US weighing steep nuclear arms cuts

Associated Press ^ | 14 Feb 2012 | ROBERT BURNS

[rarestia]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is weighing options for sharp new cuts to the U.S. nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons, The Associated Press has learned.

Even the most modest option now under consideration would be an historic and politically bold disarmament step in a presidential election year, although the plan is in line with President Barack Obama's 2009 pledge to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons.

No final decision has been made, but the administration is considering at least three options for lower total numbers of deployed strategic nuclear weapons cutting to: 1,000 to 1,100; 700 to 800, and 300 to 400, according to a former government official and a congressional staffer. Both spoke on condition of anonymity in order to reveal internal administration deliberations.

The potential cuts would be from a current treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads.

[Kickass Conservative]

Darn, didn’t see your post before I did mine.

Great minds, and all that jazz.

[NonValueAdded]

well done

[familyop]

"He is not going to do it. He is just making his usual rhetoric to energize his lunatic base in an election year."

Agreed. He and most other politicians are actually weakening us incrementally, little by little, by continuing the excessive spending, regulations, more regulations in every locale by way of federal funding to states, and anti-family social pathologies pushed through every institution.

[wolf78]

He is not going to do it. He is just making his usual rhetoric to energize his lunatic base in an election year.

That's a bingo! It's a way of having your cake and eating it, too. You can always blame it on the Russians if they are not interested in further disarmament talks. Poor old Barry wanted to, but the evil Russians wouldn't let him.

To start with, you have to be willing to use them -- so that enemies have no doubt that, past a certain point (best left undefined), you will use them.

Willing, but not eager like the Iranians *LOL.

[dfwgator]

That's a bingo!

You just say "bingo".

[U-238]

5000 megaton exchange would be considering how many weapons both sides currently have in their arsenals based on START II numbers

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/stratnuk-3.html
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/stratnuk-2.html

You are correct. The United States continued to deploy roughly 480 nuclear bombs in Europe, more than double the number normally estimated by the media and non-governmental analysts

[U-238]

The National Command Authority comprising the President and Secretary of Defense must jointly issue the order to use nuclear weapons to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The order would then be transmitted over a tan-yellow phone, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Alerting Network, otherwise known as the “Gold Phone”, that directly links the NMCC with United States Strategic Command Headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska

[angelcindy]

He does what Soros tells him to do....Soros and OBAMA wants this country to be 3RD WORLD COUNTRY.. Look what he has done to our military...cuts cuts cuts.... Look what he has done to our special ops....got them killed...he is destroying this country!!!!! and Congress justs lets him do it...They are commie freakin traitors all of them!!!!!! IMPEACH THE BASTARD!!!

THAT SOROS SHOULD BE TRIED FOR TREASON!!!!

He is making our country weak!!!! Fiancally..military...morally...

[MaryLou1]

Where the hell is Congress? Is this all done by executive order? It sure looks that way.

This is awful awful awful

[angelcindy]

“We cannot expect Americans to jump from capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find out they have Communism.’’

Khrushchev:

[U-238]

He has to get approval from the US Senate on any treaty.

[U-238]

I am positive there will have to be hearings in the House Armed Services Committee where it will get a very cool reception.

[chessplayer]

Where the Hell are the Joint Chiefs?!

---

You mean those politicians wearing military uniforms?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks rarestia.

• Proposed Obama budget includes surge in tax hikes (Obama plans tax hikes for EVERYONE)

[U-238]

That is true, but they have great responsibilities especially when it comes to nuclear combat.

[LomanBill]

Don't need no Weatherman to see which way this "peaceful" wind blws.

"Behind the Violence, Says Jane Alpert, Was Sex"

--November 09, 1981--
"The leaders of the Weather Underground, she believes, followed a similar pattern of constantly shifting sexual alliances..."

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20080637,00.html

"He [Bill Ayers] also writes about the Weathermen's sexual experimentation as they tried to 'smash monogamy.' The Weathermen were 'an army of lovers,' he says, and describes having had different sexual partners, including his best male friend."

