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A Case For Unilateral US Nuclear Warhead Reductions

Posted by Unknown on from the someone-has-to-start dept.

Lasrick writes "Interesting read of the geopolitics between the U.S. and Russia when it comes to reducing nuclear warheads. Pavel Podvig is a physicist trained at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology who works on the Russian nuclear arsenal, US-Russian relations, and nonproliferation. His take here is essential to understanding what is happening between Washington and Moscow on nuclear weapons cuts." Reader auric_dude also sent in a link to a few other views on the issue.

2 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Article is not very good by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's cliche to say the article is not very good, but in this case it truly is missing a serious point:

    No plan to get rid of nuclear weapons can be complete without taking China (and others) into consideration. We are at the point that it's not just a standoff between Russia and the US, who both have been reducing their nuclear weapons. Other countries have been actively increasing them, and unless they join in the movement, Russia and the US leave themselves completely vulnerable if they don't maintain at least some nuclear weapons.

    I'm in favor of getting rid of nukes, but you can't assume it's just a game between Russia and the US, as this article does.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. Re:It's a about money. by tlambert · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "committing seppuku after Fukushima made them paranoid"

    That is some calloused, thinly veiled racism you felt you had to add there at the end, huh?

    It's a cultural, not racial, reference which was actively relevant until 1970, and is still popularized in NHK broadcast dramas of the Shugunate Era in present-day Japan. It carries the appropriate connotation of "killing oneself over a point of honor". If you read the news reports, the U.S. Navy offered assistance in the early hours of the Fukushima incident, and were rebuffed "as a point of honor".

    Would you have preferred I referred to the Hindu practice of Sati? That's also a cultural reference, and while it would be a stretch, one could argue that keeping their nuclear program shut down would be the equivalent of a woman throwing herself/being thrown on the funeral pyre of her husband out of grief.

    I think a Bushido-style loss of face is a more apt metaphor for a cause of action in this case, however.