A Step Towards Nuclear Disarmament?

[MC]

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia is willing to abandon nuclear weapons, if the United States and all other countries that have them do the same.

"If those who made the atomic bomb and used it are ready to abandon it — like, I hope, other nuclear powers officially and unofficially owning them — of course we will welcome and facilitate this process in all ways," Putin said, according to state-owned RIA Novosti news agency.

Putin spoke at a meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who said earlier that the idea of scrapping nuclear arms altogether rather than limiting their proliferation was a real prospect.

"The goal of global zero is not a game for utopians, but will be taken up by the doyens of U.S. foreign policy as well as by German and Polish politicians," Steinmeier said.

In a joint declaration on April 1, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered negotiators to start work on a new treaty reducing their nuclear stockpiles as a first step toward "a nuclear-weapon-free world."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in televised comments added that no unilateral steps on the nuclear issue were foreseen.

Eliminating the nuclear threat held by the former Cold War enemies was raised at a 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Putin's announcement came on the same day as a top Russian general warned of the dangers of cutting the number of nuclear warheads possessed by Russia and the Unites States to less than 1,500 each.

Col.-Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, the chief of the military's Strategic Missile Forces, said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies that it will be up to the Kremlin to make the final decision on how deep the cuts should be.

"We believe that we mustn't go below 1,500 warheads," Solovtsov was quoted as saying. "But in any case the issue will be decided by the political leadership."

Russian and U.S. officials are currently negotiating a successor deal to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I, which expires in December. Negotiators are to give a progress report to their presidents by the time Obama visits Moscow on July 6-8.

Steinmeier met Medvedev on Wednesday and was expected to discuss economic ties and human rights. The trial of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky is being watched in Germany with particular interest as a measure of Russia's commitment to the rule of law.

Steinmeier also met with editors at newspaper Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia's few remaining media outlets critical of the government.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090610/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_putin_nuclear

 

[Killface]

This is definitely something else.. Even if everyone did get rid of there entire nuclear fleet, im sure some countries would still have a few left at their disposal for a "Just in case" scenario.

I dont think any one country would dispose of there TOTAL fleet.

 

[Tenzo]

Yeah...that will never happen. Unless they have more powerful weapons of mass destruction than nuclear bombs.

 

[Killface]

Yeah...that will never happen. Unless they have more powerful weapons of mass destruction than nuclear bombs.

I was thinking the same thing. Unless someone invents the Charged Particle Cannon or an anti-matter bomb... or something along the lines of that, complete global nuclear disarmament most likely won't happen.

 

[The Deco]

lol, by how I know the Russians, its another takeover plan.

You(the world) will disarm, we (Russia) will disarm, we will keep secretly 1 bomb/create one bomb one day after all the other countries disarmed all their nuclear weapons. then we make more and more bombs secretly, then launch all of them at the USA and no one can stop us now!!!

lol or everyone will disarm both nuclear and hydrogen bombs because they thought Putin meant both and then Russia will say "we said only nuclear" then they will blast everyone with it

 

[Tenzo]

I was thinking the same thing. Unless someone invents the Charged Particle Cannon or an anti-matter bomb... or something along the lines of that, complete global nuclear disarmament most likely won't happen.

Well, at first it all seemed far fetched but by the looks of it...a new era of weaponry and military stuff is coming.

 

[Deman]

lol, by how I know the Russians, its another takeover plan.

You(the world) will disarm, we (Russia) will disarm, we will keep secretly 1 bomb/create one bomb one day after all the other countries disarmed all their nuclear weapons. then we make more and more bombs secretly, then launch all of them at the USA and no one can stop us now!!!

lol or everyone will disarm both nuclear and hydrogen bombs because they thought Putin meant both and then Russia will say "we said only nuclear" then they will blast everyone with it

Sometimes I wish we could really get over the cold war stereotypes. Russia is a changed country and I'd say they'd be right on par with the rest of us. In the event of "total nuclear disarmament" every country will still keep a hidden stock of them somewhere. We'd have one, Russia would have one. Maybe not so much the European countries, though. Mainly the countries still vying for or defending world power positions.

 

[Killface]

lol, by how I know the Russians, its another takeover plan.

You(the world) will disarm, we (Russia) will disarm, we will keep secretly 1 bomb/create one bomb one day after all the other countries disarmed all their nuclear weapons. then we make more and more bombs secretly, then launch all of them at the USA and no one can stop us now!!!

lol or everyone will disarm both nuclear and hydrogen bombs because they thought Putin meant both and then Russia will say "we said only nuclear" then they will blast everyone with it

I think you're giving yourself too much credit.

 

[DiebytheSword]

The problem with this disarmament scenario won't be the big states, it will be the small rogue states. North Korea, Iran, Syria was reaching for one, as well as Lybia: these small countries will not demilitarize their stockplile, they will use it as added leverage.

 

[Almighty_Gir]

^ what he said.

the big, developed countries understand what's to lose by having nuclear weapons. the states like North Korea are trying to establish a power base in the world. they're kinda like that kid in school who everyone ignores/ridicules for his ideas until he comes in one day, shoots up a load of classmates, and then blows his own head off.

though, if i remember rightly, Russia and the US were developing some shockwave/sonic damage based bombs which were plenty distructive without the falloff? and Japan can fall back on their armada of mobile suits AMIRITE?!

i can still see the US and Russia keeping some in todays climate. but overall it's a positive step.

 

[J-Dude]

The only thing that scares me about reducing or eliminating nukes is, of course, the larger likelihood that superpowers will be struck by smaller nations or organizations more openly without the fear of fallout, and also, worse than that, the notion that we WILL develop a type of WMD similar in scale to nukes, that is a clean blast, achieving mass destruction, but not having the lasting after effects to the affected area that is associated with nuclear weaponry. We don't merely fear their destructive capacity, we fear how they can poison the atmosphere with radiation, making whole regions untouchable for years, or achieving fallout and killing the whole planet.

Weapons which don't produce such by-products would be more likely to be used conventionally. War would become a more frightening thing than the world has ever known.

 

[Chakra-X]

Nukes are so last century. Get with it North Korea.

 

[Synth]

America will never get rid of their nukes. Putin knows this, it's just a PR stunt.

QFT

Putin is just tired of being seen as the messenger of death.

With Bush Jr. and Blair gone, people now look to him as someone who will try to clash with Kim Jong Il.

 

[Almighty_Gir]

seriously, put chuck norris in a room with kim jon il, and we'll see what happens to north korea