President Obama’s Dangerous Dream of a Nuclear-Free World
Helle Dale /
One of the attention-grabbing scenes in the movie 2016: Obama’s America shows the President’s nuclear summit in 2009.
The idea behind the summit was that if the United States led the world in cutting its nuclear arsenal, others would follow. We would be leveling the nuclear playing field, creating a world where many countries have equal power and arrive, according to Obama, eventually at “a nuclear-free world.” Of course, the President also promised that he would reverse global warming and stop the ocean tides from rising.
Ironically, as author and narrator of 2016 Dinesh D’Souza reminds us, while Obama invited America’s allies to the summit, no invitation went out to the world’s nuclear troublemakers: Iran and North Korea. Equally ironically, New START, signed by Russia and the U.S. the following year, will reduce American warheads to 1,500, while actually allowing the Russians to grow their number.
And, according to the movie, the President has even asked the Pentagon to study the feasibility of taking U.S. nuclear warheads down to 300. This fits perfectly with the scene of President Obama whispering to then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in March promising further “flexibility” on U.S. nuclear missile defense after the November U.S. election.
Research by The Heritage Foundation, based on a series of nuclear war games, has shown that no scenario is as destabilizing for the world as American unilateral nuclear disarmament. According to a study by Heritage experts Baker Spring and Peter Brookes, “What Nuclear Games Tell Us about New START,” an American attempt to lead by example on nuclear disarmament “was a failure”:
U.S. arms control leadership was rejected by other states, with no other player following the U.S. disarmament example. Each instead pursued its own strategic interests. In some cases, nations used the threat of nuclear weapons or of acquiring more nuclear weapons to advance their interests. In the end, the U.S. was unable to stem growing regional and worldwide instability. For example, confrontation between the Iran and Israeli players escalated, despite U.S. efforts to broker peace. In addition, states that had formerly relied on a strong and stabilizing U.S. presence to protect their interests turned instead to ally with Russia.
Is this really the world we want to live in and to leave to our children? “Pax Americana” has stabilized the world since World War II—and has the power to do so for this century unless we disarm ourselves. No one else has the power to do it.
It can be debated whether the President’s approach to disarmament is dangerously naïve or part of an overall strategy to diminish American global power. That it is dangerous is beyond doubt.