Home
In this issue
Feb. 8, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Lofty ideals must be followed with grounded applications

Clifford D. May: Letter from the West Bank
Steve Rothaus: Judge OKs plan for gay man, lesbian couple to be on girl's birth certificate
Gloria Goodale: States consider drone bans: Overreaction or crucial for privacy rights?
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Don't buy the aloe vera juice hype
Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Harvard Experts: Regular exercise pumps up memory, too
Erik Lacitis: Vanity plates: Some take too much license
The Kosher Gourmet by Susie Middleton: Broccoflower, Carrot and Leek Ragout with Thyme, Orange and Tapenade is a delightful and satisfying melange of veggies, herbs and aromatics
Feb. 6, 2013

Nara Schoenberg: The other in-law problem

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. : A see-no-jihadist for the CIA
Kristen Chick: Ahmadinejad visits Cairo: How sect tempers Islamist ties between Egypt, Iran
Roger Simon: Ed Koch's lucky corner
Heron Marquez Estrada: Robot-building sports on a roll
Patrick G. Dean, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: How to restore body's ability to secrete insulin
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: 3 prostate-protecting diet tips
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen 7 principles for to help you make the best soup ever in a slow cooker
Feb. 4, 2013

Jonathan Tobin: Can Jewish Groups Speak Out on Hagel?

David Wren: Findings of government study, released 3 days before Newtown shooting, at odds with gun-control crusaders
Kristen Chick: Tahrir becomes terrifying, tainted
Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon: US keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to hear case on arrests, DNA
Harvard Health Letters: Neck and shoulder pain? Know what it means and what to do
Andrea N. Giancoli, M.P.H., R.D.: Eat your way to preventing age-related muscle loss
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington Baked Pears in Red Wine and Port Wine Glaze: A festive winter dessert
Feb. 1, 2013

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: Redemption

Clifford D. May Home, bloody, home
Christa Case Bryant andNicholas Blanford Why despite Syria's allies warning of retaliation for Israeli airstrikes, the threats are likely hollow
Rick Armon, Ed Meyer and Phil Trexler Ex-police captain cleared by DNA test is freed after nearly 15 years
Harvard Health Letters: Could it by your thyroid?
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: When 'healthy food' isn't
Sue Zeidler: Coke ad racist? Arab-American groups want to yank Super Bowl ad (INCLUDES VIDEO)
The Kosher Gourmet by Nealey Dozier The secret of this soup is the garnish
January 30, 2013

Allan Chernoff: Celebrating 'Back from the Dead Day'

America isn't a religious country? Don't tell Superbowl fans!
Mark Clayton Cybercrime takedown!
Germany remembers Hitler rise to power
Israel salutes U. N. --- with the one finger salute
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Get cookin' with heart-healthy fats
Ballot riles Guinness World Records
The Kosher Gourmet by Elizabeth Passarella Potato, Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin
January 28, 2013

Nancy Youssef: And Democracy for all? Two years on, Egypt remains in state of chaos

Fred Weir: Putin: West is fomenting jihadi 'blowback'
Meredith Cohn: Implantable pain disk may help those with cancer
Michael Craig Miller, M.D. : Ask the Harvard Experts: Are there drugs to help control binge eating?
David Ovalle Use of controversial 'brain mapping' technology stymied
Jane Stancill: Professor's logic class has 180,000 friends
David Clark Scott Lego Racism?
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali The celebrated chef introduces us to PANZEROTTI PUGLIESI, cheese-stuffed pastry from Italy's south


Jewish World Review Feb. 17, 2009 / 23 Shevat 5769

Peace through weakness?

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Fresh from reworking the domestic economic order via the "stimulus" bill in favor of vastly expanded U.S. government influence and power, President Barack Obama proposes a set of changes with respect to American security policies and programs that will have the opposite effect. If equally successful, he stands to transform the "world's only superpower" into a nuclear impotent, with possibly catastrophic consequences.


Such a transformation would be the more extraordinary for it coming against the backdrop of others' buildups of their nuclear arsenals. Every other declared nuclear weapon state is modernizing its stockpile and the most dangerous wannabees - North Korea and Iran - are building up their offensive missile capabilities and acquiring as quickly as possible the arms to go atop them.


The American people are largely clueless about this state of affairs. Doubtless, they would be horrified by the affront to common sense and hard experience entailed, especially under these circumstances, by the sort of U.S. disarmament Mr. Obama has underway.


In fairness, this president inherited what amounts to a 17-year-long unilateral U.S. nuclear freeze. Since 1992, there has been no underground nuclear testing in the United States and no modernization of the arsenal. We have allowed a steady decline in investment in the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program that promised to assure the safety, effectiveness and reliability of our nuclear weapons in the absence of below-ground tests.


Meeting that rigorous standard has been made more all the more challenging by the concomitant exodus of the skilled workforce and the increasing obsolescence and unsustainability of the industrial complex it mans. Not surprisingly, the nuclear laboratory directors' certifications about the status of our weapons are increasingly qualified by warnings of uncertainties about how long the present situation can be sustained.


