Wired magazine has a blog called The Danger Room which is pretty cool on defense issues and technology.
Today, they posted a very insightful and funny post about the life of a missileers, the guy who fires our nuclear missiles.

Noonan is a good guy, he writes for the National Review, but knows his stuff and this article is really good. Thought I'd share. Good stories, especially the death wears bunny slippers patch.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/death-wears-a-snuggie/#comments

All I wanna know is..... Who the fuck approves your threads?

Hey Ptown....check this out: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110114/pl_nm/us_russia_usa_start

WTF good are treaties where one of the parties basically says, "Yeah we'll sign the agreement...but we reserve the right to ignore it at our discretion"?

This kind of crap is precisely why I believe these nuke reduction treaties are bullshit and not in our best interest.

Would I love to see a world where nuclear weapons are reduced to far less insane levels? Yes. But treaties are based on trust, honor, and integrity. The Russian government has a track record of ignoring these virtues.

Well, that is in Article X of the treaty, the right to withdraw for national security reasons. It has been used several times in history, most recently by the U.S. by pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Treaty in 2002.

The point of the treaty is to maintain strategic stability between the two countries and if the U.S. and NATO get too close or endanger Russia, upsetting that stability, they can withdraw.
We pretty much said the same thing when we ratified our version of the treaty.

So, no big deal, just expresses the Ruskies POV that we need to be aware of in the future.

ptown_trojans_1;639042 wrote:So, no big deal, just expresses the Ruskies POV that we need to be aware of in the future.

I agree...this START treaty is no big deal and doesn't appear to be worth the paper it's printed on, as believer has noted above.

BGFalcons82;639155 wrote:I agree...this START treaty is no big deal and doesn't appear to be worth the paper it's printed on, as believer has noted above.

lol. Enhancing and maintaining strategic stability is important.
Let's just say it is better to know what the Ruskies are doing than not knowing.

ptown_trojans_1;639199 wrote:lol. Enhancing and maintaining strategic stability is important.
Let's just say it is better to know what the Ruskies are doing than not knowing.

If you take their word for it. Trust but verify, right?

believer;639551 wrote:If you take their word for it. Trust but verify, right?

Yep, and without a treaty we cannot verify.

ptown_trojans_1;640128 wrote:Yep, and without a treaty we cannot verify.

And so we verify by on-site inspections, satellites, and covert observation? I can believe that the United States government would allow it...but the Russians? Sure, some superficial verification would be allowed, but complete transparency? Doubtful. Yes, I still harbor some Cold War trust issues.

believer;640138 wrote:And so we verify by on-site inspections, satellites, and covert observation? I can believe that the United States government would allow it...but the Russians? Sure, some superficial verification would be allowed, but complete transparency? Doubtful. Yes, I still harbor some Cold War trust issues.[/QUOTE]

You and I, brother. Once bitten, twice shy.

believer;640138 wrote:And so we verify by on-site inspections, satellites, and covert observation? I can believe that the United States government would allow it...but the Russians? Sure, some superficial verification would be allowed, but complete transparency? Doubtful. Yes, I still harbor some Cold War trust issues.

Yep. On-site, satellite and covertly. The treaty allows for uninterrupted verification of the Ruskies.

Secretary Gates testified that the Ruskies could not cheat in a manner that would be statistically significant, meaning a way that would clearly violate the treaty.
http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=f4516bd0-5056-a032-52a1-76a7b9b0184d

As Gates says, it boils down to, it is better to have this check on the Ruskies, than to have nothing. Nothing can lead to instability, leading to potential crisis down the road.

Something is better than nothing then?

Regarding instability, the Russians know full well that the United States has its hands tied with events in Afghanistan, Iraq and internal economic matters. Putin is also quite aware of the acute economic issues plaguing the European Union.

I sincerely doubt the Ruskies are overly concerned about any pending crises that might occur.

While I still have trust issues stemming from personal observations of Cold War activities, the political issues driving the adversarial relationship between the former Soviet Union and the United States have all but dissipated.

Both the United States and Russia should be jointly concerned about the possibility of existing stockpiles of weapons falling into the hands of those who are far less likely to follow existing international nuclear treaties than playing these largely symbolic outdated Cold War nuke negotiation games.

Just sayin'.......