More Concessions? Barack Obama ready to slash US nuclear arsenal, page 1

Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country's arsenal, the Guardian can reveal.

Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the "nuclear posture review" as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials.

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

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?

Originally posted by jdub297
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

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

Originally posted by jdub297
reply to post by Mak Manto

---

Actually, the last one with nukes wins.

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

jw

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.

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!

reply to post by InfaRedMan

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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.

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.)

---

reply to post by Jenna

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.

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]

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
reply to post by Southern Guardian

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

Really?

What does Obama mean when he says in plain English:

... his goal of abolishing nuclear weapons altogether ... .

?

Deny ignorance.

jw

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

"Barack Obama and Joe Biden will convene a summit in 2009 (and regularly thereafter) of leaders of Permanent Members of the UN Security Council and other key countries to agree on implementing many of these measures on a global basis."
...
"He will stop the development of new nuclear weapons; work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert; seek dramatic reductions in U.S. and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material; and set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles so that the agreement is global."

Yet another promise being kept.

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