article and after I explained it. If you ignore the explanation again and just repeat your catchphrase a third time, you’ll have quite possibly spent too much time among freepers and picked up some of their habits.
“There is no need for the massive numbers of nuclear weapons the United States has now.”
I don’t disagree and never claimed otherwise. But if you unilaterally disarm, there’s zero incentive for the other nuclear nations to disarm. Thus, instead of attacking Obama as the new Dr. Strangelove, he should be commended for working with the Russians to achieve multilateral disarmament. He’s reducing the number while disincentivizing the Russians. If and when START is finalized, there will be even more disarmament from what would be achieved from replacing the aging arsenal with a smaller number of more reliable devices. While this may not be your FAVORITE way of doing things, it’s certainly not a BAD way of doing things. What’s the downside that you see that I’m missing?
” Obama could cut the arsenal in half, save us money instead of placing us deeper in debt, and we would not be any less safe as a result.”
Perhaps. But realistically, that gives Russia and China alot with nothing in return. Wouldn’t it be better in the long run for Obama to try to negotiate a MULTILATERAL 50% reduction in nuclear arms? I’d feel much safer that way, as I fear it’s much easier for a nuke to fall into the hands of terrorists if it’s in the hands of one of the former Soviet republics than if it’s in Iowa. A 50% unilateral cut would have to be pushed through a congress filled with the Party of No and Fake Democrats, and probably also opposed by those states who’d suspect the waste from the dismantled weapons would end up stored in their state (like say Harry Reid and Nevada). But there’s no political way these groups could get away with not ratifying a multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty. And if it gets us to the same place (major nuclear reduction) or arguably a better place (multilateral reduction) in an easier fashion, I can’t see getting upset about that.
Joseph, you’re repeating yourself, at length, but neither length nor repetition adds any logic.
In spite of your assertions, Russia and China don’t gain anything from the reduction of America’s nuclear weapons arsenal that we don’t gain ourselves. They don’t become richer, or more militarily powerful. Our nuclear weapons can’t stop their nuclear weapons from hitting us, after all. They don’t hit each other in the sky, canceling each other out. They keep an eye on the skies to see if we launch nuclear missiles, and we do the same. If we see them launching nuclear missiles, our nukes can’t stop theirs. All they can do is vaporize hundreds of millions of Russians or Chinese civilians in revenge. The attacks of September 11, 2001, the greatest assault against US territory since Pearl Harbor, wasn’t stopped by nuclear weapons at all.
Furthermore, your claim that there would be some kind of tremendous strategic gain for China and Russia if the USA had only 500 or 1000 nuclear missiles to completely destroy their countries with is absurd. 25 nuclear explosions would certainly be more enough to drive either nation into complete anarchy. 5 would probably do the job. Even just 1 nuclear missile would likely cause nationwide revolt in either nation. You’ve seen what the deaths of just 3,000 people here in the USA has done to damage the integrity of our nation’s freedom. Multiply that by 100,000 with just one nuclear weapon… and you really think that one, two or three thousand nuclear weapons isn’t enough?
There’s absolutely no need for any new nuclear weapons. Terror is terror. There’s no point, strategically, in saying that the Chinese will do what we want if we say that we’re going to kill 600 million of them, but not if we only kill 100 million. There’s no strategic distinction between destroying Russia completely and destroying Russia very, very, very completely.
You’re talking about how difficult it would be to get Congress to approve nuclear arms reductions, but they’ve already done that. Furthermore, the billions of dollars Obama is requesting is to make new nuclear weapons.
Your logic is the same as we’d see if the CIA came to Guantanamo and said, “Listen, we want to reduce torture here. So, what we’re going to do is, instead of torturing 50 prisoners by beating them with our bare hands, we’re going to stop torturing 5 prisoners, but then start beating 5 other prisoners with iron bars.” That’s not torture reduction, Joseph. Neither is the plan to create additional, deadlier nuclear weapons a way to reduce the nuclear weapons arsenal.
