If you take the total number of nuclear weapons that the US and Russia have together, you can easily blow up the world more than ten times. It is no wonder, then, that both countries are trying to reach an agreement that will lower nuclear weapon numbers on both sides. Obama met with Russian President Medvedev in London to discuss a new plan, and it looks promising.
When Bush made an agreement in 2002 with then-president Putin, it was decided that both countries would decrease their number of warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 (BBC News:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7977031.stm). Obama is hoping that this number can be decreased even further to ensure the protection of the nation and the world. Obama has decided to meet again with Medvedev in December to finalize a new plan, considering that the old plan (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is ending at the end of this year. A concern has been voiced regarding the speed with which this new agreement is trying to be passed. Most arms treaties have taken years to create and finalize, so trying to create such a plan in one year seems almost unheardof. However, "there is a political will behind this [plan]" (BBC News), so hopefully it all works out. I thought it was interesting that the afore mentioned article said that although the number of nuclear weapons on both sides will decrease, it will never go down to zero. No country is dumb enough to get rid of all of their major weaponry, so we will always have the threat of a nuclear war over our heads.
I was reading an article on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction) regarding Russia's nuclear weapons, and was completely astounded by the statistics. Apparently, Russia reported 28,000 tons of chemical weapons in 2008 and 5,200 nuclear weapons. This doesn't even include the number of unknown tactical nuclear weapons that Russia may have. I just don't understand why any country needs to have SO MANY weapons, considering Russia is not really being threatened by any country. I'm definately for any agreement that Obama and Medvedev can come up with; we NEED to get the world's nuclear weaponry under control.
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I agree with you. There really appears no logical explanation for the amount of nuclear weapons these countries possess. No one is threatening Russia, and furthermore, besides the tension between these weapons, Russia and the US are essentially on good terms.
To me, the idea of possessing so many exceptionally dangerous weapons is upsetting. If we decide to detonate one of these things, what are the chances we won't blow ourselves up? They're made to seem sooo powerful, that I really don't see any conceivable reason for their use. With the speed of technology, and effectiveness of other, less world-ending machinery, I don't see why we need these weapons. Both nations are quite large, and have the economy and technology to defend themselves against essentially any threat. I don't feel that these weapons make us seem more powerful, or that if we did not possess them, that we would be attacked by any one nation. We seem to have so many other things going for us, that in weighing the pros and cons of attacking the US and Russia, I really don't see how these factors could top the lists. I feel that they are just unnecessary—they're materialistic, they're how we show how great and mighty and powerful we are. But they're costly and they're dangerous (for everyone involved, those who use them, those who live through their destruction, and the mess of toxic crap they leave behind) and we never use them, they're rotting away, and they've been doing so since the start of the Cold War. And so, I just feel that the resources, the time, the technology and the money put into these things could be put to better use. So while the idea of limiting the amount of them is encouraging, I still don't see why we need them.
Lauren C. Strojny- Nuclear war would be the worst thing possible pretty much. The United States alone could blow up the world. I think that this bill needs to be passed as soon as possible and not only with Russia but all other nations. An agreement must be made; Russia is a good start though. What about North Korea? They have Nuclear Weapons ready to go, but they keep saying this is not true.. then again look at the missile crisis in Cuba, they lied about that too. I just know that something needs to be done to prevent nuclear war. I hope this bill gets passed to insure a lessened threat of nuclear bombing.
I agree with what everyone has been saying. We have no need for so many nuclear weapons. Say that we do go to war, and it escalates to the point that we need to use nuclear weapons. We don't want to blow up the world, we would want to attack one specific country, and even then we wouldnt' want to blow up the whole country. So why in the world do we need thousands of nuclear weapons? In this case I simply don't see how more is better. And now, that we finally realize that this is the case, that we really don't need this many nuclear weapons, how exactly do you go about getting rid of our exsisting weapons? It seems kind of silly spending billions of dollars disarming weapons that it took billions of dollars to create. However, if this is what we have decided to spend our money on, thats just fine if it will help to improve our international relations. If doing this will put us on better terms with foreign countries, then by all means, lets destroy weapons we should never have built. Why not? In fact, this sounds like one of those government programs designed to get people working. Lets build something and then pay people to tear it down just because it gives us a reason to employ people. So not only will this improve our relationships with other countries, it will help the economy!
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