What is more, since the Cold War's end, the United States has reduced by roughly three-quarters the numbers of nuclear weapons it deployed at that time. Today, we have fewer than the 2,200 fielded nuclear arms we are permitted to have under the U.S.-Russian Treaty of Moscow signed by Presidents Bush and Putin in 2002.


Now, President Obama wants to cut that number down to roughly 500 deployed weapons. His Office of Management and Budget contemplates no modernization of these forces and no upgrading of the capability to produce or refurbish them. The Obama administration seeks the swift ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - which was rejected by a majority of the Senate in 1997 and which would permanently preclude in the future tests that may be essential to the maintenance of our deterrent.


As part of a concerted effort at rapprochement with the Kremlin, Mr. Obama is not only signaling a willingness to scrap the missile defense deployment previously agreed upon by NATO and the basing countries, Poland and the Czech Republic. He not only is hinting at acquiescence to Russian domination of its "near-abroad" (including Georgia and Ukraine). His representatives indicate that they wants an arms control deal that effects these draconian cuts while extending and applying terms of the outdated START II Treaty.


Combining START counting rules and the proposed Obama force reductions would have the practical effect of attributing weapons to various platforms in a way that would effectively preclude the maintenance of the "Triad" of strategic forces that has served us so well, for so long. One and possibly two of the "legs" of this deterrent posture would have to be dismantled.


In addition, the Obama administration apparently believes that the remaining strategic weapons - presumably on submarines - would have to be taken off what it wrongly claims is "hair-trigger" alert status. As with bans on nuclear testing and at least some of the proposed Obama nuclear reductions initiatives, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to verify the compliance of secretive governments with such "de-alerting" arrangements. Only ours would be rendered incapable of prompt use should the need arise.


The cumulative effect of these actions would be to render the U.S. nuclear arsenal, to quote President Reagan, "impotent and obsolete." That was, of course, not something he ever contemplated having the United States do unilaterally. In fact, even though our 40th president is increasingly invoked by the anti-nuclear crowd (whose latest campaign is called "Global Zero" and seeks the hopelessly unrealistic goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons) because of his avowed antipathy towards such arms, arguably no one did more than he to build up America's deterrent. Indeed, were it not for the capabilities Mr. Reagan put in place in the 1980s as part of his refurbishing of our nuclear Triad, we might well have been substantially disarmed already.


The tragic irony is that the Obama administration's goal of global denuclearization is likely to be made more remote, not less, as America's deterrent becomes ever less certain. Our adversaries stand to benefit geostrategically from building up their nuclear arsenals as ours vanishes. Long-time allies will surely feel constrained to acquire their own nuclear forces if our "umbrella" ceases to assure them protection. In short, more proliferation, not less, is in prospect.


In these ways, Barack Obama risks standing the time-tested Reagan philosophy of "peace through strength" on its head in favor of a posture shown to be a formula for war - sometimes on a global, cataclysmic scale: the failed pursuit of peace through U.S. weakness.


Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy in the Reagan Administration, heads the Center for Security Policy. Comments by clicking here.

Archives


BUY FRANK'S LATEST
"War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World"  

America has been at war for years, but until now, it has not been clear with whom or precisely for what. And we have not been using the full resources we need to win.

With the publication of War Footing, lead-authored by Frank Gaffney, it not only becomes clear who the enemy is and how high the stakes are, but also exactly how we can prevail.

War Footing shows that we are engaged in nothing less than a War for the Free World. This is a fight to the death with Islamofascists, Muslim extremists driven by a totalitarian political ideology that, like Nazism or Communism before it, is determined to destroy freedom and the people who love it. Sales help fund JWR.

© 2006, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Jay Ambrose
 Michael Barone
 Barrywood
 Lori Borgman
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Richard Z. Chesnoff
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Alan Douglas
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 Christine Flowers
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Bernie Goldberg
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Argus Hamilton
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Ron Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 Marybeth Hicks
 A. Barton Hinkle
 Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ch. Krauthammer
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Ann McFeatters
 Dale McFeatters
 Dana Milbank
 Jeanne Moos
 Dick Morris
 Jim Mullen
 Deroy Murdock
 Judge A. Napolitano
 Bill O'Reilly
 Kathleen Parker
 Star Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Sharon Randall
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Heather Robinson
 Debra J. Saunders
 Martin Schram
 Culture Shlock
 David Shribman
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Ben Stein
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Dan Thomasson
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 ZeitGeist
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
  Lisa Benson
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
 John Branch
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 Matt Davies
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Glenn Foden
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Walt Handelsman
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holbert
 David Horsey
 Lee Judge
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Jimmy Margulies
 Jack Ohman
 Michael Ramirez
 Rob Rogers
 Drew Sheneman
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Scott Stantis
 Danna Summers
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters
  Dan Wasserman

Lifestyles
 Mr. Know-It-All
 Ask Doctor K
 Richard Lederer
 Frugal Living
 On Nutrition
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams