Treaty w/ russia...

[RIROCKHOUND]

Obama, Russian president sign arms treaty - CNN.com

So,

we score a decent victory as a species, towards a goal of REGAN's to have less nukes, w/o limiting our ability to defend/keep Iran, NK, etc in check.

But of course, he is a horrible president, America is ruined, so it is not worth mentioning...

[buckman]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Obama, Russian president sign arms treaty - CNN.com

So,

we score a decent victory as a species, towards a goal of REGAN's to have less nukes, w/o limiting our ability to defend/keep Iran, NK, etc in check.

But of course, he is a horrible president, America is ruined, so it is not worth mentioning...

Yup, We are all set now. All Praise Obama. Let me just check the Doomsday Clock. Now you trust the Russians Haven't we been through this enough. Remember them invading Georgia just a few short months ago?

[spence]

Originally Posted by buckman

Remember them invading Georgia just a few short months ago?

While that was a huge (and calculated) over reaction, I'd note that the Georgians did fire first.

We're always going to see conflict in the Caucasus. It's just too strategic an area.

This seems like a good treaty. Long-term it will help reduce the number of nukes, mid-term it will help additional effort for non-proliferation and short-term it will cause Republicans to make really dumb statements

-spence

[buckman]

Originally Posted by spence

While that was a huge (and calculated) over reaction, I'd note that the Georgians did fire first.

We're always going to see conflict in the Caucasus. It's just too strategic an area.

This seems like a good treaty. Long-term it will help reduce the number of nukes, mid-term it will help additional effort for non-proliferation and short-term it will cause Republicans to make really dumb statements

-spence

Russia will get rid of some old nukes, we'll get rid of some new ones and we won't build any more. Proliferation is taking place, you just refuse to see it.

[buckman]

Originally Posted by spence

I'd note that the Georgians did fire first.

:

-spence

That's what Russia said

[Bronko]

Originally Posted by buckman

Russia will get rid of some old nukes, we'll get rid of some new ones and we won't build any more. Proliferation is taking place, you just refuse to see it.

The Russians will just ship the nukes they are "getting rid of" to Iran or North Korea under cover of night. This type of treaty is worthless paper. All attention should ne on Iran...period.

[spence]

Originally Posted by buckman

Russia will get rid of some old nukes, we'll get rid of some new ones and we won't build any more. Proliferation is taking place, you just refuse to see it.

Yes, I'm sure the Pentagon/DoE will recommend we decommission our best and most advanced weapons first.

See, it's happening already

and short-term it will cause Republicans to make really dumb statements

-spence

[buckman]

Originally Posted by spence

Yes, I'm sure the Pentagon/DoE will recommend we decommission our best and most advanced weapons first.

See, it's happening already



-spence

And Russia is doing the same thing It cracks me up too.

[buckman]

The reason Obama gets away with the crap he does is that the people who voted for him are for the most part, too pompous and arrogant to admit they just might be wrong for once.

[spence]

Originally Posted by buckman

The reason Obama gets away with the crap he does is that the people who voted for him are for the most part, too pompous and arrogant to admit they just might be wrong for once.

Get's away with what? Working to make the world a better place?

-spence

[scottw]

"I'd like to buy the world a home...and furnish it with love...grow apple trees and honey bees and snow white turtle dove"

remember when Obama said " I'm not naive" ?.... he was lying then too...

[buckman]

Originally Posted by spence

Get's away with what? Working to make the world a better place?

-spence

All the while effin hard working Americans. I believe you are listening to too many old Beatle songs And what a beautiful world it will be.

[spence]

So only having 1500 nukes, still enough to destroy the entire planet, on top of the most powerful armed forces ever on earth ...

That's screwing the hard working American?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

So only having 1500 nukes, still enough to destroy the entire planet, on top of the most powerful armed forces ever on earth ...

That's screwing the hard working American?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

there are other planets ya know

TEHRAN (Reuters)today – Iran will lodge a complaint with the United Nations about what it sees as U.S. President Barack Obama's threat to attack it with nuclear weapons, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.

