Some pretty good news
March 26, 2010 in Nuclear weapons
by Pete Talbot
What with the health care bill and resulting flak, this story flew under the radar (sorry about the military analogies).
Russia and the U.S. will sign an agreement next month reducing their nuclear arsenals by about a third. That still leaves close to 1500 warheads a piece, which is a lot of nukes, but it’s progress.
We all need a some good news from time-to-time.
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March 26, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Has our good guv asked Obama how many jobs Montana will lose because of this? It is focused towards ICBM’s, and Montana houses most of them. Montana relies on the federal highway funding to access the sites. As well as the economic impact of servicing them. Is less ICBM’s worth the tens of thousands of Montana jobs so you feel better? You should tell the tens of thousands of jobless because of this, that it is a Happy day. It is a happy day only for the ignorant that do not understand nuclear weapons, international policy, nor economics. So, stay ignorantly happy Petie.
March 26, 2010 at 4:46 pm
The U.S. arsenal is still probably large enough even if the Russians didn’t fire any, to wipe out civilization as we know it, and perhaps the human race.
Widowmaker is acting as though there are no costs borne by the taxpayer in maintaining the silos, sites and weaponry.
The near useless missile “defense” system is the same…an enormous waste of money. The damn thing has never worked and I think it is the most expensive weapons system extant. Ted Stevens pushed to get weapons sited in Ft. Greely, near Delta Junction, Alaska, in a spectacular porkfest.
Stevens, unfortunately is gone, but the program remains. Even Reagan wasn’t dumb enough to deploy it when it became obvious it wasn’t likely to be very useful.
It hasn’t produced many jobs in Delta Junction.
About the only positive thing to come out of it was that Ft. Greely was then excluded as a site for a for-profit prison (think Hardin). The guy behind that scam just got out of jail in July and has a mansion adjacent to Flathead Lake.
March 26, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Sorry. Just noticed that I’d miswritten a sentence. It’s not at all unfortunate that Stevens is gone. He was convicted of seven felonies thanks to being part of the sleazy bunch bent on building the for-profit prison at Delta. His conviction was later overturned but he lost his seat by only 3,500 votes which means that almost every Republican in Alaska voted for him a few weeks after he was convicted. He had been shoveling pork at Palin-land for 40 years before charges were brought.
March 30, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Ha-ha, for a minute I thot the “Stevens” you were referring to was me! I wuz scratching my head over those felonies…
March 26, 2010 at 4:49 pm
this link provides a lot of info about the state of affairs icbm- wise……
http://www.nukewatch.com/weapons/index.html
probably would be a good idea to decom most of the older sites if only because they are very costly to maintain. doubt if they can release too much info on any impacts personnel wise though without compromising security.
my guess is the impact will be minimal – certainly not in the tens of thousands. more like in the dozens. most of these sites are unmanned and in stand down status anyway.
March 26, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Good point, Widowmaker — more nukes, more jobs — that’s what we should base our economy on. Forget mutual annihilation, or the message we’re sending to Iran and North Korea through nuclear proliferation. The Cold War ain’t over yet and nukes are good!
Keep spending those tax-payer dollars on ICBM’s, and all the related infrastructure. Heaven forbid those dollars are spent on something that might give us a return: renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, health care, efficient transportation … things that, over the long run, might really benefit the Great Falls area. And I just love seeing those silos as I’m driving along the Rocky Mountain Front.
Hope this isn’t too subtle for you, Widowmaker. It’s called sarcasm.
P.S. And we have 1500 land-based missiles in the U.S., so there are still some jobs in that industry.
March 26, 2010 at 8:47 pm
After Bush did squat for eight years to reduce nuclear arsenals, to stop proliferation, to lessen the risk that a rogue organization would come into possession of a nuke and to decommission current weaponry, the Obama administration just negotiated an arms reduction treaty.
This was also mentioned on either the PBS News Hour or Moyers.
From Ploughshares:
START Treaty Unlocks the Nuclear Security Agenda
President Obama discusses the START treaty, during a phone call with President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia In an early morning telephone call today, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to the most far-reaching arms control agreement in nearly 20 years. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) would cut the two countries’ nuclear weapons arsenals by 25 percent, demonstrate American and Russian leadership on arms control, and represent a tangible start to implementing a comprehensive nuclear security agenda.
March 26, 2010 at 5:10 pm
the most potent strategic advantage we possess is our nuclear submarine based trident system anyway. land based icbms are virtually strategically worthless anymore.