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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Nuclear Missile Pact
This article titled Obama' s Nuclear Spring Fell Back, focuses on the nuclear arms treaty between President Obama and Russia. Although the main point of the artcile is to state that the amount of nuclear arms held by countries involved, both Russia and the United States, will be reduced by thirty percent. This will be done in an attempt to provoke peace and limit the power of each nation. However, despite the conditions of the treaties President Obama has made a provision that will allow the United States to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons holding countries, if they violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Through the enactment of this treaty, Russia and the United States have agreed to lower its nuclear warheads to one thousand each.There has been much dissent between conservatives and liberals on whether or not this treaty was an realistic or idealist. However, this article in particular was told through a liberal viewpoint, as the world “neoconservative” was used frequently to describe certain thoughts and ideas. One strong condition of the pact that was made between both Russia and the United States is that President Obama ensured not to include a portion that read that the nations would not use nuclear weapons against non-nucler weapon bearing countries. This offers protection against such countries like Iran, ensuring if the United States resolved to use nuclear weapons, the option would be available. Also, to refute any conservative claims that this pact “ties the hands” of America, President Obama refused to accept the provision of the pact that would not allow the United States to be the first to use nuclear weapons. Now, the option is easily left open for the United States to use nuclear weapons if the case called for.The pact overall was a strategic call taken by President Obama in order to have negotiations with Russia. It also allowed for President Obama to call many of the terms of the pact and agree with some of the provisions while disregarding others that would have limited the United States power in decision making in the future. I found this article at