Experts analyze America's nuclear security

Jan 26, 2009 12:08 GMT  ·  By
The International Atomic Energy Agency was supposed to monitor and control all nuclear threats in the world
   The International Atomic Energy Agency was supposed to monitor and control all nuclear threats in the world

While most political and military experts agree that the inclusion of Iran in the club of nuclear powers is premature and poses great international risks, everyone else seems to forget that the “democratic” countries have been those responsible for the proliferation of atomic bombs and the idea to use them in the first place. The Russian Federation, France, the United Kingdom, China, and, above all, the United States are directly responsible for the current global insecurity, on account of the vast number of nuclear warheads each of them holds.

The US and Russia are the biggest atomic bomb owners, having an estimated 5,000 each, although official numbers are not available. No government that possesses nuclear capabilities will ever divulge the true number of warheads it has, for security reasons. Conservative and obsolete generals and military advisors in the American and Russian armies advocate the stock-piling of more and more weapons, as if the Apocalypse is upon us.

In truth, even Henry Kissinger admits that the number of bombs the US and Russia have is too big, and that only 500 warheads on each part would be enough to wipe both countries off the face of the Earth. Literally. But now, these two countries alone have 10 times what they need to destroy each other, and bombs are still produced, although Russia and the US signed treaties that stopped them from doing so, in 1970, namely the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and in 1997, during a summit between Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin in Helsinki, Finland.

Now, the question for Obama is how will he deal with this largely left unnoticed threat. Undoubtedly, there will be so-called “security experts” who will throw around catch-phrases such as national security, although this concept is the vaguest in the world, and can mean absolutely anything. Obama has two choices – either to agree with Putin and proceed with the treaties both of them have signed, or listen to conservative advisors and barricade himself in atomics, like a paranoiac.

However, the latest developments in Europe, where the US is installing its missile defense shields, allegedly against rogue countries in the Middle East, have led to a tensioning in diplomatic relations between Russia and the US, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made it abundantly clear that his federation will not stand idly by while Americans mount bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.