Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) control is important to humanity everywhere. Reason demands that both the United States Senate in Washington and the Russian parliament in Moscow act promptly to ratify the new bilateral nuclear arms reduction agreement signed April 8 in the 65th anniversary year of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
The new nuclear arms control treaty, known as the New Strategic Arms Control Treaty (New Start), requires two-thirds of the 100-member Senate, or 67-votes, to vote to ratify the pact between the Russian Federation and the United States of America. The number of votes needed for Senate ratification requires bipartisan support. The important policy measure should not devolve into partisan political rancor between the Senate minority and the White House.
The pact signed by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and American President Barack Obama is the most important step in nuclear arms control since the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly twenty years ago. The treaty provides an impressive thirty percent reduction in the number of active nuclear missile weapons on both sides.
The United States and Russia each would be limited to 700 deployed silo ICBMs, submarines and heavy bombers delivery systems and 1,550 warheads for a total of that make-up each side's triad nuclear strategic defense. Ratification would cut in half the number each agreed in the last verifiable arms control agreement signed in 1991. Both Washington and Moscow would continue to hold the keys to enough nuclear firepower to wipe humanity from Earth with treaty ratification. There is no logical reason for Senators to halt the nuclear diplomacy consent during the 'lame duck' Senate, (PBS Video).
Now the opinion of The Los Angeles Times.
No comments:
Post a Comment