Toe-to-Toe with the Ruskies

Toe-to-Toe with the Ruskies

By Jamie McIntyre Thursday, March 25th, 2010 2:10 pm
Posted in Quotables

It’s nice to see the Russians have come around to the notion that once you have enough nukes to destroy the world once everything else is — pardon the expression — “overkill.”

I recall fondly traveling with Defense Secretary William Perry to Moscow back in 1996, and talking to Perry on the flight over about how he would make his case for deep arms cuts.   Perry, a mathematician by training, had a particularly persuasive way of reducing every problem to its most essential elements, and then comparing the possible courses of action in a way that made the approach he advocated, the only sensible one.

It was his use of such “iron logic” that made him such an unexpectedly effective player in the early years of the Clinton Administration.


So on the plane, listening to Perry, dressed in a Air Force flight suit, lay out the case for why ratifying START II, and then moving quickly to START III would be in Russia’s own best interest, I began to believe even the most stubborn Kremlin official would see the light.

Perry’s argument, essentially, was that by skipping START II implementation, the Russians would save the boatload of money they would otherwise spend to switch out multiple warhead missiles with the single warhead models that would be required under the new treaty.   Moscow was in no mood to spend money in 1996.

It all made perfect sense.  Moving right to START III would not have affected the balance of terror one whit, and both sides would come out ahead, both financially and psychologically.

But when Perry laid out his “iron logic” before the Russian Duma, he found an intractable wall of resistance.  Perry failed where many had failed before him.

We don’t worry so much about “nuclear war, toe-to-toe with the Ruskies,” as the Slim Pickins character Maj. Kong says in Dr. Stangelove.

It’s the suitcase nuke that keeps us up at night.

But it’s still nice to see that after almost 15 years, the Russians have seen the light.

Oh and President Obama’s vision of a nuclear-free world?  I’m sorry to say this doesn’t really do much to accomplish that, despite the Washington Post declaring it the president’s  “first victory in his ambitious agenda.”

It’s not Russia’s “overkill capacity” we have to worry about, it’s rogue nations and terrorist organization that aspire to “underkill” that we have to focus on.

Join the Conversation

Jonathon DeNike March 28th, 2010 at 5:37 am

Excuse me, you have to be a knucklehead to think that this and further major arms reductions doesn’t tremendously increase the word’s safety! Go read websites like http://​www​.nuclearweaponarchive​.org and scare yourself silly — please!! You will also learn there that the “terrorist suitcase bomb” is not possible at their “IED” level of technology — it would be more the size of a minivan. Only an extremely sophisticated nuclear power like the Big Five could make a weapon like that and I’m absolutely certain they would never let them fall into the hands of their enemies, plus secret activation codes, self-destruct mechanisms if tampered with, etc. Go read about it!

khallison March 28th, 2010 at 11:02 pm

Friend, you are the chucklehead, perhaps you have never heard of backpack nukes that we and the spetnaz were trained in on deployment tactics. They were called SADM’s. As far as being 100% sure they are secured would you bet your life on it because I wouldn’t and I am well versed in CBRNE deployment and recovery methods. The article did however say we would be a little safer but the near and far term threat is from rogue nations and or organizations that want to get their habds on them. Until such time as the whole shebang is destroyed the world will never be safe. I applaud Obama’s efforts but he was caught unaware I believe by the Russians as they announced it before us by themselves instead of a joint announcement.

Alex` March 29th, 2010 at 7:23 pm

The improvement in security is so small it is not measurable. This is a worthless treaty from that point of view. It gives Putin some street cred in Russia as proof that the US still talks to him as an equal. If there was any chance of nuclear US-Russia war then we could discuss if this treaty makes it more or less likely. But there’s no such chance. They just divided a zero by zero. Any calculator would refuse to do it, people are just dumber. Neither does this make a theft of nuclear materials more or less likely nor does it affect development of nuclear weapons by other countries. For example the same Russians won’t lift a finger about Iran or N.Korea.

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