This is more dreamworld. We won the Cold War by being willing to think the unthinkable. The Soviets were not stupid and they understood cost/benefit analysis. They also knew that U. S. nuclear retaliation in response to something dumb on their part was a very real probability under every American President since Truman. Was this realistic? No one knows and thankfully, we haven’t been forced to learn, but it kept us safe for over four decades and it’s a good reason to conclude that the utopian notion of “zero nukes” is not healthy for the U. S. and our allies and only benefits outlaw regimes. The New Start exposes a very disturbing aspect of President Obama’s worldview. About a year ago, he previewed his strategy when he said “as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the U. S. has a moral responsibility to act.” Well, I have a different take: The moral authority to remain the world’s only nuclear superpower trumps any moral responsibility stemming from its only historic use. This treaty weakens America and its allies, it undermines our flexibility to employ strategic defensive weapons, it plays into the hands of the world’s rogue states, and it should be rejected by the Senate.
