Treaty to be sealed within hours by Pres. Obama & Russian Pres. Medvedev cuts nuclear weapons by 1/4

[bigtree]

March 26, 2010

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. official says a treaty expected to be sealed with Russia within hours would cut by 25 percent the number of deployed nuclear weapons.

The official says the agreement would limit each side to 700 armed launchers - such as missiles, bombers or submarines - that are ready to be fired.

President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are expected to finalize the agreement in a phone conversation Friday morning.

The agreement would also limit both sides to 1,550 nuclear warheads - a further reduction from previously planned cuts.


read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1151ap_russia_us_nuclear.html

[spanone]

1. k&r here's some freakin' change....reTHUGS would have NEVER done this

[Statistical]

7. Sorry thats too funny. "Bush cuts nuclear weapons by two-thirds"

Bush cuts nuclear weapons by two-thirds
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2001/11/13/Bush-cuts-nuclear-weapons-by-two-thirds/UPI-20551005701409/

Reagan (yeah even Reagan), Bush Sr, Clinton, Shrub, and now Obama have all cut US nuclear arsenal.
US nuclear arsenal has been slowly shrinking for about 40 years.

I am not fan of Shrub but we should at least accurately portray history.

[berni_mccoy]

8. Heh... Bush got NO Commitment out of Russia on that agreement. NONE.

[Statistical]

9. Come on now. This is easily verifiable stuff...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORT

The Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions (SORT), better known as the Moscow Treaty "represents an important element of the new strategic relationship between the United States and Russia".<1> with both parties agreeing to limit their nuclear arsenal to 1700–2200 operationally deployed warheads each. It was signed in Moscow on May 24, 2002. SORT came into force on June 1, 2003 after the Bush-Putin ratification in St. Petersburg, and expires on December 31, 2012.

US and Russian Nuclear Arsenals have BOTH shrunk under last 5 Presidencies.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported that President Bush directed the US military to cut its stockpile of both deployed and reserve nuclear weapons in half by 2012. The goal was achieved in 2007, a reduction of US nuclear warheads to just over 50 percent of the 2001 total. A further proposal by Bush will bring the total down another 15%.<3>

Now could Shrub have gone for larger cuts? Sure
Could he have signed a stronger treaty (inspections, 3rd party verification, permanent destruction of nuclear material, etc)? Sure
Was he an utter idiot by withdrawing from ABM, creating tension, and setting this process back years? Sure

The fact remains that Shrub did reduce nuclear arsenal. This is likely one of the few (only?) good things he did.
Even if Bush hadn't reduced nuclear arsenal the previous two Republican administrations did.
The statement I corrected was incorrect.

[berni_mccoy]

18. US made cuts. Russia did not. All they said they would do is "try", which they didn't.

[Statistical]

19. Your a funny guy.

:rofl:

The Russians wanted FURTHER cuts beyond SORT. They simply can't afford their arsenal.

Even with NO TREATY the Russians would have cut their arsenal. They don't have a choice.
We can't either we just happen to have good credit so we can hide it better.

We have been buying their warheads downmixed as reactor fuel for 2 decades now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/business/energy-environment/10nukes.html

But at times, recycled Soviet bomb cores have made up the majority of the American market for low-enriched uranium fuel. Today, former bomb material from Russia accounts for 45 percent of the fuel in American nuclear reactors, while another 5 percent comes from American bombs, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade association in Washington.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program

From 1995 through late 2009, 375 metric tons of highly-enriched uranium from Russian nuclear warheads have been recycled into low-enriched-uranium fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants. This program has eliminated the equivalent of 15,000 nuclear warheads. The Megatons to Megawatts government-to-government program goal of elimination 500 metric tons of warhead material is scheduled to be completed in 2013. Currently, ten percent of U.S. electricity is produced using this fuel.

We haven't needed to mine uranium for last 2 decades because we have so much surplus weapons grade stuff from dismantled Russian nukes.

When you flip the switch and the lights come on in your house that is proof their arsenal is getting smaller.

[berni_mccoy]

20. Wow, counting reductions before the treaty. You're totally caught up in Bush spin

From the original article you linked:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2001/11/13/Bush-cuts-nuclear-weapons-by-two-thirds/UPI-20551005701409

President Bush took the first step in a historic reduction of strategic nuclear weapons Tuesday, slashing the U.S. stockpile by two-thirds and winning a commitment from Russian President Vladimir Putin to "try to respond in kind."

The fact is, that is not a commitment to reduce arms. And it's no accomplishment of a treaty by Bush. Why do you want to make something that isn't for Bush?

[Statistical]

21. Spin it anyways you want US + Russia nuclear arsenals were lower.

SORT while being a "weak" treaty did reduce active nuclear weapons on both sides.
Both sides has less nuclear weapons emplaced when Bush left office compared to when he entered Office.

Just like they were at end of Clinton's, and Reagan's, (and will be by end of Obama's).

I hope Bush rots in hell and this one good thing doesn't even come close to making up for the thousands of shitty things he did.
Still he did sign treaties that reduced US & Russian nuclear arsenals and that is a good thing.
It is a good thing regardless of who does it. Hell the economic savings alone make it good.

[bigtree]

10. true . . . this treaty even extends cuts negotiated in 2002 by Bush in the Treaty of Moscow

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25start.html

[Statistical]

11. It has been a very long and slow process.

Held back not only by political pressures but by the influence of military industrial complexes in both countries.
People don't realize this but nuclear weapons are massively expensive to maintain.
A convention bomb just sits there. Once you build it you can store it for decades for minimal cost.

