Thursday, August 16, 2012

US: NUCLEAR SECURITY SUMMIT

President Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit is actually a long term ‘only nuke country’ strategy

US and Russia control about 90% of the 27,000 nuclear weapons being strutted around today. Even if one considers – for the sake of the argument – that there would be 1/3rd reduction, the arsenal both these countries would be left with would be, surprise surprise, still what was there previously. Where’s the catch? The new START talks about reducing “operational warheads” (thus reducing their total to 1550) and does not refer at all to the total nuclear stockpile. Further, the irascible issue of Highly Enriched Uranium has been conveniently swept under the carpet. Out of over 1,670 tonnes of Highly Enriched Uranium available globally, over 95% is in US and Russia.

If US was trying to pull a fast one through the new START, the recent US federal budget did something that we would call ‘perfectly American in nature.’ The new budget for research and development into nuclear weapons is estimated to be more than $7-8 billion. The Nuclear Posture Review (released on April 06, 2010 by the US government) plunders on, giving US the scope of “first using” nuclear weapons in any war against a nuclear nation (including Iran and North Korea).

Compare this with the similar hogwash that was the Nuclear Security Summit. All the commitments made by the heads of state (some of them openly nuclear) were termed “non-binding!” While Obama commented strongly that he would move towards ensuring sanctions against Iran to ensure its compliance, no one felt it gravely concern-worthy that Israel chose to simply give the event a miss.

In fact, we should have too...


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