Flash back to March, the last time President Obama met with the Russians. A hot mic caught him making a curious promise.
President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.
President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…
President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.
President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
The Russians have continued to behave they way they tend to, sending devastating attack helicopters to the Assad regime in Syria, and following that up by sending a pair of amphibious assault war ships, loaded with Russian marines, to the Syrian coast. Russia is siding with the Assad regime, while the United States is siding with the rebels trying to oust Assad, at least in terms of rhetoric.
President Obama, meanwhile, may be giving us a glimpse of that “flexibility” he noted in pursuing a wrong-headed policy he promised in 2007 — to unilaterally begin the disarmament of the United States. The president has decided to make a sharp unilateral cut in our nuclear arsenal, down to as few as 1,000 warheads. That is far below the 1,500 warheads required by the controversial 2010 US-Russia Nuclear Arms Treaty. The Russians have announced no corresponding voluntary cut in their arsenal. The Free Beacon reports that the “lower warhead levels would be contrary to recent congressional testimony from a strategic forces commander who said further cuts would weaken the ability to deter nuclear states like Russia and China.” Not only are Russia and China not cutting their nuclear forces, North Korea and Iran are building up their nuclear capability.
After the announced cuts, the United States may end up with fewer nuclear warheads than China currently has.
President Obama makes this cut not in a time of relative stability and peace, but in a time when tensions are rising in the Middle East, China is rising as a world power and becoming more of a challenge to our allies, Asia is increasingly locked in an arms race as India also faces unstable nuclear enemy Pakistan, and the Russians themselves have threatened to counter the US missile shield with a nuclear build-up. Add in the fact that the United States is economically weakened and in need of rebuilding our conventional forces after long wars against terrorists overseas.
It is in the face of all of this, that President Obama is slashing the US nuclear arsenal down to a dangerous level. Apparently Obama didn’t even need to be re-elected to start flexing his “flexibility.”
Update: Now Iran, Russia, Syria and China are planning the largest joint military exercise in Mideast history.
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