A world without nukes? Dream on, Barry

The president has clearly stated he wants a world without nuclear weapons. While on it's face, that seems like a good idea, it's wholly implausible. Mona Charen at National Review calls it naive, and takes the president to task over his pipe dream:

When I was a little girl, at the height of the Cold War, I used to wish, deeply and fervently, that nuclear weapons had never been invented. An accompanying fantasy placed me at the center of world events. Just as the two superpowers were preparing to launch a devastating exchange of nuclear weapons, I would step between the two. Seeing an innocent child, the hard-boiled men of the world would soften and reconsider their terrible course.

In other words, at the age of seven or eight, I was a liberal. As I grew, I came to understand a) that it was not possible to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle; and b) that the way to safety lay not in arms control but in strength prudently pursued.

This is a lesson the president has apparently failed to grasp. While nuclear weapons are devastating when used, they do have their uses. People today still criticize the fact we used nuclear weapons on Japan to end World War II without taking into account the primary reason we did drop those bombs. It wasn't to necessarily take life. It was to save lives, namely the lives of US Marines that would end up storming the beaches of Japan that some experts say would have cost us millions is lost lives. (Here is a breakdown of what we could expect with an invasion of Japan, and based on this information President Truman opted to use the A-Bombs to end the war.)

The fact that both the US and Russia had nuclear weapons prevented the world from witnessing a nuclear holocaust. The strategy was called Mutual-Assured Destruction, or MAD, and it kept the world safe for decades. The president should have known this, but it appears he doesn't believe in it, just as his liberal colleagues didn't. Ms. Charen continues:

Liberal approaches to foreign policy continue to rely more on wishful thinking than on realism or maturity. But even in the context of liberalism, President Obama’s recent policy declarations on the matter of nuclear weapons are juvenile and disturbing.

Speaking in Prague, the president declared, “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Has the president really thought this through? Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine that all of the existing nuclear powers agreed that their weapons were more of a threat to “peace and security” than they were worth, and voluntarily destroyed them all. Would the world immediately become a safer place? No. It would become far more dangerous. The North Koreans would have lied about destroying their weapons, just as they lied repeatedly, for years, about building them. So, one outcome might be that North Korea would instantly become a superpower. And surely the prospect of becoming nuclear-armed would be all the more enticing to the mullahs of Iran if only North Korea would be in possession of similar weapons. Who would want to live in that world?

“I’m not naïve,” the president continued. “This goal will not be reached quickly. . . . But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, ‘Yes, we can.’” That’s security policy by bumper sticker.

As they say, read it all. It's well worth the read to understand that the president clearly has no clue as to what he's doing with regard to US nuclear policy. That was more than evident when he publicly revealed the total number of nuclear weapons the US possesses. (And yes, there were calls for his impeachment over this revelation because it was a classified secret, and he made the US vulnerable in announcing it. But we all know there's no way in Hell the Democrats would ever impeach him over that; to them he's a hero.)

He says he's not naive, but he couldn't intelligently argue that with any national security or military expert. Ms. Charen takes note of both North Korea and Iran, and the fact that neither nation has played by the rules. Even if all of the peaceful nations of the world gave up their nuclear arms, you know damn well these two regimes won't. Former UN Ambassador John Bolton penned a piece for the 3 May issue of National Review where he outlines not only the problems in the "new START" treaty that Barry wants ratified immediately with regard to Iran and North Korea, but more importantly with regard to Russia. Whether people want to believe it or not, Russia is ascendant once again, and this new treaty will give the Russians a better position while weakening the US nuclear posture. Naivete seems to be the president's strong suit regardless of what he says.

The only nation that will ever disarm itself of nuclear weapons will be America, and all based on a utopian naivete that the Left has been living in for decades. "Oh, if we'd just get rid of our nukes, the world will follow in our footsteps." No, they won't. Poland is already anxious over the fact that Barry has cancelled the missile defense shield that was promised by President Bush, and it was nixed for nothing more than to have Russia quit kvetching at us over it. The missile defense system had the Russians worried, and they should have been. That system was a way to keep our allies under a protective umbrella where they didn't have to worry about the Russians, but also so they wouldn't be concerned with Iran.

See, Iran is close to deploying a long-range missile that has a range that could strike Poland, and other nations in Eastern Europe. Now, as I have often said, Tehran isn't going to play chicken with a couple missiles. They know they'd be wiped off the map should they launch a nuclear strike. But nuclear blackmail isn't out of the question, and that is likely the route Tehran would take. The last thing we need is a nuclear-armed Iran, rattling it's nuclear saber in its region, and against Eastern Europe.

Removing all the nuclear weapons in the world won't make this world safer. It'll make it far more dangerous than it is today. Barry needs to wake up and smell the coffee. A nuclear-armed America keeps the world in check. An America turned into a eunuch by a clueless, childlike, gullible president makes us, and our allies, vulnerable to enemies that are anything but merciful.

Publius II