Nuclear Disarmament

[mrmod]

US and Russia agree historic nuclear deal

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have sealed an agreement on a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty.

The two leaders plan to sign the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty on April 8 in the Czech capital Prague.

After months of deadlock, the breakthrough marks Mr Obama's most significant foreign policy achievement since taking office and also boosts his effort to "reset" ties with Moscow.

He and Mr Medvedev put the finishing touches on the historic accord during a phone call, committing the world's biggest nuclear weapons powers to big cuts in their arsenals.

Under the 10-year agreement, each side will reduce its deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 from 2,200.

So do you reckon this will work? There has always been "talks" but tensions are running high between Russia and the USA.

And do you reckon there will be action after the talk? Give us your thoughts peoples...

[srijantje]

don't know,depends what's in the agreement,are you allowed to modernize the ones who are left for example,if so,then it prob makes not much difference having 2000 or 1500

[billy]

i'm with SJ.

i don't think 700 nukes will make a difference. what is good is that both sides are talking. and for once they're in accord. this in itself is a step forward. notice the word deployed in there. does it have any significance. how many undeployed ones do they have.

i can see this agreement being adhered too. with luck it will open the door to more agreement over things like iran north korea etc. pretty soon the shit is going to hit the fan and russia and the usa need to be on the same side. china is into the usa for too much financially to get too physically aggressive against the states but russia isn't hampered in the same way.

[srijantje]

do numbers in this case mean anything though.i would think 10 well placed nuclear devices would wipe out any country infra structure wise,and 1500 prob.won't be enough to prevent a counterstrike by the attacked country,but that is all it would be,a counter strike

[billy]

i agree. plus we get the added bonus of a sessation of hostility that was there 12 months ago.

it's more about working together than how many nukes we have for me. at least they're moving in the right direction.

[mrmod]

It doesn't matter if you have thousands of nuclear weapons. With a few more than a handful, you could do irreparable damage.

At least they're talking. Relations between the US and Russia have not always been the friendliest.

[billy]

i agree. someones always gonna have nukes.
it's more important to be friends than get rid of a few warheads.
at the moment the most volatile hotspots are korea and and the bank.
either of which could end really badly.

[Benny2guns]

This may be a bit off topic , I am not sure but I'll say it anyway. Nuclear weapons I think are a must have for planet security and protection. I am not talking about killing people or using them as a deterrent to gain power over them either. There are a huge number of scenarios where they are needed for protection of the planet from threats that emerge from outside of the biosphere.

[billy]

i agree benny. they don't just have to used for wars they can have a few purposes.
that they make a deterrent is an added bonus. i think without them we'd have had a third world war by now.

[Benny2guns]

i agree benny. they don't just have to used for wars they can have a few purposes.
that they make a deterrent is an added bonus. i think without them we'd have had a third world war by now.

Glad to here that some times I still have an agreeable opinion left in me.
As for being a deterrent to and keeping us from a third world war, I do not believe they work. I look around the world today and see war everywhere. War, police actions threats of and surveillance of. Acts committed in the name of self defense. Terrorism. We have been able to find new ways to wage war all over the planet despite having nuclear weapons.

[billy]

maybe not now but for the last 40 or so years they did the trick. it won't be long now before individual groups get their hands on small suitcase size bombs and then we'll really see some fun.

[mrmod]

threats that emerge from outside of the biosphere.

You talking about aliens ?

[billy]

threats that emerge from outside of the biosphere.

You talking about aliens ?

not necessarily dan. what about the Armageddon scenario. meteors, asteroids etc. clearing away some of the van allan belt. atomizing some of the space junk out there

[Benny2guns]

What he said^^, there are alot of reason's to keep a stock pile. None of them have to do with blowing up our own planet.

[mrmod]

It was just you mentioned "outside the biosphere". And I thought of the biosphere as the Natural World and well what you said makes sense.

But do we really need thousands of nuclear bombs, for the chance of one meteorite/asteroid colliding against the earth?

[Benny2guns]

It was just you mentioned "outside the biosphere". And I thought of the biosphere as the Natural World and well what you said makes sense.

But do we really need thousands of nuclear bombs, for the chance of one meteorite/asteroid colliding against the earth?

There are more than just meteorite/asteroid out there and more than just one. We get hit all the time by smaller junk. We are just one small world in an infinite universe and nobody knows for sure what dangers lay out there for us. My answer is yes we need a stock pile. Better to have a nuke and not need it than to need a nuke and not have it.

[mrmod]

But won't (let's say) 50-100 be enough? I mean we have thousands on Earth. Do we need all of them?

[Benny2guns]

But won't (let's say) 50-100 be enough? I mean we have thousands on Earth. Do we need all of them?

Of course we do. We paid to have them built. We may in fact at some point in the future need them. Lets say for the sake of arguement because lets face it none of us here know anything about nukes except they blow a damn big whole, make a large area of what ever they blow up uninhabitable and we are all scared of them, that there is an astroid the size of jupiter out there somewhere that is on a collision course with earth. It has been for hundreds of thousands of years. We don't know about it yet and we reduce our nukes to 50. How many will it take to blow something that big up or even move the damn thing enough so that when it passes it does not still do bad things to our orbit? Hmmm, well lets say for the sake of arguement it takes 50.
What about the other one we can't see behind it?
To do away with the most powerfull means of defence know to man or throw away most of what we already have is a fools errand. Why, because they scare us?

[mrmod]

But won't (let's say) 50-100 be enough? I mean we have thousands on Earth. Do we need all of them?

Of course we do. We paid to have them built. We may in fact at some point in the future need them. Lets say for the sake of arguement because lets face it none of us here know anything about nukes except they blow a damn big whole, make a large area of what ever they blow up uninhabitable and we are all scared of them, that there is an astroid the size of jupiter out there somewhere that is on a collision course with earth. It has been for hundreds of thousands of years. We don't know about it yet and we reduce our nukes to 50. How many will it take to blow something that big up or even move the damn thing enough so that when it passes it does not still do bad things to our orbit? Hmmm, well lets say for the sake of arguement it takes 50.
What about the other one we can't see behind it?
To do away with the most powerfull means of defence know to man or throw away most of what we already have is a fools errand. Why, because they scare us?

I see the point you're making. And no, it's because we are far much more likely to blow ourselves to bits than an asteroid, with them.

[Benny2guns]

But won't (let's say) 50-100 be enough? I mean we have thousands on Earth. Do we need all of them?

Of course we do. We paid to have them built. We may in fact at some point in the future need them. Lets say for the sake of arguement because lets face it none of us here know anything about nukes except they blow a damn big whole, make a large area of what ever they blow up uninhabitable and we are all scared of them, that there is an astroid the size of jupiter out there somewhere that is on a collision course with earth. It has been for hundreds of thousands of years. We don't know about it yet and we reduce our nukes to 50. How many will it take to blow something that big up or even move the damn thing enough so that when it passes it does not still do bad things to our orbit? Hmmm, well lets say for the sake of arguement it takes 50.
What about the other one we can't see behind it?
To do away with the most powerfull means of defence know to man or throw away most of what we already have is a fools errand. Why, because they scare us?

I see the point you're making. And no, it's because we are far much more likely to blow ourselves to bits than an asteroid, with them.

Yes Dan thats it exactly, fear.