Strategic Arms Insanity

Ok, let’s all get up and do the happy dance. Come on- out of your seat! President Obama has signed a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. Each side will reduce their nuclear warhead count to 1550 over the next seven years. We need to celebrate, right?

Before we get too excited, we should reflect on just how meaningless this all really is. These are really big hydrogen bombs- a thousand to ten thousand times more powerful than the bombs we dropped on Japan. One of these bombs can wipe out New England. Ten to twenty of these bombs can kill all life in the continental United States. Having 1550 of these dooms day weapons still sounds like “overkill” to me- which, by the way- is the source of the saying.

Yet we are asked to do the happy dance. I’m afraid this is much ado about nothing. Until all nuclear weapons are buried we have nothing to celebrate- except less “overkill”- what ever that is.