Obama on nuclear weapons: Speak softly and carry NO stick

Children born in the 1950s grew up during the height of the cold war. I was one of them. We were issued stainless steel I.D. bracelets--complete with religious preference...just in case? Besides fire drills, we had numerous duck and cover drills at our grade school, practice runs for evacuating the school, and once were told to go home during the school day and rehearse going into our basements or wherever we planned to hide out if we were nuked.

All of this weighed heavy on my young psyche. But at least we knew if we were attacked, we had President Kennedy who had the will and the means to retaliate. His will and means gave an enemy pause before pushing the button.

President Kennedy had the Minuteman Missile, the Ace in the Hole, technology that was begun under President Eisenhower in 1958 and completed just 8 days after the Cuban Missile Crisis began in 1962, as a deterrent. President Kennedy embraced the space race and developing weapon technology.

Nearly 50 years after those troubling years, is the United States still on top of their nuclear and counter anti-missile technology? Are we still developing more defensive Star Wars type anti missile shields and weaponry?

No. Instead we have a President who seems bent on destroying any lead we had in the space race by de-funding NASA's new Constellation moon project in favor of researching and monitoring climate change for now, and a "heavy-lift" rocket--10 years or more away. Unlike President Kennedy, Obama spurns our position of superiority and technical strength.

President Obama recently announced a US and Russia nuclear arms reduction treaty, which will limit both sides to 1,550 warheads, as if Russia is our only opponent that has nukes. (Countries with nuclear weapons, going from friendly to hostile to suspected, include the UK, France, India, Russia, China, North Korea, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, and Syria.) Remember that Russia is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant, a partnership that makes the "United States uncomfortable", and is also cozying up to Venezuela by selling $5B in other weapons.

Just last month an aide said "the administration [has] rejected proposals that the United States declare it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons."

But Obama announced yesterday that he "was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons, even in self-defense... ...For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack." (My emphasis)

I always thought the best strategy in warding off conflict was to speak from a position of power, not outline specifically what you would or wouldn't do. You know, Speak softly and carry a BIG stick.

Considering Obama's new direction of "...developing no new nuclear weapons, including the nuclear bunker-busters advocated by the Bush administration", we have a very weak president who likes to Speak softly, and carry NO stick. That position can only be called, "naïve and dangerous."

More Reading: The Cuban Missile Crisis
Heritage Foundation: The Road to a New Nuclear Arms Race, "Unfortunately for Americans, President Obama’s new strategy will have the exact opposite result of its intended effect. Instead of incentivizing countries to give up nuclear ambitions, it creates new incentives for them to maintain or develop their own nuclear programs. First look at the Russians, who clearly still see their nuclear weapons as the cornerstone of their defense, no matter how much President Obama wishes it were otherwise. Moscow has no interest in diminishing its own nuclear arsenal, but it is perfectly happy to allow the Obama administration to weaken the U.S. deterrent until it is on equal footing with Russia’s currently mediocre might. ...A country like Iran is equally unimpressed with President Obama’s unilateral disarmament strategy." (My emphasis)

Past Posts: Obama, JFK, technology, & the Cuban Missile Crisis...chilling
Dangerous month, dangerous world, dangerous ideas

Links: Practically Speaking, Betterbrookfield, RandyMelchert, Jay Weber, Vicki McKenna, The Right View Wisconsin, CNS News, Mark Levin, Breitbart BigGovernment, The Heritage Foundation