Obama made clear last week that Iran and North Korea were excluded from new limits on the use of U.S. atomic weapons -- something Tehran interpreted as a threat from a long-standing adversary to attack it with nuclear bombs.

"The recent statement by the U.S. president ... implicitly intimidates the Iranian nation with the deployment of nuclear arms," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised meeting with military and security officials.

war monger cowboy

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by scottw

war monger cowboy

Nope, but he's not the Pussy the right makes him out to be either.

I didn't start this thread to say we should softball NK or Iran.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Nope, but he's not the Pussy the right makes him out to be either.

potty mouth....yes he is

Apart from being morally bizarre, the Obama nuclear policy is strategically loopy
April 9, 2010 12:00 A.M.
Nuclear Posturing, Obama Style

There is no greater spur to hyperproliferation than the furling of the American nuclear umbrella.

Nuclear doctrine consists of thinking the unthinkable. It involves making threats and promising retaliation that is cruel and destructive beyond imagining. But it has its purpose: to prevent war in the first place.

During the Cold War, we let the Russians know that if they dared use their huge conventional military advantage and invaded Western Europe, they risked massive U.S. nuclear retaliation. Goodbye Moscow.

Was this credible? Would we have done it? Who knows? No one’s ever been there. A nuclear posture is just that — a declaratory policy designed to make the other guy think twice.

Our policies did. The result was called deterrence. For half a century, it held. The Soviets never invaded. We never used nukes. That’s why nuclear doctrine is important.

The Obama administration has just issued a new one that “includes significant changes to the U.S. nuclear posture,” said Defense Secretary Bob Gates. First among these involves the U.S. response to being attacked with biological or chemical weapons.

Under the old doctrine, supported by every president of both parties for decades, any aggressor ran the risk of a cataclysmic U.S. nuclear response that would leave the attacking nation a cinder and a memory.

Again: Credible? Doable? No one knows. But the threat was very effective.

Under President Obama’s new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),” explained Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.”

Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve-gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker is up to date with its latest IAEA inspections, well, it gets immunity from nuclear retaliation. Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs, and other conventional munitions.

However, if the lawyers tell the president that the attacking state is NPT noncompliant, we are free to blow the bastards to nuclear kingdom come.

This is quite insane. It’s like saying that if a terrorist deliberately uses his car to mow down a hundred people waiting at a bus stop, the decision as to whether he gets (a) hanged or (b) 100 hours of community service hinges entirely on whether his car had passed emissions inspections.

Apart from being morally bizarre, the Obama policy is strategically loopy. Does anyone believe that North Korea or Iran will be more persuaded to abjure nuclear weapons because they could then carry out a biological or chemical attack on the U.S. without fear of nuclear retaliation?

The naïveté is stunning. Similarly stunning is the Obama pledge to forswear development of any new nuclear warheads — indeed, to permit no replacement of aging nuclear components without the authorization of the president himself. This under the theory that our moral example will move other countries to eschew nukes.

On the contrary. The last quarter-century — the time of greatest superpower nuclear-arms reduction — is precisely when Iran and North Korea went hellbent into the development of nuclear weapons.

It gets worse. The administration’s Nuclear Posture Review declares U.S. determination to “continue to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks.” The ultimate aim is to get to a blanket doctrine of no first use.

This is deeply worrying to the many small nations that for half a century relied on the extended U.S. nuclear umbrella to keep them from being attacked or overrun by far more powerful neighbors. When smaller allies see the United States determined to move inexorably away from that posture — and for them it’s not posture, but existential protection — what are they to think?

Fend for yourself. Get yourself your own WMDs. Go nuclear if you have to. Do you imagine they are not thinking that in the Persian Gulf?

This administration seems to believe that by restricting retaliatory threats and by downplaying our reliance on nuclear weapons, it is discouraging proliferation.

But the opposite is true. Since World War II, smaller countries have agreed to forgo the acquisition of deterrent forces — nuclear, biological, and chemical — precisely because they placed their trust in the firmness, power, and reliability of the American deterrent.

Seeing America retreat, they will rethink. And some will arm. There is no greater spur to hyperproliferation than the furling of the American nuclear umbrella.

— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2010, The Washington Post Writers Group.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

I didn't start this thread to say we should softball NK or Iran.

Obama made clear last week that Iran and North Korea were excluded from new limits on the use of U.S. atomic weapons


I wonder why we reserved the right to Nuke these guys...I thought they were ...
"Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us,” Obama said.


I guess tea and talks without pre-conditions is not gonna happen

[spence]

Originally Posted by scottw

Obama made clear last week that Iran and North Korea were excluded from new limits on the use of U.S. atomic weapons

This is absolutely true...while each could be a menace, none will ever be able to project substantial power beyond their own borders...

-spence

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by spence

This is absolutely true...while each could be a menace, none will ever be able to project substantial power beyond their own borders...

-spence

[spence]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Do you doubt me?

-spence

[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

Do you doubt me?

-spence

regarding most things....yes

Israel should be happy to hear your opinion .....though....I doubt they're buying it either.....

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by spence

Do you doubt me?

-spence

I have issue with a few things,

1st: "while each could be a menace, none will ever be able to project substantial power beyond their own borders". They may not be able to project power in the way we do, say sailing a Carrier Strike Group off PainInTheAssStan but they do project in levels above menace (Hamas, Hezbolah, groups in Iraq, AFG), and if they do develope nuke and pass said bigbang device to a terrorist group, they go significantly above menace.

2nd: Due to NPR changes, the vagueness that was the trigger on when the US would consider nuclear retaliation is now gone / lessened. The bad guys can theoretically play a lot closer to the line. the deterrent factor has been greatly diminished.

[The Dad Fisherman]

I miss the Cold War....Things were so much simpler then.

[spence]

Originally Posted by JohnR

1st: "while each could be a menace, none will ever be able to project substantial power beyond their own borders". They may not be able to project power in the way we do, say sailing a Carrier Strike Group off PainInTheAssStan but they do project in levels above menace (Hamas, Hezbolah, groups in Iraq, AFG), and if they do develope nuke and pass said bigbang device to a terrorist group, they go significantly above menace.

That's not a projection of substantial power, while Hamas and Hezbolla are certainly a threat and a menace, neither stands a real chance of ever threatening Isreal's existance.

Nor ours...

Iran only persues such smaller measures because anything stronger would be countered, and countered hard.

2nd: Due to NPR changes, the vagueness that was the trigger on when the US would consider nuclear retaliation is now gone / lessened. The bad guys can theoretically play a lot closer to the line. the deterrent factor has been greatly diminished.

I don't believe this at all. No country really believes we'll nuke them as we still operate under the rules of MAD.

What they fear, are the US Marines.

-spence

[TommyTuna]

Originally Posted by spence

Get's away with what? Working to make the world a better place?

-spence

Kum bi ya messiah Obasm Kum bi ya..all together now sing it with me, drink the Kool aid, heads in the sand or your option up you own Arse. all together now.

As for your statement Iran & NorKo "not being able to project power" I think your one dimensional thinking should embrace the threat of asymetrical warfare in our hemisphere. It can be effective, see 9/11, Spain Transit, Kubar Towers etc for its use & results, sometimes quite effective. Chem/Bio weapons in the modern sense, not the WWI crap, have a very aggressive lethality and the skillset is available to steal, develop & deploy said weapons. Hmmm a highly agressive, high mortlality viral plague oh where can we find one.

Now here is a lesson in self defense and nuclear deterrent; strategic ambiguity - a very powerful weapon where the aggressor does not know if/when/how you-the victim(mark) would respond and use your nukes. Kind of like the " armed concealed carry citizen" who conceals his weapon and only demonstrates its usage as a last resort and does not broadcast his having one. Or go announcing it on every street cormer in a tough neighborhood(world); "don't you worry I will not use it unless XYZ happens.


And one from the "Godfather", Sonny, Come here. Whatsa matta with you, Never tell anyone outside the family what your thinking" No truer words have been spoken.


Where have you gone Gen. Curtis LeMay?

TT

[RIJIMMY]

Originally Posted by spence

Get's away with what? Working to make the world a better place?

