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Today's Poll: Do you think the U.S. should sign a new arms control deal with Russia?

By Howard B. Owens
Dave Olsen

A very complex issue and one I confess I don't really understand. Maybe someone reading this would care to educate me. Between the US and Russia there apparently is around 16,000 nuclear warheads, more than enough to destroy the Earth. On one hand Obama is talking about reducing nuclear weapons and on the other he's spending over 100 billion dollars in the next 10 years.

"Over the next decade, the United States will invest well over $100 billion in nuclear delivery systems to sustain existing capabilities and modernize some strategic systems." Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/New%20START%20section%201…

I think anyone with any sense would like to have no nuclear weapons anywhere, but can also understand that there are countries who will never give up their nuclear arsenals and others who are aspiring to have them. So sadly it's unfortunate that nuclear weapons are a fact of life. I don't see what this treaty accomplishes, other than making the USA and Russia look like they're trying to the right thing when we're both probably just getting rid of old weapons in lieu of new technology. Smoke and Mirrors. Feeding the war machine and placating the masses.

Aug 2, 2010, 11:48am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

With our superior conventional fire power I question the need for a large nuclear arsenal. So long as Russia and China have nukes, we probably need a deterrent to maintain something like a balance of power. But if a smaller nation detonated a nuke in this country, the appropriate response wouldn't be to rain nukes on that country, but strategic conventional strikes against military and leadership targets.

Aug 2, 2010, 11:55am Permalink

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