Medvedev: Russia Ready For Deep Nuclear Arms Cuts

Financial Times:

Russia is ready to dramatically cut its nuclear stockpiles in a new arms pact with the United States if Washington meets Russia's concerns over missile defence, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday.

"We are ready to reduce by several times the number of nuclear delivery vehicles compared with the START-1 pact," he told a news conference in Amsterdam.

Read the whole story: Financial Times

Comments

[indi1216]

cut them all i say....we should not produce weapons of mass destruction.

[davidwayneosedach]

How interesting they come out with this now. What are they going to do give some to Iran?

[SharpDressedMan]

I hope this offer is sincere and not rhetorical. I would have more respect for Russia if they didn't help Iran go nuclear.

[Ben6768]

It took less oil revenues for them to suddenly realise how expensive all their weapons systems are

LOL

[SharpDressedMan]

Oddly enough, crashed oil prices in the 80s helped them realize the cost of their nuclear arsenal. That helped in part bring down the Soviet Union. History repeats itself.

[chavo]

Sure...

[aspelling]

There is a reason Russia takes the lead. They don't have the ability to maintain their nukes and missiles any more. It's all poorly maintained and may not work at all.
They lost human capital of scientists to immigration and alcohol and there is no new generation of scientists and engineers coming up. Military service is highly unpopular and reserved to losers.

Russia can roar as much as they want but once soviet stuff is completely gone they are paper tigers.

[123dee]

Just very glad disarmament is under

[dagdavid]

Forget that dumb as s reagan missile defense system that does not work. NO MORE NUKES! Russia is willing to take the lead - let's allow them to do so.

It is apparent that the US is quickly becoming the greatest force for evil in the world: We refuse to reduce greenhouse emissions though we are the largest polluters. We demand that no one else has nuclear weapons, yet we fund a failed missile system. We invade sovereign countries. We ignore our commitments to the poor.

[timberdoodle]

The problem is the Republican Party is never more than 4 years away from being back in power and the whole world knows they are war mongers and criminals. Who in their right mind would trust anyone from the GOP since the usually lies when the truth would fit better?

[CigarGod]

Much as I'd like to, I can't give the R's much more blame than the D's.

They both are in the pocket of big business...and big business is taking other peoples stuff....a lot of the time...in far away places. They both use our military as their private enforcement arm.

Of course they have some very pretty justifications that will get us on their side, because we don't like to see ourselves as pilagers or nations.

That is where the corporate msm, fox and cnn comes in. They pretty much only show us stuff that supports the position of the R's and D's, which is the position of big business.

And since we seldom get the real other side of a story, we don't have an opportunity to tune our BS detectors.

In the end, we just react and we assume that is the same thing as thinking....and we just keep getting played. Over and over again....until we find ourselves doing unspeakable things in the dark to our fellow human beings....and we think it is right.

[Clayton139]

Good Post CigarGod !

[CigarGod]

oops.
"...pilagers OF nations..."

[MajorKong]

Back in the day the Communists actually preferred Republican administrations because they considered them to be very predictable.

[grace14]

Thank G*& for Pres Obama they are now working together...Not like Georgian right McCain? Are we still Georgians McCain? Remember 2,000 innocent lives where lost there also in their sleep and it was not Georgians, was it?

[Liam Farrell]

I just hope Russia doesent give them to north Korea. God knows they are gonna be the next to start a war

[obamanomics]

They wont. They are just expensive to maintain, and Russia put all of their financial eggs into one basket. With energy prices currently down they cannot afford to maintain their stock pile. has nothing to do with the peace loving Russians or anything else other than financial strain.

[AtheistUS]

Of course. Just as US and all other countries, Russia has its interests and priorities; the "peace loving" is never on top of any country's agenda.

[Norge]

Yes, 50,000 of those nasty items in the world is 50,000 to many.

It seems we live in the psy. department of the milky way.

Perhaps when we are all recycled we will graduate to another more sane planetary system in another galaxy. There surely must be planet systems which harbors life forms not quite so mad.

[Clairvaux]

LOL!

You're right, this is definitely the low rent district.

But while we are here we should mow the grass and take out the garbage.

[AtheistUS]

I don't think we are much worse or better than any other species on other planets.

Though a somparison will be not easy: 100,000 years for Universe is just a moment. Comparison with a civilization that is, say, 10,000 years younger or 10,000 years older - that's not a fair comparison. Add to this communication problem with messages going back and forth at least hundreds of years...

[TruthShallSetYouFreee]

For you folks who think Russia is broke.........

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html

Last year in Russia there were more BMW's and Mercedes sold than in the USA.

[tigerlyly]

I thought nuclear disarmament was a 'pipe dream' for Presidents who didn't 'live in reality'.

Strategic Arms Reduction Talks

The START I treaty set limits to be reached in a first phase within three years and then a second phase within five years. By the end of the second phase, in 1999, both the United States and Russia would be permitted a total of 7,950 warheads on a maximum of 1,900 delivery vehicles (missiles and bombers). This limit involved reductions from established levels of about 11,000 warheads on each side. Of the 7,950 permitted warheads, no more than 6,750 could be mounted on deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). By early 1997, Belarus and Kazakhstan had reached zero nuclear warheads, and Ukraine destroyed its last ICBMs in 1999. The United States and Russia reached the required levels for the second phase during 1997.

A third phase was to be completed by the end of 2001, when both sides were to get down to 6,000 warheads on a maximum of 1,600 delivery vehicles, with no more than 4,900 warheads on deployed ICBMs and SLBMS. Although there had been concerns that this goal would not be achieved because of the expense and difficulty of decommissioning weapons, both sides enacted their cuts by 2001. The START I treaty is scheduled to expire on Dec. 5, 2009.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/568196/Strategic-Arms-Reduction-Talks

[Troutboi]

Sorry, just don't believe much of it. Probably just unloading the old stuff.

[MajorKong]

These are very expensive systems to maintain. They're probably tired of spending money on them.
Even if their motives aren't altruistic, that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

[GoodwithWood]

As bad as Russian communism was, it did have an empirical approach to the arms race. What I mean is that the countries seeking nukes now think that they have a god on their side ( yes , North Korea too. Kim Jong-il is their god.). Mutually assured destruction doesn’t work on them cuz they want those virgins. These religious freaks are very scarey.

[marco01]

Yeah they're crazy, but I don't think they're that crazy. You can't run a country, in any fashion, and not have some sense. They are not suicidal. They just want to be big actors, and to do so you need nukes. It also makes the USA a bit more serious when the deal with you.

[MajorKong]

Most regimes, including the Iranian government, want to stay in power above all else. Having your entire country destroyed makes staying in power rather difficult.

Back during the Cold War the hawks would say the same things:

"You can't deter the Communists, they're atheists, they don't value human life the same as we do."