Posted on 10/10/2012 11:01:25 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The Russian government said Wednesday that it would not renew a hugely successful 20-year partnership with the United States to safeguard and dismantle nuclear and chemical weapons in the former Soviet Union when the program expires next spring, a potentially grave setback in the already fraying relationship between the former cold war enemies.
The Kremlin’s refusal to renew the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program would put an end to a multibillion-dollar effort, financed largely by American taxpayers, that is widely credited with removing all nuclear weapons from the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus; deactivating more than 7,600 strategic nuclear warheads; and eliminating huge stockpiles of nuclear missiles and chemical weapons, as well as launchers and other equipment and military sites that supported unconventional weapons.
“The American side knows that we would not want a new extension,” a deputy foreign minister, Sergey Ruabkov, told the news agency Interfax. “This is not news.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Russia, as almost everybody here knew, they never intended to keep the agreement. The agreement was there to keep the United States from becoming more technologically advanced, until the Russia caught up or stole more technology.
Build more bombs, and point them at russia, maybe they’ll get the message then, along with all of our other enemies. There’s nothing wrong with throwing down the gauntlet.
Another foreign policy victory for Obama.
How’s that Reset Button working?
Exactly as designed.
Why would they need to renew the agreement.
The celebrity in chief is doing unilateral disarmament.
It’s to Russia’s advantage to just wait until we have no nukes left.
We spend BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of dollars, yet the fact is no sovereign country has the right to tell another what kind of weapons they may or may not have.
The agreements don't prevent them from having (and hiding) them anyway.
It's more of an 'honor system' kind of thing, and a TOTAL waste of resources, IMHO.
Good Job, Barry!
Good, since the Russkies were cheating anyway and have been slowly building up for war with us for years.
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