Ronald Reagan argued as you did a generation ago. He said that what we needed to do to get the Russians/Soviet Union to disarm was to make huge amounts of nuclear weapons ourselves. A generation later, do you see that strategy’s success? Nope. The Russians still have huge numbers of nuclear weapons, and other nations have joined the game in the meantime.
Eliminating the nuclear weapons arsenal is the way to reduce the nuclear weapons arsenal. Period. Adding new nuclear weapons isn’t a reduction. It just isn’t. It’s essential, in looking at Obama’s nuclear weapons policy, to not put it all in a conceptual blender and say that reductions can’t be separated from additions to the arsenal. They can be separated. They must be separated.
“Joseph, you’re repeating yourself, at length, but neither length nor repetition adds any logic.”
But perhaps it gets you to accede or rebut the points I raised rather than ignoring them and repeating your original argument.
“In spite of your assertions, Russia and China don’t gain anything from the reduction of America’s nuclear weapons arsenal that we don’t gain ourselves.”
Um… they gain less missiles pointed at their cities? I don’t know if you ever saw it, but in one (tv?) segment Michael Moore filmed, he went to Russia to find the exact missile pointed at his town. If that missile were, let’s say, decommissioned, Michael Moore would have gained more than if a missile in Iowa were dismantled. Let’s replace the parties here. Would you say that America wouldn’t gain anything from the reduction of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal that North Korea would gain from reducing or eliminating its nuclear program? We’d gain one less crazy-ass dictator with a bomb. North Korea would probably gain food and possibly technology transfer. If Iran stood down on its nuclear ambitions, we’d gain more regional security – less chance of an Israeli strike on Iran or a regional arms race. Neither South Korea nor (despite a few rumblings) Japan seem inclined to seek nuclear weapons so there’s no arms race avoided there. A reduction in Pakistani arms would reduce Pakistani-Indian tensions and lower the risk of danger of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban if Pakistani civil unrest spreads. Israel admitting to its nuclear program and inspection might placate Iran from trying to gain a bomb, etc. Every situation and region is different and gains and losses are quite different for each if arsenals are reduced (or acquired, or built up).
” They don’t become richer, or more militarily powerful. ”
They would become safer. Also, the more nukes you have, the more chance you have of devastating the opponent in a first strike so they can’t retaliate, or the more chance you have of being able to retaliate if you’re hit first. So yes, you DO become more militarily powerful if another country forsakes ANY weapon that you don’t.
“Our nuclear weapons can’t stop their nuclear weapons from hitting us, after all. They don’t hit each other in the sky, canceling each other out. They keep an eye on the skies to see if we launch nuclear missiles, and we do the same. If we see them launching nuclear missiles, our nukes can’t stop theirs.”
But they DO keep other people’s weapons from hitting us… if we destroy their launch capability. It’s not anywhere near as simple as you make it out to be. During the 1970s the Russians had very large yield nukes that could devastate our fixed launch sites while we did not really have the ability to guarantee destruction of their most hardened silos. If they got first launch, that would mean they stood a much better chance of crippling our potential to respond, and a better chance of weathering a first strike. It’s not like missile command.
Our nuclear doctrine is much more complex. Part of our early warning system consisted of OTH (over the horizon) radar systems, some located in Alaska. It was postulated that a Russian nuclear attack would probably be proceeded by an attempted air strike to knock out said radars. The Russians feared the same, and during the Cold War we’d routinely deliberately fly fighter jets into each other’s air space, which would cause radars to be activated, jets to scramble, etc. Each country would then study the electronic intercepts, satellite photos of mobilization,etc. and try to figure out what the other side would do in the event of an attack, etc. Trust me, there was (and probably is) a ton of doctrine based on either trying to blind the other side to an attack or how to attempt to cripple the other side’s systems before first launch, etc. My point is that it’s not one missile destroying another, but the number, type and location of deployed warheads is formulated based on many factors. And number of warheads certainly is an advantage, as is the number of any weapon. That’s why the arms *race* was conducted. Having more nukes than your enemy is an intrinsic advantage to either disabling or retaining retaliatory ability. And if one side feels they’ll have the better of a nuclear exchange, the MAD doctrine goes out the window.
