The leftist DefenseOne website has published a new treasonous, leftist, pro-unilateral-disarmament screed by unrepentant traitor Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization that campaigns for America’s unilateral disarmament. Therein, Cirincione hails Obama’s decision to unilaterally forego the production or development of landmines (a crucial step on the Left’s road to disarming the US unilaterally) and claims it is proof that the world can be rid of the supposed “scourge” of landmines, chemical weapons, and nukes.
He falsely claims that:
“As the world’s preeminent military power and an international leader in human rights and democracy, public commitments by the United States influence militaries around the world. Even though the United States has far to go, this measured step strengthens the international norms against horrific weapons, like landmines, poison gas and nuclear weapons, which arbitrarily kill civilians. Children, families and nations will be safer without these weapons.”
All of his claims, as always, are blatant lies, plain and simple. Here’s why.
Firstly, contrary to Cirincione’s utterly false claims, America’s “commitments” and unilateral disarmament gestures influence and impress NO ONE around the world. If the US disarms itself unilaterally, or gives up on any part of its arsenal, nobody else will follow suit – because nobody else is suicidal enough. (Except Ukraine, which is now paying a deadly price for disarming itself unilaterally in 1994.)
No country that has evil designs and plans, and no terrorist group, is ever going to abide by any arms control treaties, nor be influenced by America’s unilateral disarmament gestures. On the contrary, they will only use such an opportunity to threaten or evne attack America and its allies.
Here’s proof: Barack Obama has cut America’s nuclear stockpile and ICBM fleet unilaterally, is disabling missile tubes on US Navy ballistic missile subs, is delaying all crucial nuclear modernization programs, and has unilaterally scrapped the nuclear-capable version of the Tomahawk cruise missile. Not one other nation has reciprocated – all other nuclear powers are modernizing, and in most cases also growing, their nuclear arsenals.
I repeat: unilateral disarmament gestures by the US impress and influence NOBODY in the world.
Evil countries, regimes, and terrorist groups do not abide by arms control treaties – they routinely VIOLATE them, thus gaining an advantage over those foolish nations, like the US, which slavishly and suicidally adhere to such treaties.
Secondly, American landmines and nuclear weapons are important tools in America’s military arsenal. Nukes are, in fact, America’s only defense and life insurance against the deadliest threats in this world – hostile nations armed with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons or with ballistic missiles. Threats that, absent America’s nuclear deterrent, would literally destroy the entire US within an hour.
As for landmines, they are a crucial part of the .Army’s arsenal. As House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon has stated:
“Irresponsible land mine use by other countries has come at a high humanitarian price, but America isn’t part of that problem. Indeed, we do more than any other country to clean up these irresponsible weapons. General Dempsey has long declared the responsible land mines we use are an ‘important tool in the arsenal of the Armed Forces of the United States.’”
Which brings me to my next point: disarming America unilaterally, whether completely or by “just” scrapping its nukes and landmines, will do absolutely nothing to rid the world of these weapons. This is for two reasons. Firstly, as stated above, rogue, outlaw nations, regimes, and terrorist organizations do not abide by any “arms control treaties” or “international norms.” They violate them routinely and shamelessly. Adhering to treaties that America’s adversaries do not comply with is suicidal and will only invite aggression against the US.
Secondly, these weapons – particularly nuclear arms – are so attractive to countries around the world that no nuclear power (other than Ukraine and Belarus after the USSR’s collapse) has ever renounced its atomic arsenal – and in the last few decades, several new countries have joined the nuclear club, with more countries working – and racing – to acquire such weapons.
In 1968, when the utterly failed and useless “Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty” was signed, only five countries had nuclear weapons, the original five nuclear powers: the US, the USSR, Britain, France and China. Within the next 6 years, Israel and India joined the nuclear club. The end of the Cold War hardly marked the end of the nuclear club’s expansion: Pakistan joined the club in 1998, North Korea in 2006, and now, Iran and Saudi Arabia are racing to join the nuclear club, too. Both of them will likely obtain nuclear weapons within the next few years.
