U.S.-Russian Nuclear Agreement: Good News and Bad News
By Robert Higgs • Monday July 6, 2009 2:56 PM PDT • 4 Comments
According to an AP report, U.S. president Barack Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev have reached an understanding to reduce their countries’ nuclear arsenals. Under treaties currently in force, each side is permitted to have as many as 2,200 warheads and 1,600 launch vehicles. The understanding, which would serve as guidance for negotiators formulating a new arms-control treaty, pushes the totals down to as few as 1,500 warheads and 500-1,100 launch vehicles on each side.
The good news is that reducing the number of such weapons helps to reduce the risks associated with them—still the most critical threat to humanity, notwithstanding the end of the Cold War twenty years ago.
The bad news is that even if the totals should ultimately be reduced to the ranges stipulated in the agreement, both sides will still have an absurdly large number of such weapons. It is fair to say that a nuclear exchange between these two countries that involved only a hundred large warheads on each side would wreak almost unimaginable death and destruction and extend its consequent horrors throughout the entire world, owing to the spread of radiation and the calamitous effects on the world economy.
What possible benefit warrants the continuing retention of such horrifying potential for global harm by either government? International communism is defunct as a serious threat to mankind. Even if its containment justified the maintenance of the gigantic U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War—a highly debatable proposition in itself—no such justification now exists.
Obama and Medvedev have undertaken to move their governments in the right direction, but they need to move them much, much farther. Nothing short of scrapping these horrible, intrinsically indiscriminating weapons entirely will suffice to eliminate their terrible threat to mankind and other living creatures.
Tags: Military, Politics, Presidential Power, Russia, War 
I agree; but is “indiscriminating” a real word?
GaryM | Jul 7, 2009 | Reply
Dear Gary,
“Indiscriminating” is an adjective that means “not discriminating.” I used it here to indicate that such powerful weapons destroy not only what one might characterize as the persons or property that constitute the intended target, but a great many other persons and a great deal of other property, as well. Moral philosophers and theologians often condemn the use of such weapons on these grounds, apart from other grounds. Nuclear warheads are, one might aptly say, instruments of mass murder. Vide “Hiroshima” and “Nagasaki.”
Robert Higgs | Jul 7, 2009 | Reply
Dr. Higgs,
I know, as an adult, I should not be surprised that politicians come up with half-baked ideas and tout them as a great step forward to some goal that all the voting public agrees on, but this one is even more funny than most. In hearing this story for the first time, my first thought was, I guess Russia can make up for some of their lost GDP and the fall of oil prices by selling a third of their nuclear arsenal to the highest bidder. My second thought was that if Russia is going to sell a third of their nukes, what is the U.S. going to do with theirs?? So I dig a little bit and I find that there is a 15-year backlog of nukes already in line to be disarmed. Ha ha, so really we have most likely made the line to get government disarmament a 25- or 30-year backlog. I know since the gov’t is involved that the agreement is the important part and the execution of the agreement means very little. I hope the backlog for healthcare will not be as long. :)
I also cannot find anything published that shows the U.S. has a policy on disposing of nuclear waste.
I know you are not surprised by the above comment, but I hope you find it entertaining.
(Story about the 15-year backlog)
Wes Dillard | Jul 8, 2009 | Reply
Dr. Higgs,
Just the name of my website might leave doubt as to my interests in this subject. However, because I my activities in mushroom culture, I have been in the Soviet ICBM base at Lida, Belarus. I can assure you that the bunkers are used for growing mushrooms, not for missiles or war-heads. Some other businesses occupy other buildings on the base. That is especially gratifying because Mr. Lukashenko is an old-school Stalin-type Soviet dictator. As a result, Belarus is the poorest nation in Europe. I work as a USAID-contractor volunteer. That work has taken me to seven third-world countries, five of them CIS countries and although many have great resources they are all poor. Ukraine was moving up, but they have a political mess and then this recession (depression) hit.
I would like to make the often ignored point that the Soviet Union died of bankruptcy.
Politically managed business was a failure. Financing their side of the Cold War was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” Thus, they may sell their nuclear war-heads and technology out of financial desperation. Yet, as Wes Dillard mentions, what has the US done? I would hope that several other matters are well recognized: Aside from Cold War pressure on their economy (and thereby similar injury to the US economy)US policies had nothing to do with the Soviet demise. That their petroleum business (Russia, Kazakhstan, etc.) is still politically controlled and very little financial gain is seen, outside of political pockets.
An important point, most ordinary people in CIS countries are warm, lovely people. They need aid to help them in all phases of establishing a market economy. I have lived in the homes of both Orthodox and Muslims in CIS countries. I have never been treated any better by friends in the US or Europe. Obama’s pledge to do more for third-world countries is the most positive thing he has done internationally—yet it is still just a pledge! Then there are the many negative things he and Hilary have done.
In an answer to Wes Dillard, there really can be no disposal of nuclear wastes, problems are growing, but at least our containment is better than that in CIS countries. Three-mile Island was nothing compared to Chernobel and we do not have children, who were disfigured by bomb testing as Kazakhstan has.
Ralph Kurtzman | Jul 11, 2009 | Reply