O-boy...

What is this Oval Office hazard up to now? A pledge of no-first-use on nukes, at least for those states compliant to the anti-proliferation treaty. Sure it is tempered with exceptions --which carves out Iran and North Korea, but is utterly without any impact because those states could care less what he thinks or does anyway.  Putin and Medvedev just ordered some more Depends because they know that this will end up hilarious to behold.

So Obama "brings home the bacon" with a new nuclear - reduction treaty ... if the Senate will ratify it. Great, right? Not quite: (1) Russia reserves the right to withdraw from the treaty if the new U.S. defense system becomes a "threat"; and (2) it ignores the 500 Russian and 200 U.S. tactical warhead known to exist, 50 of the U.S. warheads are known to be in Europe. Nobody knows where the Russian tacticals are -- probably not the Russians, either.

Why do these facts make a mockery of this Obama triumph? Let's look at loophole #1: the Russians can unilaterally withdraw any time they decide to declare the U.S. missile defense system a threat. Since they have already done so (declared it to be a threat) and forced Obama to cave to its non-deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic, they can do it again at any time that it might suit them ... like when they get the upperhand in some technology. There is certainly no issue of accountability to an electorate, such as an American President might have. So it is merely an executive order ... and its done.  This, in effect, makes Obama a stooge for the threat of the Russian withdrawal: it gives them control of the trump suit.  If Russian needs U.N. support for something, or it decides to export nukes to Venezuela  .... that system instantly becomes an unacceptable threat, so the Russians withdraw. Obama has already shown a remarkable aptitude for disarming the U.S., now he handing the blackmail negatives to our enemy.

Tactical warheads are a far greater threat. Essentially, who gives a shit about strategic nukes in the first place? They are extremely hard and expensive to maintain and deploy, fielding a fleet of boomers is the best method, and in any scenario those are functionally immune to an ABM system, theirs or ours. Furthermore, only a few countries can muster the cash or the know-how to actually deploy a functional boomer threat that covers the globe, so it is and will remain a stand-off.  Ten boomers or 50, who cares? 

Tactical nukes are FAR harder to control: the briefcase bomb, the device carried on a Predator drone, the 155mm nuclear shell ... those are a nightmare. Where are they? Are they safe? The Russian won't even begin to discuss those ... and they have more than double the amount of them. So what kind of victory is it where we throw away first-use as a threat (and therefore a weapon in its own right) and enter into an agreement that completely benefits an enemy that has NEVER done anything outside of its own enlightened self interest. Far from making the world a safe place, Obama has done precisely the opposite.

Just a last reflection ... the explicit / implicit message is that America will not retaliate with all or certain of the weapons at its disposal even in the face of a bio/chem attack on the United States. Say, a compliant Arab country sponsors and manufactures a briefcase of bugs that is unleashed on the U.S.... We have told the sponsor that we won't nuke you for that.  Since we have destroyed our bio/chem warfare capacity already (thank God ... we didn't need to have the stuff around when we had the nukes which would do the punishment job adequately), we have now told sponsors of terrorism that the worst you can expect is a GPS guided missile through your front door. We hope to find you at home.

However, prior to this craven act, it has always been understood that if you VX gas-attack Grand Central Station in New York, you up the ante. That means you, or your people have a very short while to live before the very center of Hades is created in an airburst above your capital. A powerful message indeed. The message now given by Obama is so wishy-washy that Jimmy Carter is starting to look good. Why did people not mess with Reagan? It was because there was every reason to believe that he would "do it."

Obama took an oath to protect, uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. In his view, so it is implied, these actions provide for the fulfilling of that oath -- will make the U.S. and world a safer place. It is clear to me that either:(1) he really is not as smart as he is reputed to be -- by a large magnitude; or (2) he is violating his oath and attempting to punish and cripple the United States for years to come, economically and militarily. He may be the ultimate Manchurian Candidate. I think we need to know more about him ... like right now.