Obama may be on his way to redeem part of his own Deficit in Peace Merit
Russia, U.S. will cut nuclear arms by 30 per cent.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced Friday the most comprehensive nuclear arms control deal in a generation, saying it trims the nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and Russia by 30 per cent.
Speaking at the White House, Obama said he sealed the agreement with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a phone call Friday morning - following months of negotiations between the two countries.
``Today, we have taken another step forward in leaving behind the legacy of the 20th century while building a more secure future for our children,'' Obama said.
The accord would impose a cap on deployed ballistic missiles at 1,550 warheads.
The U.S. president has made arms reduction a central part of his administration's foreign policy, saying in a landmark speech in Prague last year that he seeks the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.
Obama and Medvedev will sign the new deal in a ceremony next month in Prague.
The deal replaces the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expired in December 2009. The U.S. Congress and the Russian parliament have yet to ratify the new agreement, which gives Obama a strong card to play at a summit in Washington next month aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear material to terrorists. More than 40 countries have been invited to take part, among them Canada.
About 95 per cent of the world's nuclear weapons are in the hands of the U.S. and Russia, according to the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
``With this agreement, the United States and Russia - the two largest nuclear powers in the world - also send a clear signal that we intend to lead, '' Obama said.
He added that the commitments of the two nations will ``strengthen our global efforts to stop the spread of these weapons, and to ensure that other nations meet their own responsibilities.''
Related Previous Blog Post URL
There is still a huge deficit of merits with Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, I insist that he really don't deserve this award at the time he received it. The above URL of blog posting was published by me in Oct 2009 regarding this.
In this week's news there is however an indication that Obama may be on his way to redeem part of this deficit of merits, by renewal of nuclear armament reduction treaty between US & Moscow. This is a good sign, but the treaty is not yet signed at this time.
The treaty in interest of peace was done in 1991 by Ronald Reagan & Gorbachev, and had already expired last year in the hands of Obama & Medvedev, it is thus the task of both of them to have it renewed. It is obvious that the renewal had been over-due since last year.
As it is at the moment there is no effective treaty in force, meaning neither US nor Russia are obligated to remain in reduction of nuclear arms, and any of them could load more warheads into missiles free from binding by any treaty. Only when the new treaty had been signed became effective, then we can consider Obama had really redeemed part of his deficit in merits for peace. An honor must be awarded after and not before the merits had been materialized. Strictly speaking the merits for this renewal of treaty have to be split equally between Obama & Medvedev, instead of just crediting Obama alone as the actual contribution could not had been achieved unilaterally.
posted by uncleyap at 10:57 PM
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