More Concessions? Barack Obama ready to slash US nuclear arsenal

www.guardian.co.uk...

Gordon Brown intends to join Obama in the move for total unilatral disarmament.

Others, such as France and even the general secreatary of the UN, are not prepared to commit to such a position without evidence that the decisions by the US and UK will be met with reciprocation from other nuclear powers.

OK. So here we have the first of this week's foreign policy pronouncements from Obama ahead of the G-20, Middle East and China conferences set this week.

What's next?

jw

I think its a good move.
I mean, you dont need that many nukes.
Also, they must cost a pretty penny to keep an unkeep on.



Thumbs up. About time someone stepped AWAY from the fire, instead of adding more fuel on it.

I agree.

This is a good move. Nuclear weapons are extremely dangerous. We need to be pulling away from these kinds of weapons.

No one wins in a nuclear war.

reply to post by Mak Manto

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Actually, the last one with nukes wins.

Do you really expect everyone else to disarm, just because the US does?

jw

reply to post by jdub297

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They could dismantle half of our missiles and there would still be enough to nuke the world over.. what is it? 10 times?

I guess nukes are a road we cannot travel forever jdub. I understand where many of the previous posters are coming from. However there's still the issue that in the end the only party that may have nukes is some renegade religious radicals... so I get your stand point as well.

It's a hard one!

IRM

I have to agree with you on this one if the U.S and the UK disarm then all that will happen is it will weaken futher we are already on the decline as a world super power England has especially since becoming Americas lap dog, what will happen is the UK and U.S would give away that power allowing for Russia to become prominent once more and North Korea and Iran to begin to establish themselves, also China would begin building a larger arsenal all in all it would allow for the Mutual Assured Destruction principle which has held the rest of the world aganst using Nuclear weapons for so long obsolete and allow for global destruction for man has never created a weapon that he does not use.

Perhaps it's just me, but this just strikes me as a horrible idea when Israel is threatening to attack Iran, Obama just decided to scrap the missile shield in Europe, and Iran and North Korea may be trying to build nuclear weapons. Don't get me wrong I'd love it if they all just disappeared (minus the puff of smoke and/or the flash since that would indicate they'd been detonated) but dismantling our defenses isn't exactly the brightest idea in the world right now. We've made too many enemies over the years through other "bright ideas", and if we leave ourselves defenseless it's not going to end well for us.

reply to post by jdub297

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So Obama is thinking of cutting the nuclear arsenal?

Lets see now.

US has 800 nukes, can potentially destroy man kind in existence.
US had 400 nukes, can potentially destroy man kind in existence.

The difference? One is half the amount, nevertheless still weapons of mass distruction.

We have rightwingers going crazy about Iran, Iraq and North Korea developing their own nukes... because of their "concern of the threat" and yet, the same individuals whine about cutting the arsenal of the US itself. I'd swear folks are still living in the cold war...... no no scratch that, I swear folks want things to be as they were during the cold war.

reply to post by Southern Guardian

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Exactly.

They arent saying 'disarm', they are saying reduce.

Hell, give the US 15 nuclear bombs. Thats still a massive deterrant.

The age of nukes is gone in my opinion.


One day, a nation is going to build a device that can detonate a nuke.

Fly it over colorado, activate it, all of a sudden all the nukes in silo's go off.

then it will be a race to disarm!

"• Redrafting nuclear doctrine to narrow the range of conditions under which the US would use nuclear weapons."

I don't mind reducing the amount of weapons we have. But this I do have a problem with.

We have a no first use policy regarding nuclear weapons. That means they set nice and cozy unless someone uses theirs. To narrow that means that we would have a no use at all policy.

Thats dangerous.

Fear of a nuclear retaliation is what keeps those who do have the nuke from using them. They realize we won't use it at all and it would leave us in a very dangerous spot.

What is going to happen when the alien mother ship attacks, and we don't have any nuclear weapons to destroy it? How about all the rogue comets and asteroids? Will Obama just hope them away, as well?

reply to post by InfaRedMan

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You know, absent a "The Day the Earth Stood Still" scenario, we've sort of boxed ourselves in.

I don't enjoy this any more than most reasonable people. I was raised in a military city, one of the largest concentrations of Army and Air Force facilities, including weapons depots, in the U.S.

We knew we were a first-strike target, and it was like living with the sword of Damocles hanging over us.

BUT, knowing we could defend ourselves, or deter a first strike, helped us sleep better. (Sort of like having a gun in the closet - you don't want to use it, or make it too easy to do so, but you know it's there if you need it.)

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reply to post by Jenna



M.A.D. is mad, undoubtedly. But the threat of an effective response should be recognized as a real and valuable deterrent (just like a "Beware of Dog," or "These Premisies Protected By ... ." sign is), and should thus not be discarded without regard to the very real remaining threats.

s4u2

(I'd be willing to make a reasonable bet that 75% of the ATS members do not know what "M.A.D." is, without resorting to Google, Wikipedia, or YouTube)

jw

[edit on 21-9-2009 by jdub297]

Really?

What does Obama mean when he says in plain English:
?

Deny ignorance.

jw

This kind of stance is what got us attacked in the first place. First he attacks the CIA for keeping us safe, than takes away our capabilities to shoot down a missile strike, now he wants to disarm us? I swear, it's like he wants us to be attacked again.

The perpetual war hawks in the Pentagon and DOD must be reeling right now.

The arsenal we already have in place defines overkill many times over.

We're just wasting money by the billions on these programs.

We can take down just about any nation now by taking down their hi tech infrastructure,
without so much as lighting a firecracker.

We better start figuring out how to get along on this planet and get rid of the corrupt vermin
who disturb the peace.

This is what i think.

If we reduce or get rid of nuclear weapons. I think the risk of a big war is more probable than ever. Because then you suddenly have a chance to win a big war against a superpower. Its going to be a high cost but one that could be sacrificed.

Soon the worlds population and energy demand is going to out grow the energy resources that exist to day. Knowing us we will be fighting a war to be in control of these resources. Having nuclear weapons around ain't good odds for fighting a war for whats left of the energy resources.

obama still has 130,000 troops in iraq, adding 30,000 more in afghanistan,

yeah, right...he's a real pacifist

[edit on 21-9-2009 by jimmyx]

Well, I guess Obama knows quite a bit. I was hoping he did heed some of the prophecies.

Nostradamus warned that the worst damage will not happen during the earth changes, but because of the stored weaponry being set off by the earth changes.

I think Obama may know what is coming and hopefully getting rid of the possibility of contaminating the air, water and land after the shift.

Why else get rid of stored weapons if you did not think they were a threat somehow?

Once the shift occurs, war will no longer be on anyone's agenda - merely survival will.

[edit on 21-9-2009 by Violet Sky]

This should not be a surprise to anyone. As of now, most of Obama's promises regarding nuclear disarmament are in the "No Action" column... Now, some will be moved to the "In the Works" column.

Obama's Nuclear Related Promises



Yet another promise being kept.