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False START
by Frank GaffneyPresident Obama announced last Thusday that he had concluded a follow-on to the 1989 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia. He characterized the cuts that it would make in the two nations' nuclear arsenals as a major step towards his goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. In practice, however, the so-called New START' accord will contribute primarily to the denuclearization of the United States and to making the world a more dangerous place. Accordingly, it would be more accurate to call it False START.' The first thing to note about the Obama treaty is that it confers real advantages on the Russians. For starters, the Kremlin will have to make essentially no cuts in the numbers of its deployed strategic launchers, whereas the United States will have to destroy several hundred of ours. It is unclear at this writing whether such reductions by the U.S. will, as a practical matter, make it difficult if not impossible for America to preserve its strategic Triad' of land- and sea-based ballistic missiles and long-range bombers. If so, there could be serious implications for strategic stability as the confidence of friends and foes alike in the robustness of our deterrent declines markedly. What is clear, though, is that we will be obliged to cut back our arsenal to match the lower levels that the Russians can afford to maintain at the moment. The advisability of such a step would be debatable even if it produced a genuine equality between the two parties. Unfortunately, the seeming equality thus established is deceptive in at least three respects: Posted by: ed 2010-04-03 |
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