Source: New York Times, September 11, 2001: "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

"...the Weathermen, when not engaged in group sex, committed such revolutionary acts as parading with a Viet Cong flag through a local park on Independence Day and spray-painting the walls of a high school with the slogans, "Off the Pigs," "Viet Cong Will Win," and "F#$k U.S. Imperialism."..."

Campus Wars: The Peace Movement At American State Universities in the Vietnam Era

 

"What happens next bears watching closely, as does the response of the president, ex-Speaker Pelosi, and others on the left.  Encouraged by leftists in the Democratic Party and funded by left-leaning nonprofit organizations and celebrity contributors, Occupy Wall Street may in time morph into something resembling the radical factions of the late 1960s and 1970s."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/predicting_the_weatherman.html

 

The Osawatomie Coincidence

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2818309/posts

 

 

 

[magellan]

"Its also how you have them deployed. If an enemy thinks he can take most of them out in a first strike, it might be tempting."

This is an excellent point. Reducing the number of deployed weapons could be destabilizing by making it more tempting to attempt a counterforce first strike.

It could also would make it much easier for China to increase its nuclear weapons count to a first strike capability.

Also, where does the AP get this:

"As of last Sept. 1, the United States had 1,790 warheads and Russia had 1,566, according to treaty-mandated reports by each."

The Federation of American Scientists estimates a different number:

Status of World Nuclear Forces 2011

Operational Strategic Nuclear Weapons:

Russia: 2,430

United States: 1,950

[SoFloFreeper]

I guess someone told Obama he could this by executive order.

The Constitution, (no obstacle to the Obama team) however, says the Senate must concur with all foreign treaties. I presume Obama would do this under a foreign treaty agreement, but then again, he may do it unilaterally—thus destroying our nuclear armaments without Senate approval.

I don’t who we nominate in 2012—not a single Republican nominee (except maybe Paul) would do this. Not Newt, not Rick, not Mitt.

[A Navy Vet]

"Well, realistically speaking 200 nuclear warheads on large cities are enough to end civilization as we know it, by ending the world economy and ushering a nuclear winter lasting for years."

Yup. I've been saying that for 20 something years. Although I don't agree with our conventional forces being reduced, 1000's of nuclear bombs has always been overkill and enough to kill this planet and possibly Mars (kidding).

We only need 200 nuclear bombs or less on our Tridents and bombers and land-based ICBM's to make China and Russia keep their distance. I know this, because I am an Aviation Sailor of the "Cold War" and dealt with the Soviets every overseas deployment shadowing and chasing us about, and all being on edge. The problem is with the Islamists who don't really care about MAD and survival and who look forward to DYING for their poli/religous insane cult.

Those are the people we need to worry about. Still, if we have 200 viable nukes on multi delivery systems, and the Islamists attacked tomorrow with a nuke, they would be glass (nuke isotopes have a signature and can be traced and they know that), and it would only take a few eliminate them, with about a couple hundred left over to kill China and Russia if they want to jump in, which they won't. China and Russia actually WANT to maintain their new found standard of living, unlike the suicidal Islamists, not to mention I believe they actually care about their children unlike the murderous Muslims.

Think it through. We need only enough strategic and tactical nukes to destroy our Islamist enemies. Our Trident subs have their target packages and everyone in the World knows this, but no one knows where they are on any given day.

The president doesn't even know where they are at any given moment. He relies on the Admirals and Generals to tell him if he needs to push the button. Even the Admirals couldn't tell you the exact coordinates of a Trident this moment. They would have to go through the chain at DOD/NSA and others to find the exact latitude and longitude of our Tridents. Nothing has changed since Bambi soiled our Oval Office. Happy thoughts.

2000, 1000, 500, or 200 hundred nuclear explosions? The entire world would crash even if 5 nukes went off. Think about the economical repercussions.

So, we're okay as far as nukes, if only 200 (think! how many major cities could go 1,000,000 degrees). The problem is about reducing our conventional forces and not being able to project American power when needed in regional conflicts and how that can lead to a major conventional war. THAT is my worry. And that would also have terrible economic consequences around the globe.

Bottom line: I am confident that even if we only had 100 high-yield nukes, that America is safe from nuclear destruction, other than the Islamo-facists setting off nukes on our soil by clandestine means. But again, isotopes can tell you where the fuel came from. You nuke guys tell me if I'm wrong about that.