A Bad START to the New Year
from BizzyBlog by Rob Roll
Editor’s Note: This is the BizzyBlog debut column of Robert Roll, the blog owner’s nephew and a freshman at Ohio Northern University. Rob is a Finance major who has been writing columns for ONU’s student newspaper since last fall.
Oddly enough, the Ohio Northern Review stopped publishing its content over the Internet about two years ago, meaning that Rob’s columns to this point have not appeared online. Considering the quality of his work, that situation is unacceptable. Rob has an online outlet here as long as he wishes to utilize it.
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A Bad START to the New Year
It is a new year and that means it is a time for a few new starts. It is time for you to start that quarter-long project that you have not even thought about yet. It is time to start your new workout routine that you will maintain for one week, two tops. But just like that tofu-papaya-pea diet, there are some things that you should not start. Another example of this is the New START treaty. While most of you were home with your family and friends, a lame-duck United States Senate ratified the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The treaty is an agreement between the United States and Russia to decrease the number of nuclear weapons in their arsenals.
The original START talks, which were highly successful and beneficial to America, occurred during the Cold War between President Ronald Reagan and counter-part in the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. At that time, those were the only two true nuclear powers in the world. Today’s situation is very different. There are now ten nations that possess nuclear weapons, five of which are not exactly our friends (Russia, China, Syria [EDIT: HE'S WRONG ABOUT SYRIA] and in all likelihood Iran and North Korea). Given the change in the geopolitical landscape, how can this disarmament not be taken as a sign of weakness, especially when the United States got the raw end of the deal?
When signing the New START treaty in Moscow, President Obama announced his vision for a “world free of nuclear weapons”. While that statement was great for a sound bite, it is incredibly destructive for a stable world. The reason that nuclear weapons are so vital for our national security is because they prevent other nations from using nuclear weapons on us. Why would a nation attack us if they knew that they would be obliterated from the face of the earth because of our retaliation? This is why nuclear weapons have been the greatest force for world peace ever.
Plus, if Obama really wanted to rid the world of nuclear weapons then why would he get rid of the one thing that could cause that to happen? According to the New START treaty, the United States will reduce its missile defenses. In addition, earlier in his term, Obama removed a missile shield from Poland. Both of these actions hinder our ability to defend ourselves from an attack and decrease the chances for a nuclear-weapon-free world. The best way to rid the world of nuclear weapons is to render them obsolete, which is what missile defenses do.
You are probably asking the question, “If this treaty is so detrimental to the United States, then why did Obama sign it?” Many people have put forth their answers to that question and most of them are just a bunch of psychobabble. The only logical answer that I can come up with is that Obama is just plain naïve. And naivety is the most powerful Weapon of Mass Destruction. |
