Recently, White House representatives have compared President Obama’s nuclear posture to that of the Reagan Administration; President Reagan must be rolling in his grave.
Obama has indeed reaffirmed Reagan’s commitment to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” During his presidency, Reagan worked toward a reduction in nuclear stockpiles. He also recognized that America was faced with the international instability of the Cold War, and he introduced his “Star Wars” program prior to taking these actions. End result: the USSR succumbed to the pressures of American military strength, and we were able to reduce our nuclear arms supply at the same time.
President Obama, however, has taken a large step away from Reagan’s successful policies. President Reagan built America up as a world leader in defense technology, and Obama is simply dismantling this image. The Cold War fortunately is a thing of the past, but our current enemies — namely Iran and North Korea — are stronger than ever. As a result, weakening our defense systems will not galvanize any positive change.
If anything, President Obama is channeling President Carter. At the height of the Cold War, President Carter promised the defense and security of America, yet to the shock of Americans and to the world, he cancelled the promising B-1 bomber program without warning. During the four years of his administration, Carter projected an image of weakness while still trying to suggest an image of strength.
President Obama possesses the same errors in reasoning. He fails to realize that the leaders of these nations are illogical and irrational. They hate America with a passion, and any hint of weakness will only strengthen their resolve. Obama’s proposed sanctions against these nations will not solve any problems, and will only make us more susceptible to attack. As Iranian President Ahmadinejad reconfirmed, “The more hostile you are, the stronger an incentive our people will have.” As we have learned in the past, these dangerous leaders do not respond to reason; they respond to power.
The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed by President Obama and Russian President Medvedev, most notably calls for a 30 percent reduction in American and Russian nuclear arsenals over a period of seven years, as well as a combined reduction in missile development programs. Obama’s Nuclear Posture likewise restricts America from “using nuclear weapons on any country that has signed and is abiding by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attack the U.S. with chemical or biological weapons.” Surely, Obama wants to set an example, but why do we need to tell everyone that we will be unresponsive to attack? This is no time to mimic Ghandi; we are in the midst of an international crisis.
President Obama has promised to “preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure the American people are safe and secure.” At the same time, however, he has blatantly advertised the fact that we intend to reduce our military prowess. Obama seems more concerned with advancing his nuclear reduction agenda than with discouraging terrorists and terrorist-sponsoring countries.
Moreover, if we are setting an example for other nations to follow (as Obama hopes), we are likewise weakening our allies. On Monday and Tuesday, Obama held a Nuclear Security Summit with world leaders from 47 other nations to “raise awareness” about terrorist procurement of nuclear weapons, and to encourage countries to “lock down their nuclear weapons.” We indeed need to work together to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, but it seems counterproductive to concurrently reduce our defense technology.
If this does not seem crazy enough, a large number of liberals have complained that Obama is not doing enough to reduce nuclear arms. I think we can all agree that we would rather live in a world without nuclear weapons, but quite simply, we don’t.
We need to cope with the realities of the world and send a message to our enemies. America is fighting a war on terrorism; if anything, we need to build and maintain our defense shield — not deconstruct it.