My Response to Mr. Richard Butler

Today's post will be cut short a little, I intended on composing a much more lengthy post on cars and oil, but that will be saved for another day. I will be responding to Mr. Butler's view of nuclear weapons.

If you did not get a chance to watch his interview, I still would recommend you at least watch the first ten minutes. The claims which Butler makes about nuclear weapons (obsolete, unnecessary, outdated; among other claims) I find far too idealistic. I prefer a bit more realist point of view.

"Speak soft but carry a big stick" -- Teddy Roosevelt

Nuclear weapons are far from a thing of the past; rather, they are the weapon of the future. It is sad, both in my view and in Mr. Butler's view that this is true; but it is...

Nuclear weapons are not going away anytime soon. Currently there are nine nuclear weapon states:

1. United States
2. Russia
3. China
4. United Kingdom
5. North Korea
6. Israel
7. Pakistan
8. India
9. France

President Barack Obama and President of the Russian Federation, Dmitri Medvedev just held talks on the status of nuclear weapons and decided on a goal of reducing the number of deployed nuclear weapons. This goal hardly accomplished anything as I noted a few days ago.

As long as there are countries pushing for a military edge the world, there will be nuclear weapons. That is the truth, I invite anyone who disagrees to email me and we can continue that discussion. Last time I checked, India and Pakistan still have disagreements over Kashmir; Iran is still threatening to wipe Israel off the map (and vis versa); and North Korea is still threatening war against South Korea and the US....Nuclear weapons are not going away.

The simple fact is that nuclear weapons give us the "Big Stick" that Teddy Roosevelt spoke about many decades ago. Until the world realizes how bad a nuclear attack would be, there will be no elimination of nuclear weapons.

The need for them comes from the "macho" posturing that dominates international politics. There is no way to threaten a state that has a nuclear weapons when you have an army and some rifles. The fact is strategic competition on the world stage is composed of "I have more nukes than you." We need to focus our efforst not on eliminating nuclear weapons, but on having more control.

Here is a link to a post I wrote about a month ago about nuclear weapon safety. Enjoy.

We've Been Had!

President Obama recently finished negotiations with Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev over nuclear weapons stockpiles. Both leaders came out of the negotiations confident the meetings went well and also came out with an agreement to reduce the amount of deployed nuclear weapons by each country.

The grand total each country must reduce their deployed nuclear weapons by:.......25.

Yes, that's right, 25 nuclear weapons. Out of the near 1500 deployed nuclear weapons we're going to reduce the amount by twenty-five nukes. That's not much of a deal. The US and Russia can still bomb each other back to the stone age, what's the difference with 25 warheads?

Along with the miniscule reduction of warheads; Medvedev and Obama agreed to create a joint data exchange center. My question is, what happened to the one Clinton and Yeltsin set up in 1998? As far as I can tell they are working on the same thing...(Image reproduced from http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/070423/070423_yeltsin2_hmed_7a.hmedium.jpg)

Obama, did you accomplish anything worthwhile?

New Paper Ideas

Thinking about beginning a new paper but I can't decide on a topic, here are the few I am considering:

1. Paper on the future of a world with more nuclear weapons. In the past 70 years, 9 states have been able to attain nuclear weapons, what does the future hold? I will contend we are entering the age where nuclear weapons proliferation is an inevitability. How do we deal with this problem?

2. "Minorities of Influence." I came up with this phrase while writing a paper on Druze in Israel. The paper would examine a couple minorities who either, a) have almost more influence than the majority or b) those minorities that could have tremendous influence, but have not seized the opportunity yet.

3. A further exploration of the Druze culture and religion. Could involve relationships between Druze in Arab, Syria/Lebanon and Jewish Israel. Also could involve diasporic Druze relationships between those in the Middle East and those in the US/Latin America.

If anyone randomly finds this blog, let me know what you think!

North Korea names a successor...or not?

BBC reported this morning that North Korea has named a new leader, the youngest son of current leader, Kim Jong-Il. This news comes in the wake of the North's second nuclear test in three years. Along with this test they have also tested five missiles in the past two weeks. At the time of the nuclear test many analysts speculated that the nuclear test was to cover up a transfer of power. Those speculators have been proven correct, or so they think.


The news of a new leader of North Korea is not without its detractors. Andrei Lankov from the Australian National University is posted on BBC as saying this is just another rumor. The rumor of a new leader has been circulating since Kim Jong-Il suffered a stroke in August 2008. Lankov cites the waves of rumors that have circulated since the stroke. "We had rumours in September, October that it will be Chang Song-taek, Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law, then briefly there were rumours about his second son, then stories about his third son,..."