-spence

and this gets right to the point. His constitutional duty is to make AMERICA a better place!
it wont win you a noble peace prize but its his JOB!!

[RIJIMMY]

Originally Posted by spence

What they fear, are the US Marines.

-spence

really? WHy? All they have to do is hide in a Mosque and the marines cant touch them or all they need to do parade civilan casualties on the news and the Marines will be paralyzed.

[spence]

Originally Posted by TommyTuna

Kum bi ya messiah Obasm Kum bi ya..all together now sing it with me, drink the Kool aid, heads in the sand or your option up you own Arse. all together now.

Brilliant analysis. And I thought the Liberals were the touchy feely ones.

As for your statement Iran & NorKo "not being able to project power" I think your one dimensional thinking should embrace the threat of asymetrical warfare in our hemisphere. It can be effective, see 9/11, Spain Transit, Kubar Towers etc for its use & results, sometimes quite effective. Chem/Bio weapons in the modern sense, not the WWI crap, have a very aggressive lethality and the skillset is available to steal, develop & deploy said weapons. Hmmm a highly agressive, high mortlality viral plague oh where can we find one.

Asymmetrical warfare isn't very useful in projecting power as it typically requires a indigenous population with some good percentage that's either coercable or cooperative. It can be very effective when trying to repell or stall an offensive campaign, which is how we've almost always seen it used.

Could Iran project power using asymmetrical warfare to dictate the American position or take over our territory?

Not really.

Perhaps they could use it to irritate US interests, but only where the situation would allow it, usually an established defensive or perceived defensive front.

As for terror, if you think the bombings in Madrid or the African embassys were a "projection of power" then you must have a pretty weak view of what power really is. It's precisely because al Qaeda lacks the ability to project power that they've failed in their objective to establish a new Caliphate.

To project power you must be able to sustain and coordinate your efforts away your home. None of these enemies have the resources or relationships to do this effectively.

Now here is a lesson in self defense and nuclear deterrent; strategic ambiguity - a very powerful weapon where the aggressor does not know if/when/how you-the victim(mark) would respond and use your nukes. Kind of like the " armed concealed carry citizen" who conceals his weapon and only demonstrates its usage as a last resort and does not broadcast his having one. Or go announcing it on every street cormer in a tough neighborhood(world); "don't you worry I will not use it unless XYZ happens.

Nuclear deterrent has a lot more to do with MAD than it does spoken or written words. The recent shift in policy has everything to do with improving collaboration with those we're not going to nuke anyway, to increasing leverage against those who we see as real threats.

The issue of course is that building and using a nuclear bomb are dramatically different things.

This may look strange to you, it's called negotiation.

And I seriously doubt our spoken or written position on using nuclear weapons means much as a deterrent. Everybody knows we're not going to use them, except in the most dire of circumstances, and probably only if nuked ourselves. We simply have too many other viable options using conventional means.

So no, I don't think Iran or North Korea has much of an ability to project power now or will in the future. Given that, how we deal with their very real threats should be taken in context. This is the failure of Bush era policy during his first term. Treat every big issue as an existential threat to our survival you have very limited options. When reality further erodes those options down do nothing you're frozen.

And when you're not moving you can't steer.

-spence

[spence]

Originally Posted by RIJIMMY

and this gets right to the point. His constitutional duty is to make AMERICA a better place!
it wont win you a noble peace prize but its his JOB!!

America won't be successful unless there's enough global stability to let our economic system work. We simply can't consume enough to continue to scale.

really? WHy? All they have to do is hide in a Mosque and the marines cant touch them or all they need to do parade civilan casualties on the news and the Marines will be paralyzed.

Because the US can project a lot of force when offensive force is desired. Hiding in a mosque is a tactical issue, we're talking strategy here.

-spence

[RIJIMMY]

Originally Posted by spence

America won't be successful unless there's enough global stability to let our economic system work. We simply can't consume enough to continue to scale.


Because the US can project a lot of force when offensive force is desired. Hiding in a mosque is a tactical issue, we're talking strategy here.

-spence

and a US Marine invasion is a more threatening strategy than a nuclear deterant?
I think you need to compare Japan to Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.