Now that President Obama is in London preparing his first ever appearance at a Group of 20 meeting, one of the issues that I am hoping will come on the sidelines when finance is not being discussed is nuclear non-proliferation. With Russia being one of the members there, it will give President Obama a chance to talk to Dmitry Medvedev, current President of Russia, about the issue of nuclear weapons and a way to hopefully cut back the number of active nukes before the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) expires.
When looking at the number of nukes the United States has, I can’t help but step back and ask myself what the purpose of it is. The US has a nuclear arsenal of almost 5,400 nukes with 1,500 of those armed and ready to be fired within fifteen minutes. In other words, within fifteen minutes, the United States could seriously do some damage to the world. However, the number of nukes aside, consider the amount of money that needs to be spent to keep these nukes in existence.
Each year, the United States spends about $31 billion to keep their 5,400 nuke arsenal up and running. During the fifty six years that the Cold War went on, the United States spent anywhere from 5-6 trillion dollars. We talk about how we want to try and save money. One of the best ways to do this would be to cut our nuclear arsenal down to the nice round number of one thousand. This would save us over $20 billion a year.
What’s important, though, is not just reducing our own number of nukes, but also working with Russia to reduce theirs. America is a nation that likes to live behind a false sense of security. It’s why the Cold War was able to go on for so long. If both nations agree to reduce their arsenals, not only will they be saving a considerable sum of money, but they will also keep their people feeling safe.
We don’t need to worry about a nation suddenly launching a nuke at us. No nation wants to be nuked back, so while we even have one nuke, we are “safe.” The fear comes in with those independent militant groups. If they get their hands on a nuke, that’s when things start to become dangerous. The thing, though, is that having nuclear weapons is not the way of defending against this. Who do we bomb back if a rogue group sets off a suitcase bomb in one of our cities? They pledge allegiance to no country, so we can’t bomb anyone.
It is important for America to get out of this Cold War mentality of holding numerous nukes and to move on to other methods of national security. With the government bailing out banks and automotive companies, it is important that they make cuts in the budget where they can. Cutting back $20 billion on useless nuclear weapons will definitely make money available for other programs.
The days of huge nuclear arsenals are over. It is important for President Obama to really work out a detailed plan with President Medvedev over this failed mentality. Only with the combined effort of these two countries can we begin to lead the world into a global nuclear non-proliferation, something that I can say would be a nice thing.
About Jacob Cohen Donnelly
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