This is not surprising, given that Iran and Saudi Arabia are fierce rivals, indeed enemies, vying for supremacy in the Muslim world. If one of them obtains nuclear weapons, the other one cannot afford not to have them – especially since Saudi Arabia no longer trusts Washington’s nuclear deterrence guarantees while watching the Obama administration disarm itself unilaterally.
Meanwhile, existing club members Russia, China, North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel are all growing and modernizing their nuclear arsenals. In fact, State Department officials say Russia is rapidly growing its arsenal to achieve nuclear superiority over, rather than just retain parity with, the US.
This is confirmed by Russia’s incessant nuclear saber-rattling ongoing since 2007 and repeated nuclear threats against the US and its allies, as well as its violations of every arms control treaty it has signed (including the INF and New START treaties). (Remember what I just said above about arms control treaties being useless?)
China (which has at least 1,600, and possibly up to 3,000, nuclear weapons) is also rapidly building up its arsenal of both warheads and delivery systems. It has recently begun deploying the DF-41 mobile ICBM capable of carrying 10 warheads to the CONUS. Which means just one Chinese DF-41 missile, with 10 warheads, can destroy 10 different targets throughout the CONUS (the missile’s range is 12,000 kms). As the WantChinaTimes newspaper remarks, this means China could destroy Washington, New York, and Los Angeles with just one DF-41 missile – and that missile is just one of the many nuclear delivery systems China possesses.
Besides Russia and China, every other nuclear power in the world – except Barack Obama’s America – is modernizing its nuclear arsenal, and many nuclear powers are expanding them. India, for example, has just commissioned its first-ever ballistic missile submarine, marking the birth of its nuclear triad. Israel has tested and is now deploying the Jericho-III ICBM with a range of over 10,000 kms. North Korea deployed a new, road-mobile ICBM (supplied by China) called the KN-08 two years ago. France is investing in new delivery systems that will prolong its nuclear arsenal’s lifetime into the 2060s.
Meanwhile, America’s allies around the world – from Poland to Persian Gulf states to South Korea to Japan – are very worried about their security, as they watch the Obama administration disarm the US unilaterally and thus deprive them of the US nuclear umbrella. They know they cannot afford to bet their security, and indeed their very survival, on Obama’s and Cirincione’s fantasies of “a world without nuclear weapons” – especially when the world is moving in exactly the opposite direction.
Many of them, especially, South Korea and Japan, will eventually build their own atomic arsenals if Obama continues to cut America’s arsenal unilaterally. Already, 66% of South Koreans want their country to do so, and Japan has recently built a facility permitting it to produce enough fissile material for 3,600 nuclear warheads in a matter of months, if need be.
The world is not only not an inch closer to being “free of nuclear weapons”, it is moving in exactly the OPPOSITE direction: towards MORE nuclear weapons (just not in the US) and more nuclear-armed states. More and more countries are aspiring to join the nuclear club.
Nor are chemical weapons falling out of fashion. Syria has an undeclared stock of chemical weapons, while Israel and North Korea have huge chemical arsenals of their own. In 2003, North Korea was estimated to have 2,500 metric tons of chemical weapons – all kinds of poison gases known to mankind – and the means to deliver them.
So the legacy of Barack Obama – and other advocates of disarming America unilaterally – will be a world with MORE nuclear weapons and MORE nuclear-armed states in it. Instead of achieving their supposed goal of ridding the world of nuclear and chemical weapons, their unilateral disarmament of America is only bringing about a world with MORE nuclear weapons and MORE nuclear-armed states in it.
The world is even more distant from their supposed goal of “a nuclear-free world” than it was 25 years ago.
As for Cirincione’s claim that “children, families and nations will be safer without these weapons”, that is also a blatant lie, just like everything else he writes.
American nuclear weapons do not threaten the US nor its children and families – they protect them. America’s nuclear weapons are a proven security guarantee and umbrella to the population of the US as well as over 30 allied countries.
It is Russian, Chinese, and North Korean chemical and nuclear weapons that threaten the US and its allies – but they won’t be eliminated by disarming the US. Quite the contrary.
As even Jimmy Carter’s Defense Secretary, Harold Brown, has observed, “When we build, they build. When we cut, they build.”
http://missilethreat.com/indias-nuclear-triad-finally-coming-of-age/
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2014/06/good-step-toward-ending-landmines/87463/?oref=d-river