” All they can do is vaporize hundreds of millions of Russians or Chinese civilians in revenge. The attacks of September 11, 2001, the greatest assault against US territory since Pearl Harbor, wasn’t stopped by nuclear weapons at all. ”
Of course. 9/11 was pulled off with pocket knives. But I also don’t know who was asserting otherwise in this exchange. The benefit to me if say Russia disarms vs. if we disarm is that as far as I know no American nuclear missiles are pointed at New Jersey. Although that might explain Newark.
Don’t forget the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine. SO long as we CAN vaporize hundreds of millions of Russians or Chinese civilians, nuclear war with Russia or China isn’t winnable. And if it’s not winnable, it won’t be done (by sane people). If the Russians or Chinese invented a magic missile shield tomorrow so that we couldn’t retaliate, nuclear war becomes like any other means of warfare – one side may come out ahead. That makes it a logical (if immoral) tactic for a country. You lose the ability to retaliate and you make it more attractive to another party. It’s been said that countries don’t acquire nuclear weapons for offense but for defense. The message is that even if your military is 10X stronger than ours, if you invade I can destroy you with my bomb, so don’t think about invading me. Even in that respect it’s the ability to retaliate that prevents war and bloodshed.
“Furthermore, your claim that there would be some kind of tremendous strategic gain for China and Russia if the USA had only 500 or 1000 nuclear missiles to completely destroy their countries with is absurd. 25 nuclear explosions would certainly be more enough to drive either nation into complete anarchy. 5 would probably do the job. Even just 1 nuclear missile would likely cause nationwide revolt in either nation. You’ve seen what the deaths of just 3,000 people here in the USA has done to damage the integrity of our nation’s freedom. Multiply that by 100,000 with just one nuclear weapon… and you really think that one, two or three thousand nuclear weapons isn’t enough?”
Again, you’re positing that I’ve argued that we need billions of nuclear weapons. You keep trying to turn me into Donald Rumsfeld, but none of this has anything to do with the original premise. Your premise was that Obama would INCREASE the net total U.S. nuclear missile count. I offered an argument and some evidence to counter that premise. Now you’re trying to debate me about how many missiles we need, or relative safety achieved by who disarms, etc. All of that is peripheral to your original premise. Are you conceding that Obama’s actions will result in an eventual net decrease in our arsenal, are you going to demonstrate I committed a logical fallacy in my chain of reasoning, or are you going to introduce new evidence? Those are the only fair options here. This discussion isn’t about how many nukes we need, it’s about what Obama’s going to do about their number.
“There’s absolutely no need for any new nuclear weapons. Terror is terror. There’s no point, strategically, in saying that the Chinese will do what we want if we say that we’re going to kill 600 million of them, but not if we only kill 100 million. There’s no strategic distinction between destroying Russia completely and destroying Russia very, very, very completely. ”
Every so often in NJ we have programs where people can turn in guns no questions asked for money. Just because we haven’t removed every illegal gun off the street is one fell swoop, you can’t argue that it isn’t effective. J. Clifford, no one is going to be able to sit down and negotiate a complete nuclear disarmament of the entire world in one treaty. But each step towards that goal is a good thing. What I was talking about is that China and Russia, like everyone else, wants less weapons of all types pointed at them. If you had two gunslingers pointing pistols at each other, what do they do if they want to be safe? They say, “I’ll lower mine if you lower yours” and lower them slowly and at the same time. No one’s going to think the best bet is to lower their gun and then ask the other person to lower theirs.
