The Road to War is Paved with Peace Treaties

Today President Obama announced new limits on the American nuclear strategy that would for the first time declare that the United States would not use nuclear weapons even in self defense after having been attacked with chemical or biological weapons.

For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

As if promising to fight with both hands tied behind our back, with eyes closed, whilst humming a dapper tune were not enough, the President has also decided to unilaterally obsolete America's nuclear weapons over a period of time by refusing to develop new weapons platforms as technology advances.

To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.

To set an example indeed. It will be interesting to see how many other nations follow our example. Somehow I can't imagine Mahmoud Ahmadinejad putting off the pending arrival of the 12th Imam by giving up his development of the weapon he thinks will hasten in the world's end. He's already widened out the streets of Tehran after all. The only other detail left to attend to is the destruction of the Zionist Entity.

No one should be surprised by the President's actions though. President Obama I mean, not President Ahmadinejad. The President has a view of the world that is widely shared in the halls of the more elite university campuses. America's possession of nuclear weapons makes other nations "insecure," which causes them to develop nuclear weapons, which then puts the whole world at risk as everyone races to build arms. If we draw down our forces, so the theory goes, everyone else will draw their forces down too.

The problem is that this kind of behavior has never happened in the history of the world, especially not when dealing with authoritarian nations. Weakening America's military only gives the potential for aggressors to develop a dangerous new calculus, namely that they have just enough strength in light of America's new weakness to put their objectives within the realm of possibility. A nation that would never engage in hostilities in the face of a strong America just might be willing to roll the dice in the presence of a weakened America.

That isn't something that the forces of peace should relish.