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According to the "New York Times," Barack Obama is the first president to make nuclear disarmament a centerpiece of American defense policy. In April 2009, he made a speech in Prague laying out a vision of an eventual dismantling of all nuclear weapons. A year later, he announced a new nuclear strategy that narrowed the circumstances under which the United States would use nuclear weapons and traveled to Prague to meet Russia's president, Dmitiri A. Medvedev, where they signed a treaty that would pare back both countries' nuclear arsenals.
Mr. Obama then convened a summit involving leaders of 47 nations that ended with a list of specific commitments from dozens of nations to eliminate or lock down nuclear materials to help keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
The treaty, known as New Start, would bar each side from deploying more than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads or 700 launchers starting seven years after final ratification. It would establish a new inspection and monitoring regime to replace the longstanding program that lapsed in 2009 with the expiration of the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991, or Start.
The new pact won approval from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September 2010 with the support of three Republican members. The treaty is now in jeopardy because the Republicans have come out against holding a vote before they have control of Congress. The Republicans want tens of billions of dollars to modernize our nuclear weapons ability. Even through the Obama Administration has committed to spend $80 billion for this project; it isn't enough for the Republicans. With all of the budget problems we have the Republicans want to spend tens of billions of dollars to make sure that the United States destroy this planet several times over.
Are these people out of their minds? Nuclear weapons are useless. We have the power to destroy the world several times over but why would any sane leader use them. Most of you out there are probably too young to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and the terror we experienced knowing that the world could end at any moment. Nuclear weapons are only effective as a bluff and they are a very expensive bluff. One that we can't afford to use.
The other problem is that we need to account for all the thousands of nuclear weapons out there and make sure that they are secure so that they can't be used by terrorists. Nuclear weapons in the United States are secure but in other areas especially Russia, they are not secure. Don't believe me. Just think of all of the Russian made weapons that are already being sold around the world to insurgents and terrorists. The new agreement would allow us to send inspectors into Russia and make sure that these weapons are kept secure.
President Obama wants to eliminate Nuclear weapons and we need to support him in this effort. The Republicans who are blocking this treaty are putting all of our lives at risk.