The number of weapons DO matter in military planning. You cited earlier that they’d shoot theirs than we’d shoot ours. That’s not true and ignoring the entire history of nuclear weaponry. If they shoot theirs first, we might not have any left to shoot back with. Don’t dispute this, as this was the reason for the whole plan of having MX missiles be rail-based to prevent them from being targeted in a first strike. It’s also the intent of having nuclear submarines (guaranteeing retaliation even if the other party conducts a 100% successful first strike) and why the U.S. and Soviet navies took immense efforts to track each other’s submarines over decades. It’s the idea behind missile shields, anti-ballistic missile defenses, etc. We have a lot of them because we want to insure we have enough left to be able to conduct a massive counterstrike and thus keep the MAD (mutually assured destruction) strategy effective. Otherwise, if you had first strike capability that could knock out a great deal of my ICBMS and airfields, I’d have very little left to counterattack with, and you might deem it worth the cost – or at least constantly threaten that it’s worth the cost. Wikipedia gets into this to some degree if you wish to check it out, e.g….
“During the late 1970s, the Soviet Union fielded a large number of heavy, increasingly accurate, MIRV ICBMs (like the SS-18, defined by throw weight) which seriously threatened the survival of Minuteman III missiles in their silos. If the Soviet Union could have knocked out the majority of these missiles and the strategic bombers on ground, it would have left the United States with no counterforce capability for the second strike. The Poseidon and Trident I SLBMs were not accurate enough for counterforce strikes, and did not carry high enough yield. If the Soviet first strike would have avoided hitting civil targets, the US might have been forced not to retaliate against Soviet cities, because of similar Soviet countercity capabilities. So the United States needed weapons which could survive a Soviet first-strike and neutralize the remaining Soviet strategic arsenal, in order to avoid nuclear blackmail.”
It’s not just bloodlust behind our arsenal…. it’s military strategy, realpolitik and particularly game theory. Every side is afraid that the other side will get the jump on them and they’ll lose the ability to significantly retaliate, making a first nuclear strike a more attractive option for the other sides. You only get one chance to get it right, and if the other side has deployed ABM sites they’re not supposed to have or space-based weaponry they’re not supposed to have (and the conventional wisdom is that both the U.S. and Russians do have illegal space-based weapons) their arsenal will be much less effective than planned. There’s also the risk that opponents will conduct an anti-satellite first strike, blinding their victim to what’s coming at them – or more importantly, who actually fired it. It’s really complex, and even those who work in the nonproliferation field understand that just unilaterally disarming is not the best answer and it certainly doesn’t make you as safe as other parties. There’s nothing wrong with a staggered set of treaties that continue to lower numbers while still maintaining a deterrent while we tighten nonproliferation to avoid any more nuclear powers emerging and also reign in other technologies like anti-satellite weapons that threaten MAD. People who work in this field are not filled with bloodlust just because they find it much more practical to maintain a deterrent while working for nuclear weapons elimination.
“You’re talking about how difficult it would be to get Congress to approve nuclear arms reductions, but they’ve already done that. Furthermore, the billions of dollars Obama is requesting is to make new nuclear weapons.”
Do you believe THIS congress would let THIS President unilaterally decrease our arsenal by 50%? Really? They already label him a non-American Marxist traitor just for bailing out GM and floating (however briefly) a public health insurance option. They’d be calling for his impeachment the second he mentioned it. And we’ve been over this make new nuclear weapons thing… they’re REPLACING weapons. Replacing involves both acquiring something and GETTING RID OF something. You want a 50% reduction but if Obama said for every new weapon built he’d scrap two old ones you’d find that unacceptable? Six of one, half a dozen of the other, with no loss of deterrent. Again, as long as we get to the same point, I don’t see the problem – plus there’s no way this Congress would make any other road easy.
“Your logic is the same as we’d see if the CIA came to Guantanamo and said, “Listen, we want to reduce torture here. So, what we’re going to do is, instead of torturing 50 prisoners by beating them with our bare hands, we’re going to stop torturing 5 prisoners, but then start beating 5 other prisoners with iron bars.” That’s not torture reduction, Joseph. Neither is the plan to create additional, deadlier nuclear weapons a way to reduce the nuclear weapons arsenal.”
