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There’s one area of federal spending where, unsurprisingly, many elements of the Right think Barack Obama has been a horrendous penny-pincher: defense, and more specifically, nuclear defense. Check out this saber-rattling piece from Bill Gertz of the Free Bac—er, I mean Free Beacon:
President Obama has decided to seek deeper cuts in deployed strategic nuclear weapons to as few as 1,000 warheads, sharply below the target of 1,550 warheads required under a 2010 U.S.-Russia arms treaty, U.S. officials said Monday.
Critics say the steep cuts, which the administration will seek in new talks with a growing anti-U.S. government in Moscow, would undermine U.S. strategic deterrence for the United States and its allies in Asia and Europe.
“Critics,” of course, turn out to be a few retired generals plus those universally respected voices of sanity Frank Gaffney and John Bolton. There’s ominous talk about Obama’s desire to “unilaterally” reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which is a bit undercut by the fact that the whole premise of the idea the article is about is a tentative proposal to be made to the Russians for arms reduction negotiations.
But the richest line of attack is aimed at Obama’s stated interest in the eventual goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons (again, by negotiation).
Obama did indeed express that goal in a 2009 speech in Prague.
In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of a predecessor, who said nearly three decades ago:
In our approach to negotiations, reducing the risk of war, and especially nuclear war, is priority number one. A nuclear conflict could well be mankind’s last. And that is why I proposed over 2 years ago the zero option for intermediate-range missiles. Our aim was and continues to be to eliminate an entire class of nuclear arms. Indeed, I support a zero option for all nuclear arms. As I’ve said before, my dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth.
That predecessor, of course, was Ronald Reagan.
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Ron Byers on June 19, 2012 4:34 PM:
In a world without nuclear weapons the US would still be the most powerful military nation on the planet by far. Our precision guided weapons and stealth technology make the US Air Force far and away the world's best with nobody close. Actually it could be argued that such a world would usher in the kind of Pax America Bolton, Gafney and the Neo Cons dream about.
HMDK on June 19, 2012 4:58 PM:
Yeah, but the U.S. has had that superiorty for years.
And as for Pox, sorry, PAX Americana, the U.S. has serious problems even trying to govern itself.
Peter C on June 19, 2012 5:07 PM:
When we spend almost as much as the rest of the world COMBINED on defense, it is absurd to think that having 'as few as' 1000 nuclear warheads would "would undermine U.S. strategic deterrence". Ron is right, there is nobody close to having our capabilities.
Bill Gertz is stuck in the Cold War era when we all pretended that the Soviet Union was a dangerous threat.
Can there really be any doubt after 'Shock and Awe' that we can destroy whatever we chose to destroy. We just can't put it back together again successfully. And radioactivity makes reconstruction even harder.
Nuclear weapons now only have terror applications; the fewer around, the better.
Mitch on June 19, 2012 6:00 PM:
What Peter C. said.
If anyone thinks that having "only" 1,000 or so warheads leaves us defenseless, then that person deserves to be ridiculed as a total moron, an idiot who has no business speaking in public. A fool.
A couple hundred nukes is enough to wipe out human civilization. Having thousands of them is (literally) overkill. Totally pointless, and a waste of taxpayer dollar.
We'll never live in a nuke-free world, unfortunately, but there is no sense at all in stockpiling so many weapons that will never be needed. We could get rid of every nuke in our arsenal except for the Submarine-launched ICBMs and still be able to kill everyone. What is the point in keeping the rest?
Someone needs to make these fools justify their stupid position.
Diane Rodriguez on June 19, 2012 6:57 PM:
You can always tell a man with a small saber, it requires a lot of self rattling.
Reagan was a pathetic racist has been actor, who was propped up by others and certainly not beloved by all. Ocassionally, his puppet masters had a good thought.
Doug on June 19, 2012 7:21 PM:
I understood that the number of warheads the US military believes necessary was based on the following reasoning:
In order to ensure the US has the capability to respond IN KIND to a nuclear attack, we had to expect that no more than 1/3 of the original number of warheads in our possession would actually be launched/deployed. Considering that originally, ALL our nuclear weapons were delivered by bombers, that assumption may have more than a little validity. Anyway, if we started with 1000 warheads, then we're now down to 330.
Of the 330 warheads launched/deployed, the military estimated that up 2/3 would either be destroyed before hitting their target, miss their target entirely for whatever reason or malfunction in some way that prevented their detonation. Which means we're now down to 110 warheads.
Still, even after allowing for an almost 90% attrition rate, even the most hawkish neocon should have the intelligence (is that an ozymoron?) that that is more than enough to cripple/destroy any other country. Hopefully we'll never discover whether there was(is?) any need for such redundancy, but, if I remember correctly, that's the reasoning behind the US possessing such a high number of incredibly devastating weapons.
Of course, the above was set out at a time when WE had at least 10,000 nuclear warheads and the Soviets had at least as many. To put it in its' proper perspective, just add a zero to the number of warheads available AFTER all "deductions" have been made.
"Add a zero". Rather appropriate, really...
Mitch on June 19, 2012 7:49 PM:
@Doug,
Nice analysis of the calculation; sound right to me.
Of course, such it's a pointless exercise these days when our REAL nuclear arsenal is hiding under the ocean in our amazing submarines. We could dispose of the rest entire stockpile, and would still be 100% as "safe" as if we had 10,000 nukes sitting in silos in Kansas.
Submarine Launched ICBMs are the ultimate nuclear deterrent (hence the revelation that the German made subs carry nukes for the Israelis a few weeks ago http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/israel-deploys-nuclear-weapons-on-german-submarines-a-836671.html).
With our submarine force, we will always be able to strike back, and have no need for any other nukes. The rest are just a waste of tax dollars.
Spanky on June 19, 2012 8:26 PM:
The number of nukes we own has nothing to do with their effect as a deterrent. The danger isn't from other countries that own nukes; the danger is from NGOs that might get them. Iran and N. Korea want nukes because they're scared spitless that somebody's going to nuke them; there aren't enough nukes in the universe to deter an Al Quaeda or a Lashkar-e-Taiba if they got their hands on enough fissionable material to make a bomb. When people are willing to blow themselves up along with their targets, deterrence is no longer an effective strategy.
2Manchu on June 19, 2012 8:53 PM:
There you go again, Ed, quoting Historically Accurate Reagan. When will you realize that the only Reagan who counts for many conservatives, and sadly much of the MSM, is Mythical Right-Wing Reagan, who single-handedly defeated the Evil Empire?
And it's strange how the neocons think that the US should have many thousands of nuclear weapons, considering how the idea of Iran possessing just one is enough to make them wet their pants.
You'd think America having just a few nukes itself would have the same effect on our potential adversaries.
tcinaz on June 19, 2012 10:23 PM:
Mr. Obama continues to build his progressive bona fides pursuing policies Republicans cannot block with exercises of Presidential authority they characterize as overreach and power grabs. Given the GOP reluctance to engage in substantive discussion or bipartisan resolution, what's a President to do but exercise the full extent of his authority, legally and with precident in each case regarding gay marriage, immigration and nuclear disamament.
Dredd on June 20, 2012 11:19 AM:
The bully religion Orwell wrote about is still with us it seems.