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US, Russia Reach Nuclear Arsenal Agreement
Peace Corps Library writes "The United States and Russia, seeking to move forward on one of the most significant arms control treaties since the end of the cold war, announced that they had reached a preliminary agreement on cutting each country's stockpiles of strategic nuclear weapons, effectively setting the stage for a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), a cold war-era pact that expires in December. Under the framework, negotiators are to be instructed to craft a treaty that would cut strategic warheads for each side to between 1,500 and 1,675, down from the limit of 2,200 slated to take effect in 2012 under the Treaty of Moscow (PDF) signed by President George W. Bush. The limit on delivery vehicles would be cut to between 500 and 1,100 from the 1,600 currently allowed under Start. Perhaps more important than the specific limits would be a revised and extended verification system that otherwise would expire with Start in December. The United States currently has 1,198 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-based missiles and bombers, which together are capable of delivering 5,576 warheads, according to its most recent Start report in January, while Russia reported that it has 816 delivery vehicles capable of delivering 3,909 warheads. 'We have a mutual interest in protecting both of our populations from the kinds of danger that weapons proliferation is presenting today,' said President Obama."
The indefinite combinations of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations. - Robert S. McNamara
Slightly offtopic but in high school I read a few books by Robert S McNamara who died yesterday. It's too bad he didn't get to see this agreement between old enemies. He was Secretary of Defense from 1961-1968. Although I did not agree with a lot of his views he shaped a lot of the nuclear buildup during the cold war. I believe he was responsible for abandoning Eisenhower's policy of massive retaliation in the event of a nuclear war. He was first tasked by Kennedy of explaining nuclear fallout. McNamara favored non-nuclear power and one of the books I read "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam" shed a lot of light on the Vietnam war for me.
If you haven't seen Erol Morris' "The Fog of War" you should.
Rest in peace Robert Strange McNamara. You revealed to me the horrors that leadership must face during war.
My work here is dung.
It is either amusing or disturbing; but that part of Dr. Strangelove is very nearly a string of quotations from actual military theorists. One Herman Kahn in particular.