US-Russia Reach Nuclear Arms Deal

AP ^ | May 13, 2002 | paulsy

[paulsy]

i just stumbled across this. Bush was criticized soundly "unilaterally pulling out" of the old treaty. interesting that this was buried deep within the news page, not on the front one, i just happened to stumble across it.

[wimpycat]

FYI, at this moment it's the main headline on MSNBC's website.

[paulsy]

good, glad it's headlines somewhere. i was surprised yahoo didn't have anything on it on the front page. and it wasn't on FR which really surprised me.

[Miss Marple]

Thanks for posting this. It was just announced about an hour ago.

[The_Victor]

Bush was criticized soundly "unilaterally pulling out" ...

To those of us with an education in logic and reasoning, the first step to negotiating a better deal is to pull out of, or refuse to extend, the old "bad" deal.

[Northpaw]

I guess I just don't get it. 2200 warheads instead of 6000? So what? A nuclear arsenal that is not adequate enough to destroy your enemy is meaningless, and neither the Russians nor the U.S. will ever let that happen. If 2200 is adequate, then 6000 is overkill. It is also interesting that we are talking about reducing our stockpile at the same time we are fretting over the proliferation of WMD throughout the world.

[Miss Marple]

The less nuclear weapons Russia has, the less temptation to steal them or sell them off.

The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. The proliferation of WMD (also bio and chem weapons) is to be avoided, because the weapons get into rogue states and then to the hands of terroroists, who have no compunction about using them, and are not bound by treaties, national considerations, or common decency.

[ffrancone]

What concerns me about this type of calculus is that putting these limits in a treaty assumes that Russia and the US are the only big nuclear players. If that remains true, then limiting both of us to 2,000 by treaty, does not damage the national interest.

But now introduce country C. What happens when their arsenal goes to 500, to 1000, to 2000? This is neither comfortable nor stable.

By putting it in a treaty, we cannot readjust our limits unilaterally to accomodate the new facts. I cannot believe this analysis has not occurred to the administration. I can only think of three explanations: 1, I am no expert in strategic arms theory--it may be that the situation I worry about does not actually represent a problem when you run the simulations; 2, The russians gave us something big in return; or 3, Missle Defense lets us have an assured deterrent force.

Of course, number 3 requires a good deal of confidence that Bush can get past the obstructionists in congress on missle defense and that subsequent democrat administrations do not undo whatever Bush accomplishes in missle defense.

Thoughts, anyone?

[Northpaw]

You have a valid point. However, it won't be long until these rogue states have developed their own WMD and delivery systems, making black market purchases or theft unnecessary. This is too dangerous of a world right now to be laying any of your guns down. Just my opinion.

[Northpaw]

I have similar thoughts. Are 2200 warheads enough to cover China, Russia, N.Korea and the Middle East? Or do we have a contingency computer program that instantly retargets those 2200 depending on the scenario?

[Miss Marple]

Well, I think there is more going on here than we realize. I don't think President Bush is willing to put the nation at risk. Neither are Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice Wolfowitz, or (despite what some may think on this forum) Powell.

New weapons in the offing? New delivery systems? Alliance with Russia? Who knows?

I will trust the President's judgement on this.

[rintense]

Geez! Was Dubya on early this morning or what! He looked a bit tired too. LOL.

[ffrancone]

But under MAD theory, even retargeting doesn't do it. The idea is to be able to absorb a first strike and have enough warheads left to retaliate against the agressor. Thus, the theory goes, the agressor would never institute a first strike. Of course, a first strike would eliminate much of our missle force and, of course, that of the country that initiated the strike.

To keep a credible deterrent against Russia and another country (probably China) that develops a large missle force, we would have to be able to absorb a first strike and have a remaining credible deterrent against the agressor and against the other country (Russia or China). But the other country has not had its missle force depleted by having to institute a first strike.

At that point, we could end up with no credible deterrent against the second country unless we were willing to launch on warning (ie before the second country initiated a strike). This is a really unstable situation.

This reasoning is just based on what I have read about the theory of MAD. There are probably others on the forum who know more about the subject and can fill this out, or correct me, about the subject.

[nothingnew]

"Are you talkin' about da first ting or da second ting?..."Cause if yer talkin' about da second ting, we gotta know about da first ting, right?...Badda bing, badda bang, badda betty boop."

FMCDH

[Magnum44]

Thoughts, anyone?

Yes, When you read the treaty, I am quite certain you will find that neither country would omit a clause accounting for the eventual threat from a rising third party.

[1rudeboy]

Even that would be too complicated. All treaties have rescission clauses. "In the case of an unforseen event blah blah blah." Besides, at the rate we are going, by the time China gets its act together, the U.S. and Russia will have probably formed some sort of alliance.

[Ranger]

Any day the world rids itself of thousands of nukes without compromising stability is a great day! Well done Bush/Putin.

[IncredibleHulk]

MAD is no longer the dominant theory in national defense for our country. With multiple new defense systems now in place and several very close to completion, we will have the ability to stop incoming missles without the need to withstand a first strike and the resulting loss of our own weapons. Therefore, we only need enough to destroy our enemy once. The airborne and space-based lasers are near completion for boost-phase attack, NMD shield has had good results so far and HAARP is fully functional. In addition, we have the EMP weapons that can destroy their ability to even launch ICBM's if our intelligence is good enough to give us warning.

[bok]

U.S. Says Russia Is Preparing Nuclear Tests

To: Sawdring Simply put the what the Russians are doing is having their cake and eating it too. They already possess a more advanced nuclear strike force than the US (they have the new Topol-M that is designed to be able to dance circles against any American anti-missile defense grid), they also have limited anti-ballistic missile defenses around Moscow, plus they have been developing some new weapon systems like the S-37 and the Mig-MAPO (which are super manouevreable, and have stealth suites based on plasma technology that are better than the American F-22). Thus it is weird the US is letting them progress with this testing, especially when the are given 'aid' (as if they need it) to stop missile development. It makes you go hmmmm. 6 posted on 5/11/02 10:48 PM Pacific by spetznaz

It's not really a comfort to me knowing russia has superior nuclear weapons than the U.S. plus giving them this nice arms reduction deal. I don't trust snakes. Giving aid to the russkies to stab the U.S. in the back is ludicrious. Russia (Magog) is aligned with China (Gog)

[Magnum44]

All treaties have rescission clauses.

Exactly. Thank you.