Seriously? To posit an example that involves what we’re actually talking about, how about this: we spend a lot of money maintaining our carrier battle groups. If the Navy said they’re going to build new modern carriers that were more automated, required less crew in harm’s way, were 40% more fuel efficient and could deliver the combined firepower of two old carriers, and for each one new one they built they were going to decommission two old carriers, THAT would be like what Obama is doing. No net change in force projection, but a reduction in total and the benefits that accrue from that with something left to bargain the Russians for. See, in your example you used “5″ and “5″. You STILL don’t get the part where they explicitly said they’d replace MORE with LESS. If your example used “5″ and “3″ it would still be quite unconstitutional but at least an accurate portrayal. Your last sentence still intentionally, in a stupifyingly Palinesque matter, leaves out the part where WE’D DECOMMISSION MORE THAN WE’D BUILT RESULTING IN A NET DECREASE BECAUSE WE’D NEED LESS NUKES TO INSURE WE WERE ABLE TO HIT HARDENED AND UNDERGROUND RUSSKIE MISSILE SILOS AND THEY’D BE MORE RELIABLE BECAUSE THE CURRENT GEN WERE BUILT WITH A 20-25 YEAR LIFE EXPECTANCY AND WE NEED A LOT BECAUSE A LOT OF THE OLDER ONES MAY ACTUALLY BE DUDS.
I really want to believe you’re honest and sincere, but by continuing to state (and refusal to address the fact or even admit it exists) that there is decommissioning involved (hence the word “replace”), makes me wonder. I remember when I was a freshman in high school and I took part in a petition drive by the world’s children to have both Reagan and Gorbachev appear on a television program to address the world’s children and our concerns about nuclear weapons. While I was getting signatures in the school cafeteria, a senior girl walked up and yelled, “Don’t sign that! They want to unilaterally get rid of all our nuclear weapons!” People put down the pens. I then explained that it’s just a request to have the two leaders to appear on a globally televised program to talk about the current nuclear situation with children’s peace groups. After a one second pause she yelled even louder, “They want to get rid of all our nuclear weapons and let the Communists kill us all!” Even more people put down the pens. I then started reading the petition out loud to her, figuring somehow she just didn’t understand what I’d just said and she’d completely ignored. She then grabbed the clipboard in my hands and started wrestling with me! She eventually shoved me against the wall, yanked the clipboard away and ran away with it! In my defense, I was not a big 14-year-old and she was quite an Amazonian 18-year-old.
Here it is almost 25 years later, and I feel like the naive 14-year-old non-proliferation activist again, this time calmly explaining to someone from my own side of the ideological/philosophical aisle that we are building some new ones but getting rid of a lot of old ones so we’ll have less, not more, than before, and if we get a new START treaty that’s even better, and there’s you yelling “Obama’s going to build a whole lot more nuclear weapons!!!” and grabbing my clipboard again.
Honestly, dude… your heart’s in the right place, and you write a lot of good stuff. We both want a safer world, and there’s a lot of bad stuff and broken promises of Obama to complain about. But can’t we agree that Obama finding a way to sneak a net nuclear drawdown past the Party of No without them screaming he’s weak on defense (I think it’s clear now that Obama and Reid are completely ineffective at countering the Republican smear machine) and hopefully getting multilateral gains with a START treaty is NOT a reason to hate the guy and certainly NOT a reason to move the doomsday clock closer to midnight? Please?
“Ronald Reagan argued as you did a generation ago. He said that what we needed to do to get the Russians/Soviet Union to disarm was to make huge amounts of nuclear weapons ourselves.”
Are you talking about outspending the Soviets in the Cold War? I’m part of that “generation ago”, and I don’t recall Reagan expressing the sentiment you attribute to him. He did want to use our economy to our advantage to engage the Russians in an arms race they couldn’t afford to win. Put that way, it sounds a lot more logical – no less scary or immoral, but at least rational. You’re leaving out the part about *how* a nuclear arms race would lead to a disarmament.
“A generation later, do you see that strategy’s success? Nope. The Russians still have huge numbers of nuclear weapons, and other nations have joined the game in the meantime.”