Nuclear weapons have plutonium core which is slowly decaying producing heat and neutrons (spontaneous fission). The heat dries out explosive material and nuetrons slowly embrittle components. They use tritium for boosting and tritium only has half life of 12 years so it constantly needs to be topped off. Tritium decays into Helium which blocks neutrons (could cause fizzle rather than fission) so that needs to be removed as it builds up.

Then there is the security which is 24/7/365 and expensive. Lastly you have all the simulations, testing. If we ever need a nuclear weapon it kinda has to work. Failure is not acceptable so the weapons are constantly be simulated (to predict effect of age on components) and tested (some weapons have cores removed and components tested to find potential defects).

Literally every weapon we have costs hundreds of thousands of dollar a year to NOT USE and we will keep paying forever. The costs for nuclear weapons never end. A hundred years, a thousands years, a billion years the costs will keep rising there is no point where costs stop. The only way to cut those costs is to cut the massive (way more than needed stockpile). The maintenance, inspections, testing (not nuclear testing, component testing), simulations, studies, security, etc adds up to billions of dollars spent each year.

The military industrial complex is very reluctant to let than infinite revenue stream go away and push back on every attempt to reduce the arsenals.

[imurhuckleberry]

2. k&r n/t

[rurallib]

3. Now if he could disarm the teabaggers.....

[SolidGold]

4. Thanks Hillary!

We've all been wondering whats shes been up to and this is it. Strike up another win for this administration!

Great news, a 25% reduction is a start!!

[bigtree]

6. indeed

. . . . Secretary Clinton has invested a great deal of time and personal effort in furthering the talks leading up to this apparent agreement.



U.S. Secretary of State Clinton, together with Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov, attends a news conference in Moscow March 18 (AFP Yuri Kadobnov)

[progressoid]

5. Oh noes! How will we protect ourselves?

IIEEEEEEE!!!11!! :scared:

[NeedleCast]

12. Maintaining Nukes is Expensive

Russian and the US have finally realized this...

[Statistical]

14. Well we have been realizing that for 4 decades....

it is just slow progress because all that "expensiveness" goes straight into pockets of Military Inudstrial Complex.

They have an infinite revenue stream and fight very hard (via lobbying, scare tactics, misinformation, etc) to prevent any reduction in that cost.

[NeedleCast]

15. Yup

Disarming is going to be a slow process, but (despite my often cynical outlook), you have to start somewhere, and we're at least going in the right direction now.

[Statistical]

17. Well we aren't starting today.

In 1963 our nuclear arsenal was 33,000 warheads.
By 1980 it had dropped to 22,000 warheads.

The last treaty SORT brought it down to 2000 active warheads.
Obama treaty brings it down to 1550 active warheads.

If we look at even our nuclear equipped allies we have a long way to go still.
The UK has reduced their arsenal down to 144 active warheads (165 including spares) so we still have long way to go.

Hopefully Obama can sign a further treaty near end of his next term bringing us down from 1550 to something like 600-800.

[NNN0LHI]

13. .

[bigtree]

22. well,

Arms Control Experts Applaud Announcement of New Nuclear Reductions Treaty ...



WASHINGTON - March 26 - Today, the Obama Administration announced that negotiations for the text of the most significant nuclear reductions treaty between the United States and Russia in decades are complete. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will sign the agreement on April 8 in Prague, Czech Republic.

"We welcome the announcement of the completion of a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons in United States and Russia," said the Center's Executive Director John Isaacs. "This is a huge step forward in advancing the bipartisan nuclear security agenda that the President outlined in Prague in April 2009 to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons."

That agenda included three primary objectives: to reduce and eventually eliminate existing nuclear weapons stockpiles, prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new states, and prevent nuclear weapons-usable materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. Reductions in the United States and Russia are they key to moving forward on the first goal.

"This agreement demonstrates the Administration's commitment to moving away from Cold War era stockpiles and reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the two countries that currently possess more than 95% of those remaining in the world," added Leonor Tomero, the Center's director of nuclear non-proliferation. "It is a key element of the President's efforts to effectively address the most pressing threat to the United States: the danger that nuclear weapons might spread to other countries or to terrorists or that a nuclear weapon might be detonated by accident."

This foreign policy victory builds on the domestic victory of the Administration this week on health care. "A stronger President on health care is a stronger President to move forward this nuclear security agenda," Isaacs said. "We look for a Senate vote on the treaty this year. The sooner the treaty enters into force, the sooner important verification procedures can be up and running again."

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/03/26-3

[wiggs]

16. The positive of the treaty is not just a reduction of nuclear arms by us and

the Russians....it signals an improving working relationship between two major powers that have been at odds in recent years. This is a good thing.

US and Russia have 95% of the world's nuclear arms. Even after the treaty, there will still be enough nuclear devices to destroy the world many time over. But the ability to put an important foreign relationship back on track is huge.

And my understanding is that this treaty was supposed to happen under W long ago but because W cancelled the anti ballistic missle treaty (in 2002?) the Russians wouldn't get on board with a new updated version of the nuclear reduction treaty that (I believe) Reagan started. This apparently limited our ability to verify reductions by Russia during that time.

As I remember, W doesn't get much credit for nuclear reductions and pursuing loose nukes. Wasn't Bolton in charge of that for a good long time? I think loose nuke policy is considered one of his many failures.