The goal was never to get the Soviets to disarm. The goal was to “defang” the Soviet Union. And as much as I hate to admit it, while not saying it was the best or a moral strategy, it DID accomplish his objectives. There is no more Soviet Union, we have a lot of their former client states (to say nothing of their republics) in our back pocket, and their military is a shambles with their navy rusting in drydock – what parts didn’t end up in the hands of Ukraine and some other new nations. We took advantage of their economic chaos to have American firms buy up former state-run companies at bargain prices, etc., etc. And hey – we even got to use Romanian client state secret prisons for our own use! Yeah, it’s not pretty – but Reagan wasn’t trying for pretty. The goal was not only to defeat the Soviet Union, but to attempt to keep it defeated and broke permanently so it could never become a rival (note: not unfriendly or enemy, just “rival”) power again, even if the Russian people had to suffer tremendously and it led to the return of totalitarianism. So far: mission accomplished. The Russians at one point even offered Bush I (I believe) a deal not to long after the collapse wherein they WOULD unilaterally get rid of their missiles if we’d fund the effort. He declined. No, the goal was never democracy or peace or disarmament. It’s maintaining and increasing economic and military power and world dominance, and Reagan/Bush/Bush II and even Clinton have all furthered those goals.
But in regards to actual disarmament, Russia DOES have less nukes now than during the cold war. The following are footnotes from the Ploughshares Fund’s World Nuclear Stockpiles report:
“1.Russia’s estimated total inventory of non-strategic warheads is approximately 5,390 warheads, down from 15,000 in 1991.
2 The estimate for the size and composition of the total Russian inventory comes with considerable uncertainty but is based on Cold War levels, subsequent dismantlement rates, and official Russian statements. Perhaps as many as a quarter (~3,000) of the weapons listed may be awaiting dismantlement. An estimated average of 1,000 retired warheads are dismantled per year.”
Oh my. Even the Russians dismantle weapons. And I guess by replacing old weapons (which you have to do because of their “shelf life”) at a slower pace than dismantling, they achieved a net decrease since 1991. Hmmm…
Yes, I and the peace-investing Ploughshares group agree that the world nuclear stockpile levels are unacceptably high, but there has been much, much progress since the end of the Cold War in reducing these weapons. Nonproliferation…. not so much, but that’s a different story that doesn’t involve what Obama did or didn’t do.
“Eliminating the nuclear weapons arsenal is the way to reduce the nuclear weapons arsenal. Period.”
You don’t justify this period. Our weapons were designed with a 20-25 shelf life. If you don’t replace aging, decaying, unreliable or unstable components you’ll wake up to have zero useful weapons in your arsenal. If Obama doesn’t upgrade any, the last “batch” will be ineffective and we’ll have none. You seem to be saying again the only route is immediate 100% nuclear disarmament. Period. That’s as dogmatic and untenable as saying “The only way to get out of Iraq is to just drop all of our weapons and have our soldiers march double-time into Kuwait, leaving all our heavy equipment behind. The way to get out of Iraq is for all of troops to leave Iraq. Period.” Sorry, immediate 100% withdrawal is not the only way to leave Iraq (Obama’s phased withdrawal seems to be on schedule, safer for us and the Iraqis, and one of the few promises he’s been pretty good on delivering on.). Eliminating all nuclear weapons is not the only way to disarmament, and serious nonproliferation efforts have resulted in decreased stockpiles. What’s the success rate of “abstinence-only” nonproliferation? The only country to ever develop then forsake nuclear weapons is South Africa. To take a “pure” position that anyone who wants a phased withdrawal is no different than the neocons is unsupportable. To say “we’ll just literally lose our whole nuclear arsenal once the weapons Reagan built end their shelf life” is as idealistic as it is dangerous. Could you please site for me ANY nonproliferation PROFESSIONAL who advocates the U.S. unilaterally never replacing any nuclear weapon and just letting entire groups expire en masse when their shelf lives run out? Even if China or Russia or Pakistan or Iran or North Korea or Israel won’t do the same? And that that’ll make them no more safe than it makes us (per your argument way up above)?
“Adding new nuclear weapons isn’t a reduction.”
One last time: WE’RE NOT NET ADDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHEN YOU REPLACE THE TWO DOUBLE AAS IN YOUR TELEVISION REMOTE, HOW MANY BATTERIES DO YOU BELIEVE YOU END UP WITH???? FOUR????????????????????????????????????
Please comprehend this: OBAMA WILL BE LETTING MANY NUCLEAR WEAPONS EXPIRE UNREPLENISHED BECAUSE WE WON’T NEED THEM ANY MORE!!! WE WILL HAVE LESS NUCLEAR WEAPONS WHEN HE LEAVES OFFICE THAN WHEN WE ENTERED OFFICE!!!!
(Takes deep breath). Ok. I’m good now.
“It’s essential, in looking at Obama’s nuclear weapons policy, to not put it all in a conceptual blender and say that reductions can’t be separated from additions to the arsenal. They can be separated. They must be separated.”
It’s only essential so that you can stubbornly refuse to admit your initial claim wsa hyperbolic if not a lie by omission. It’s no different than me saying “Obama’s done nothing for gay people!” Then you pointing to new hate crimes legislation, then me talking about DADT and DOMA, and you saying “But you said NOTHING and hate crimes legislation is SOMETHING. Can’t you admit that and then amend your claim to Obama hasn’t done as much as he could for gay people, which we’d probably both agree with?” and me going right back to “Obama’s done nothing for gay people! If he hasn’t done everything, then he’s doing nothing!” It’s maddening.
Tell you what, J. Clifford. I’ll give you a $100 check. Go to your bank and fill out a deposit slip for $100 and a withdrawal slip for $200 cash. Then tell the bank that your bank account balance should go UP after this sequence of transactions. When they try to correct you, continually ignore the $200 you asked for and only talk about how it’s obscene to claim that your account balance will be lower even though you’re depositing $100. Mock them by turning to the person behind you in line and say, “Get this! This guy thinks that I’ll have a lower balance after I deposit $100! What a maroon!” When they sketch out their math for you, change the subject to bank bailouts. Then repeat again that your balance will be higher. Finally, when they tell you that if C > B, then A + B – C must be < A, tell them that your transactions can't be put into a conceptual blender and have it said that your withdrawal can't be separated from your deposit when calculating your balance. They can be separated. They must be separated. Then, and only then, will you have walked a mile in my shoes.
Joseph, I’m not going to respond to every point in this short book you’ve written me, which I do appreciate. It’s good that you care enough to respond in depth and detail. Too many people shrug off important issues, and I’m glad, even though I disagree with you, that you don’t do that.
The essential point you’re not understanding is that your logic DOES lead to an insatiable desire to acquire and attain nuclear weapons. We’re not going to get the “billions” you straw man me with, but we’re going to keep huge numbers of nukes as long as we continue with the presumption that the USA has a military advantage from every missile it’s got, and therefore the Russians and Chinese gain with every missile we give up.
It just doesn’t work like that. Nuclear weapons are not like money, and they’re not like soldiers, and they’re not like bullets. They destroy at such a massive scale that, after a point, there is no strategic point in having more of them. Think of the following scenario:
You and I are standing in a kitchen in the middle of the night. We’ve both been sleepwalking, and so we’ve ended up somehow in the same kitchen in the middle of the night, and we don’t know how, but each of us is convinced that the other is in our kitchen, a burglar intending on hurting us. So, we’re each on hair trigger to “defend” each other, all right?
Now, you get your cell phone and call your wife and say “come get me the shotgun”, and so I make the same call because I think you’re a raving murderous maniac. For the sake of argument, let’s say our wives both can find us somehow (my metaphor’s breaking down here – sorry, it’s the middle of the night). They’re our arms merchants.
You’ve got a shotgun and I’ve got one. So, you call for a pistol. I call for a pistol. You now tell your wife to pick up two more guns and put them on the counter next to you. I do the same. and so on, and so on, all night long, until the kitchen is filled with guns.
What can we do now? Have our wives keep on getting us more guns, just to prove who’s got more firepower? It’s ridiculous, but that’s what the Cold War did. The first shotgun and the first pistol you have could easily have killed me, and provided a deterrent, of a really risky sort, so what’s the point of having more guns? There is no point. After the first shot or two, someone is dead – and we likely both will be.
That’s what’s going on with our nuclear arsenal. I’m no nuclear scientist, so I don’t know the precise number at which a lower number of nuclear weapons strikes would fail to completely wreck our nation, or Russia, but I’m pretty confident it’s a low number.
If you and I are dueling, there’s no difference between you and I facing off each other with shotguns at point blank range, and facing eachother off with giant artillery cannons at point blank range. At a pretty low level of weaponry, there is no gain in strategy with increase in firepower. The shotgun will kill me absolutely at point blank range, and so will the big cannon. So, if we’re facing off with cannons, and I decide to ditch the cannon because it’s too expensive, but I still have a shotgun at your forehead, you don’t gain anything from my unilateral diminishing of weapons, and I don’t lose anything. You’re still dead dead dead, and I’m still dead dead dead if we decide to pull the trigger. Doesn’t make a difference that I’m really really really really dead, and you’re just really dead.
We hit China with 50 nukes, and they’re done for. Absolutely ruined. Prey to whatever wants to pick them off. If they choose to hit us with 1,000 nukes after we hit them with 50, we’re equally done for. China will still cease to exist. Its leaders would be absolutely idiotic to think that their nation could withstand a 50 nuke attack, even if just half those nukes reached their targets. Shanghai, Beijing, etc, are all gone and the tiny remnants of survivors are so traumatized, they’re in no condition to remain a nation.
Nuclear weapons are much, much more powerful today than what went off in Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and the Hiroshima bomb was a dud even for its time. A present day nuclear bomb explodes in Chicago, and it’s not just Chicago that’s destroyed. It’s a huge surrounding area as well, as well as our nation’s political infrastructure, just from that one bomb.
These weapons are so ridiculously powerful it’s almost impossible to imagine. Our nation started torturing people, and threw away habeas corpus and fair trials, and started a super huge electronic surveillance program that targets Americans because just 3,000 people died. The USA would commit political suicide with an attack killing 10 million in a large metro area. We would splinter. We would cease to exist as a nation, from just one bomb like that. Multiply that by 50, a nuke attack in each state, and you think that our few survivors are going to say, “Oh, those Chinese suckers, they should have attacked us with 1,000. Now we’ve really got them!”?
We have vast nuclear superiority over Pakistan, but we still can’t get Osama Bin Laden. We can’t control North Korea, even with their rickety nuclear weapons program, because we’re terrified of just one nuclear weapon reaching Seoul. We simply don’t need all these nuclear weapons. If you really want to live in a world in which people only can feel secure when they have guns pointing continually at the foreheads of their neighbors, then you still just need a few guns.
But, you know, I don’t want to live in a world like that. My neighbors and I get along fine – even with people from the next village over, and even with people from across the border in Pennsylvania, though it used to be that warfare between villages and small states would be virtually unending. We ended it, not with big weapons, but with democratic, free, open societies, and the growing willingness to accept the humanity of people different from ourselves.
The fundamental problem with your strategy and with Obama’s strategy is that there’s no way to put down the gun. You keep on saying that you need a gun, 7 billion dollars worth of a really badass gun before you put down a few other guns, and you’re still facing annihilation.
The problem is not that our nuclear weapons are not technologically advanced enough. The problem is that we have nuclear weapons.
The way you get rid of weapons in the house is not to bring newer, tougher weapons into the house, trading an equivalent firepower of older guns for them.
we’re building a better mouse trap. surely, we need better mouse traps. i think he intends to get rid of the old mouse traps in garage sales, consignment shops and charitable donations to third world countries.
When the newer mouse trap involves blowing up the entire town that the mouse is in, no, I don’t think we need to build a “better” mouse trap.